Bobby Parker 12/24/23 Bobby Parker 12/24/23

Large, rustic home rendering

My latest rendering features a large, rustic home in a forested area, surrounded by lush green grass and tall trees, contributing to tranquility and seclusion. The two-story house features a shingled roof and large wooden doors and windows. There is a large covered porch enhancing the welcoming vibe of the residence. A gravel driveway leads up to the house. The setting conveys a sense of comfort, relaxation, and a close-knit community feel.

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Bobby Parker 12/21/23 Bobby Parker 12/21/23

Rubywood Ranch House Rendering

A single-family home rendering depicted in the image is a one-story building with an attached garage on the left side. The house is made primarily of brick and features a small front porch supported by columns. Surrounding the house is a landscaped yard with grass and some bushes. The setting is serene against a blue sky with white clouds. There are no visible trees directly next to the house, providing a clear view of its design and structure.

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Bobby Parker 12/21/23 Bobby Parker 12/21/23

Product 3D Visualizations

Gone are the days when you have to build a prototype or do product photography for a product. I have done product 3D visualizations for curtain manufacturers, wall-covering companies, furniture manufacturers, and lighting manufacturers. Here are some product visualizations for a computer command center manufacturer.

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Bobby Parker 12/20/23 Bobby Parker 12/20/23

St. Croix House Architectural Rendering

This architectural rendering shows a large, rustic wooden house with a dark or brown color scheme nestled among mature trees. The house exhibits a spacious and airy design, with large glass windows, particularly noticeable on the second floor, and a covered front porch. Surrounded by dense green grass and on a grassy lot, the setting exudes tranquility and privacy, underscoring the house’s harmonious integration with nature.

Animation of the St Croix house

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Bobby Parker 12/14/23 Bobby Parker 12/14/23

Small, Modern, one-story Home Rendering

This rendering displays a small, modern, one-story home featuring brown siding and a brown roof. It includes a front porch and an attached garage. A driveway leads to the garage, alongside a front yard adorned with some bushes. The house is in a wooded area, surrounded by green grass, contributing to tranquility and comfort. The environment suggests that the home is designed to offer a peaceful and inviting atmosphere.

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Bobby Parker 12/13/23 Bobby Parker 12/13/23

Small American House Rendering

This architectural rendering displays a small, one-story American home featuring white siding and a brown roof. It includes a front porch and an attached garage. There is a driveway leading to the garage. The house is situated in a wooded area, surrounded by green grass, contributing to a sense of tranquility and comfort. The environment suggests that the home is designed to offer a peaceful and inviting atmosphere.

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Bobby Parker 12/11/23 Bobby Parker 12/11/23

Christmas Miracle!

These architectural renderings were significant in my ArchViz journey. They are not necessarily my best work; I didn't win any awards with them, but the client was pleased with their architectural renderings.

Why were they significant?

Nine years ago this week, weeks before Christmas and towards the end of the housing crash, I was laid off from a design/build company I had worked at for 12 years as their Virtual Design and Construction coordinator (VCD). I started working when I was 15 years old, and a day hadn't passed that I wasn't gainfully employed. I saw people fired. I worked at companies that went through layoffs but was always fortunate to maintain stable employment. Even at this last place, people were getting laid off for a couple of years before it was my turn.

As you see on TV or in the movies, I was given a small box to fill with some items and escorted out of the building like I had done something wrong. I have seen it a dozen times, but you only fully understand once it happens to you. I'm unsure why something so traumatic is handled so coldly and callously. You give your soul to 'the man,' then you are treated like a criminal. Anyway, I walked out of the building, with security at my side, tail between my legs, and hopped into my vehicle, numb to the world.

With my small box of items in my passenger seat, I wondered what to tell my wife and two kids. After three minutes of sitting there pondering, my phone rang. The number was unknown to me, a foreign number, but I answered it anyway (not typical of me). On the other side of the phone, from the other side of the world (UK), was someone who saw my work online and thought I would be perfect for a large project they were working on.

This phone call, unprovoked by anything I did, came out of the blue three minutes after losing my job. I would have declined the offer if the call had occurred three minutes earlier if I had even taken the call. That project lasted about a month, paid far more than I was making at the job I was laid off from, and gave me hope. With the severance package I received and the money I made on that first project, I was suitable for at least six months to land another job. Well, the day I finished that first project, another call came in, and nine years later, the phone still had yet to stop ringing.

If you know me or have read my website, I'm a man of faith. Often, things happen that can not be explained except by something supernatural or some would call a miracle. Times are complex, and layoffs have become the norm. This message is intended to be a message of hope.

