Life in the Mediterranean

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This scene came to mind on a trip to the Mediterranean a while ago. I wanted to create the detail and complexity of the architecture and the fresh
feeling of the ocean an landscape. I was planning to take this oportunity to learn new software for future projects in our studio. So I decided to
start improving my skills in World Creator, Quixel and Phoenix for the folowing months to come. Most of the views are big landscapes, but wanted
to provide them with as much detail as possible. In most cases I would prefer to mattepaint a lot of these details, but in this case my thought was to
approach it mostly in 3D, my main reason being that I wanted to test out these software programs.

01_La Casa Nell'erba_INTRODUCTION of the La Casa Nell'erba

Making of La Casa Nell’erba

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MAKING OF by Descover Studio

The Making of La Casa Nell'erba, a Modern House with a Natural Twist

Discover the secrets behind creating a stunning architectural visualization project in this in-depth article by Descover Studio. Learn about the gathering and use of reference imagery, the process of 3D world-building, the creation of textures and materials, the importance of lighting methods, and the post-production workflow used to achieve a photorealistic result

Reading time: 6 min 54 sec

You’ll also get a glimpse into the tools and techniques used by the team to bring this project to life, as well as some valuable tips and best practices for your projects.

Enjoy!

Introduction

La Casa Nell’erba, a contemporary residence by Descover Studio, embodies a design philosophy that celebrates the natural landscape. The house harmoniously integrates with the environment while showcasing its unique and captivating natural features.

The studio’s approach prioritizes the relationship between the dwelling and the landscape, creating a seamless bond. The construction of the house utilizes simple yet striking materials, including concrete, corten steel, stone, and glass.

Descover Studio employed several design strategies to maximize the site’s potential, such as orienting the bedroom wing to the southwest to capture the morning light and optimize the landscape views. Additionally, the house boasts sliding glass doors that effortlessly connect the living spaces to the natural surroundings, inviting a sense of calm and serenity indoors.

The design also incorporates multiple hidden courtyards that offer intimate glimpses of the lush vegetation and encourage exploration and wonder. The garden, located by a grand heritage pine tree, provides a peaceful retreat and a visual delight for residents and visitors alike.

01_La Casa Nell'erba_INTRODUCTION of the La Casa Nell'erba

Table of Contents

Gathering References

Gathering and working with references is essential to any creative design work, including architectural visualization. In the case of La Casa Nell’erba, our team conducted extensive research and used many studies to gather visual references before finding the inspiration for the project. We looked for buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens filled with local trees, bushes, and flowers, allowing people to connect with nature and enjoy it continuously.

Gathering various visuals when using reference imagery in creative work is essential to create a comprehensive and diverse reference library. This library should include images of the design concept and inspiration from other sources such as art, nature, and architecture. The more varied and diverse the references, the more creative and unique the final design.

It’s also essential to critically analyze the reference imagery to identify the elements that make them compelling. By doing so, designers can incorporate these elements into their designs while maintaining their unique style and vision.

Additionally, it’s crucial to communicate effectively with the team and clients about the reference imagery used as the basis for the work. This allows for a shared understanding of the design concept and can help streamline decision-making.

Finally, it’s important to remember that reference imagery should be used to inspire and inform the creative process, not to copy or replicate. A well-researched and diverse reference library can provide a solid foundation for a unique and inspired design that seamlessly blends into its surroundings, as seen in the case of La Casa Nell’erba.

3d World-Building

3D world-building is an essential process in architectural visualization that involves modeling the building and the surrounding environment to create a realistic and immersive experience for viewers. We use Autodesk 3ds Max, which allows for precise modeling and manipulation of elements within the scene.

01_La Casa Nell'erba_3D_MODELING

 

In addition to modeling the building, 3D world-building requires incorporating various landscape elements, such as trees, grass, and other vegetation. To achieve this, designers often use models from external sources such as Maxtree, Globe Plants, or Turbosquid, with minimal corrections to their materials to fit seamlessly into the scene.

In this rendering, the Descover Studio team utilized tree models from Maxtree Bundle #25, grass models from Maxtree Bundle #20, #27, #33, #45, and #60, and vegetation models from Globe Plants Bundle #12 and #26. By utilizing these pre-made models, architectural visualization artists can save time and focus on the more critical aspects of the design process.
One of the essential elements of the La Casa Nell’erba rendering was the large pine tree in the middle of the courtyard, which serves as the scene’s focal point. This tree model was sourced from Turbosquid and integrated into the scene seamlessly. The grass models used in the scene were also sourced from Turbosquid and were modified to create a realistic mowed effect, adding to the overall visual appeal of the scene.
06_La Casa Nell'erba_VEGETATION _AND_SCATTERING

To create a more realistic and natural environment, the team at Descover Studio utilized iToo Software’s Forest Pack plugin. This plugin allows visualization artists to populate the scene with many objects, such as trees, rocks, and other vegetation, to create a dense and immersive environment.

07_La Casa Nell'erba_VEGETATION _AND_SCATTERING

Forest Pack offers advanced settings that allow precise control over each object’s placement, scale, and orientation, allowing designers to create unique and dynamic environments.

