“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
A composite is a collection of photos, sketches, or ideas that you use to create one piece of art. Using certain elements from each image and then applying the rules of composition, you can create a successful composition.
By using this process, the artist has endless opportunities to create the perfect composition. Grab your camera and sketch pad and begin making some composites of your own.
Complimentary colors always appear opposite each other on the color wheel. Use complements to create color balance in your 3D Architectural Rendering. It takes practice to understand how to use compliments, but a good rule of thumb is to use the complement - or form of the complement of the predominant color in your 3D Architectural Rendering to highlight, accent or gray that color.
For example, if your 3D Architectural Rendering has a lot of green, use its complement, red - or a form of red such as orange or red-orange - for highlights. If you have a lot of blue in your 3D Architectural Rendering , use blue's complement, orange - or a form of orange such as yellow-orange or red-orange. The complement of yellow is purple or a form of purple. Keep a color wheel handy until you have memorized the color complements.
Composition is one of the most misunderstood concepts, in any form of artwork, It has been said that you can be the greatest illustrator in the world, but if you don't know how to compose properly, your 3D Architectural Renderings will fall apart. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of 3D Architectural Renderings. I always ask myself, " what makes this 3D Architectural Rendering better than most". My answer is always that the 3D Architectural Rendering has a strong composition and is well-designed. In this, my 3D Architectural Rendering Blog, I explore the different aspects of composition, the principles of good design, the effective use of "eye stoppers", the proper use of negative space, and how to locate the center of interest correctly. Composition is really about moving the viewer's eye. The challenge is to arrange all of the components of the composition so it's a pleasure for the viewer to look at your 3D Architectural Rendering.
When rendering a building with a large expanse of water in front of it, the classic approach is to include the reflection, along with the whole building, to create a symmetrical rendering. For a perfect reflection you’ll need water to be as still as possible, so this technique won’t work on water with large bump maps, or noise. That said, you can also look for much smaller areas of water that reflect just a small detail of the building to add foreground interest to your rendering. On rainy days renders, you can even look out for reflections in puddles or rain-soaked streets. This technique is particularly good at night, when you can include bright lights in the reflection.
With reflections, it pays to explore lots of different camera views – don’t just render the first composition that presents itself. An inch to the left or right, or up or down, can make a big difference to how a reflection fits in a pond or puddle.
You’d normally want to avoid any type of lens distortion when rendering architecture, but a virtual fisheye lens can add a creative twist to your renderings. This distorted style of the rendering isn't to everyone’s taste, but used sparingly – and with the right subjects – it can produce very striking renders.
Fisheye lenses come in two main types – those that give completely circular images, and those that produce conventional rectangular ones. But both will cause straight lines in your image to bulge outwards, especially at the edges.
Because the distorted renders from a fisheye break many of the ‘rules’ of rendering architecture, they often lend themselves to unusual framing and viewpoints. Try rendering with the lens pointing directly upwards to shoot ceilings or roofs, for example. The circular nature of fisheye renders is also perfect for symmetrical or even circular subjects.
You don’t have to render the whole building for stunning architectural renderings. You can isolate details such as windows or columns to produce renderings with a ton of impact. Glass, metal and concrete structures, are full of graphic details that are perfect for producing this type of renderings, but you can also find them in older buildings.
The key to this style of rendering is simplicity, so look for areas of the building that you can isolate from their surroundings, or repetitive patterns in the structure. Then try rendering them either straight on to make the most of repetitive patterns, or at a deliberate angle for more dynamic images.
Even though, the technically "correct" way to render architecture is to have all the verticals vertical, you can often conceive more energetic renderings by ignoring these conventions and rendering from a low or high point of view. The key is to avoid looking up or down at a slight angle, as this will look like a blunder, and instead go for a really climactic perspective.
Rendering from low down and looking up at a building really emphasizes its height, so it’s a great technique for rendering office blocks and other tall buildings. Look for point of view that will permit you to render the building at an extreme angle for an energetic composition (again this needs to be extreme enough to look deliberate), or strive for a symmetrical image.