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Happy Birthday, Bob Ross
Robert Norman "Bob" Ross was an American painter, art instructor, and television host. He is best known as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a television program that ran for more than a decade on PBS in the United States and Canada.
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Many 3D Artists Feel Intimidated by Design
Architectural illustrations and 3D renderings are the same thing as composition. Despite rumours to the contrary, there's no imperative difference. They both boil down to what you put where. We make decisions then we place 3D geometry in one place or another on our screen.
Composition and design are ultimately what an architectural illustration and 3D rendering is about. Many 3D artists feel intimidated by design, that it's more than they want to deal with. They push it into the back-burner and hope that somehow it will take care of itself. However, the fact is that design can be demystified - and it must be, since consistently successful results come no other way.
Mountain climbing seems to mirror the act of creating 3D art. Does anyone just forgo planning and "hit the road" to reach the peak? Obviously, not if you intent to see the view from the top, and not if you plan to get there again. Happy accidents seldom happen when climbing to great heights. That requires understanding, planning and practice.
Even with a plan, success is never guaranteed. It just improves the chances. Good composition requires a well-developed sense of design. How do you require good design? You study, observe, and ask questions. In the process, you learn to see critically. And you render - a lot, while consciously applying the concepts you've discovered.
We're all aware that there's much about art that is intuitive. But few realise how much of art is logical and reasonable. It can be understood. And, once understood and absorbed, eventually it becomes second nature. Anyone who sets out with serious intent can master design.
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Crosslake Evangelical Free Church Rendering
Crosslake Evangelical Free Church in Crosslake, MN, also known as the Log Church, is proposing an addition to their historic church building. I was asked to illustrate the addition, attached to the existing log church, for fundraising.
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A Rendering with Flare
Flare adds atmosphere of a kind, and also a sense of actuality. Certainly, for strongly manipulated and special-effects imagery, adding flare can be a useful way of helping to convince the viewer that a scene is genuine.
The polygonal flare patterns that are created by internal aperture reflections and refractions from a point source of light (such as the sun) that is either just inside or just outside the picture frame.
From your final 3D rendering, inside your post processing application, you can add your flare. For the most part, you add a flare for a treatment that conveys the intensity of the sun and a general feeling of heat. The software I use is the Knoll Light Factory plug-in for Photoshop.
Keeping the generated flare on a separate layer makes it easy to align with the sun and the rest of your 3D scene.
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The Properties of Color
Any color has three basic properties - it's hue, its tone, and its intensity. Hue means the color as identified by its name - red or blue, for example. Tone means the lightness or darkness of a color. You can, for instance, have a light blue or a dark blue. In addition to the properties of hue and tone, colors have a varying degree of intensity. Two reds may be identical in tone and yet be clearly different, with one more intense, or brighter, than the other. The difference in intensity is sometimes called color saturation.
When you use the word color, you are generally referring to these three properties - hue, tone, and intensity - simultaneously. However, it is helpful to be able to identify them separately because when you notice that a color is "wrong", you will be better able to pinpoint what is wrong with it - whether it is too light in tone or too intense.
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Quick Thumbnail Sketches
To avoid basic mistakes in your composition, make a quick sketch of the main shapes.
It may sound laborious to make small sketches before embarking on the main 3D Architectural Rendering, but it is helpful, because it can save you having to make changes later. The more preparation you do, the more chance you have of achieving a successful 3D Architectural Rendering.
John Maeda: How art, technology and design inform creative leaders
John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design, delivers a funny and charming talk that spans a lifetime of work in art, design and technology, concluding with a picture of creative leadership in the future. Watch for demos of Maeda’s earliest work -- and even a computer made of people.
John Maeda is the president of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he is dedicated to linking design and technology. Through the software tools, web pages and books he creates, he spreads his philosophy of elegant simplicity.
Softness and Building Blur
Bryan O'Neil Hughes explains the importance of softness and shallow depth of field in photographs and how it is possible to mimic it in Photoshop CS6.
All Children are Artists
“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
Making a Composite
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.
Color Complements
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.
Fall Inspiration
Fall, my favorite time of the year!. I was inspired by all the Fall colors so, here is my latest 3D Architectural rendering, with some Fall inspiration.
Composition is one of the Most Misunderstood Concepts
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.
Perfect Reflection
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.
Lens Distortion
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
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.
The Technically "Correct" Way to Render Architecture
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.