“Lean not unto your understanding”

— Proverbs 3:5

There are pros and cons to everything. Life is a series of decisions, and grace, or luck (some might call it), has a role. Don't get me wrong, working for yourself is challenging. Every day, I think things can stop as soon as they start. You learn to live day-by-day, trusting that God will provide. This is a lesson that working for myself has taught me. Working for someone else, that check is always there, so you put your trust in "the Man," not God.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” The Good News: Putting your trust in God is the way forward. Set aside your anxieties and doubts and turn it all over to the Lord.”

— Proverbs 3:5-6

I hope that this post gives you hope for the future. Trust that everything has a reason, and through it all, please love and stay kind; be joyful and know that there isn’t a person on this Earth that Jesus doesn’t love.

“For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

— Isaiah 9:6-7

Bobby Parker 12/8/23 Bobby Parker 12/8/23

Exploring Drafting - Published!

Over the past 30 years, my work has been featured on websites, I have been interviewed for several print magazines, and I have been asked to be a presenter at Autodesk University, which I gladly spoke at. I was proud and honored for every single one, but having one of my renderings featured in a school textbook has to be the highlight.

Here is the book cover and me on page 355; how cool is that?

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Bobby Parker 12/5/23 Bobby Parker 12/5/23

Airbnb Interior Renderings

Often, I get asked what my typical client is. This has changed throughout the years. When I started 30 years ago, it was 100% work from architectural firms. When software became more straightforward to use, larger firms could do basic stuff in-house, and at that time, most of my work came from developers. When what the architect was doing in-house wasn't good enough, a lot of my work started coming from marketing firms, who were hired to market a developer's property. Homeowners started hiring me over the past couple of years because they wanted to make sure they were making material and color choices that they would like. Real estate companies have always been a good source of work for me, and I have done work for some of the largest ones in the country.

Over the past two years, Airbnb owners have been reaching out to me to create renderings for something they are constructing. The goal is to get it listed and booked before they can take photos. Homeowners are turning their ADU into an Airbnb, and developers are building apartment-style structures to rent as Airbnb. This project is for a Nashville developer who is doing just that.

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Bobby Parker 11/28/23 Bobby Parker 11/28/23

It's all in the details

When I build a project, I work the way I have since working with watercolor. With watercolor and paper, you start boxing things out with a thin pencil. You refine things as you go, building in detail and adding color. I describe it as working from a broad brush to a fine brush.

In digital art, initially, I’ll mass out your structure using primitive shapes. Think of this as a broad brush. I’ll then add more information, get approval, and continue to add details; this would be a fine brush. Most will have stopped once the basic model is built; the extra detail is usually missing, which is critical in perfecting an architectural rendering.

“You perfect with imperfections!”

— Bobby Parker

In the real world, nothing is perfect; everything has imperfections. If I am working on an interior and placing stools along a kitchen island. I try to think like someone staging an interior space for a photoshoot or an open house, so I line the stools up. I try to space things correctly, but then I slightly rotate each stool, barely moving them in/out and back/forth, so things are imperfect.

Exteriors, everything has an imperfection. I miter all corners so light hits the edges. Ground always has an uneven grade and is never totally flat. I also try to think like a photographer when pulling my camera views. I use real-world camera settings, and I try to frame my shots. Balancing lighting is essential, and so is composition.

One tail-tail sign of working with a professional is everything is subtle. You don’t know why the image looks good, but you know it does. Nothing is over the top, which tends to look tacky and unprofessional. Ludwig Mies van der Roh said it best when saying Less is more.

“Less is more. ”

— Ludwig Mies van der Roh

My client never sees their final image unless I have put it aside for at least a day so that I can come back to it with a fresh eye. I squint, flip the image back and forth, look at it in black and white, and even see it as a tiny thumbnail. These are all tricks of the trade I learned from hand drawing. I would venture to say that most architectural illustrators today have never drawn by hand.

Here are some grayscale renderings showing the detail I put into my images. I work on small and mammoth homes, like this mammoth example home, all get the same detail.

The model is about half of the work. After the model is built and all the details have been added, I make the best textures possible. These are not things I can grab from the web for free: low-resolution and not tiling. Each material is custom-created, with many layers. All the geometry gets proper UVWs, which means all the grains go the correct way. Each material has a specular map (shininess or reflectivity), a glossy map (map will control how reflective a surface is), a normal map (faking the lighting of bumps and dents), a bump map (simulates small surface displacements), and a displacement map (create the illusion of depth).

Above is a mammoth house in grayscale, and below are some of my smallest houses with colors and materials. Like cooking with the best ingredients for a feast, having the right amount of detail in the model and materials gives your eye a feast to enjoy.

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