Texturing & Materials Creation

Textures and materials are crucial elements in creating realistic architectural visualizations. To achieve high levels of realism, it is essential to carefully select and combine different textures and materials to create a cohesive and believable environment.
01_La Casa Nell'erba_TEXTURING_AND_MATERIALS

In the case of La Casa Nell’erba, the team at Descover Studio used a combination of different textures and masks to create the final result. This process involves analyzing reference images to find the most suitable textures and materials, then combining them to mimic real-world surfaces.

02_La Casa Nell'erba_TEXTURING_AND_MATERIALS

The team also paid attention to the materials used in the scene, focusing on concrete and corten steel. Concrete is popular in modern architecture due to its durability, strength, and versatility. In the rendering of La Casa Nell’erba, the concrete was treated with a texture that added depth and variation to the surface. 

Corten steel, on the other hand, is a material that has gained popularity due to its natural-looking, weathered appearance. In the rendering, the corten steel was used in a way that complemented the surrounding landscape and created a harmonious relationship between the building and its environment.

03_La Casa Nell'erba_TEXTURING_AND_MATERIALS

Lighting

Lighting plays a fundamental role in creating a realistic effect in architectural visualization, and finding the proper lighting is crucial to the project’s success. In the case of La Casa Nell’erba, Descover Studio utilized the Corona Sun and Corona Sky lighting system to bring out the best of the surrounding landscape and emphasize the area’s natural beauty.
01_La Casa Nell'erba_ LIGHTING
The studio also used regular Corona Light to illuminate the interior of the building, ensuring that every corner was well-lit and highlighting the design features of the space. The choice of lighting method is essential, and careful consideration is needed to ensure that the desired effect is achieved. The result is a harmonious blend of light and shadow that creates an immersive and compelling visualization.

Rendering

The 3D rendering process for the La Casa Nell’erba project involved utilizing the Corona Renderer software to achieve realistic results. While the team didn’t use many specific settings, they were able to make minor adjustments in the Corona VFB to get the best results for the raw render.
01_La Casa Nell'erba_ RENDERING
This was key in saving time during post-production in third-party programs in the future. Additionally, the team used the basic LUT Kim_Amland_Photographic_01 on their renders, which was often applied to them. Using these tools and techniques, Descover Studio created stunning and lifelike visualizations of La Casa Nell’erba that truly showcase the beauty of the design and its surroundings.

Post Production

Post-production is an essential process that can significantly affect the final output of any 3D project. In the case of the La Casa Nell’erba project, the team adjusted the color correction in Photoshop and its Camera Raw Filter to achieve the desired effect. Even though they tried to get as close as possible to the outcome at the rendering stage, they still had to finalize the desired result with the help of adjusting the color gamma and the reflection and inserting some elements such as fire and sun glare.

The post-production process is highly dependent on the purpose of the project and the artist’s approach to delivering optimal and efficient solutions to the task at hand. For instance, the path to post-production may vary for projects intended for marketing and advertisement purposes and those meant for academic or research purposes. In some cases, 2D elements in post-production may be auxiliary, while in others, they may be central to the entire process.

In the La Casa Nell’erba project, the team used 3D as the backbone and 2D elements in post-production as an auxiliary. The process involved adjustments to the color gamma and reflection and adding elements such as fire and sun glare to achieve the desired effect. The team’s approach to post-production was highly effective, and the final product was a realistic and aesthetically pleasing representation of their initial vision. A video demonstrating the progression from the RAW render to the final product showcases the effectiveness of their approach.

Final Comments

In this article, we explored the process of creating a photorealistic architectural visualization of La Casa Nell’erba. We started with gathering and working with references, followed by the 3D world-building process, texture and material creation, lighting methods, and 3D rendering process. Finally, we discussed the post-production process and how it can enhance the final result.

Using Autodesk 3ds Max software, we combined models from various sources, such as Maxtree and Globe Plants, to create a detailed 3D model of the building and its surroundings. We paid particular attention to textures and materials, combining them with masks to achieve a realistic effect.

Lighting played a crucial role in achieving photorealism, and we used Corona Sun and Corona Sky to illuminate the scene. For interior lighting, we used regular Corona Light. We also used basic LUT Kim_Amland_Photographic_01 to apply to our renders.

Post-production was a necessary step to achieve the final result, which we accomplished by adjusting color correction in Photoshop and adding elements such as fire and sun glare. We combined 3D and 2D elements to finalize the desired effect.

Despite the tight deadline, we are proud to have created a spectacular and photorealistic image using simple tools. We hope this article provided valuable information and insights into creating photorealistic architectural visualizations.

Happy to answer any questions or comments, so please feel free to ask; we will happily answer them in the comments section. 

Thank you for dedicating the time to read our article!

Polytown Media LTD

© All Rights Reserved 2022

A School in Rainy Autumn

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This is a personal project that I used to test the capability of Enscape and create a portfolio piece. I work as an Architect and usually have very limited time for any architectural visualisations so I often have to make this part of designing the building in Revit. Enscape works well as I can constantly refine the scene and see the updates in real-time. I try to achieve everything in scene as there’s nothing worse than spending a lot of time in Photoshop and the client changing the angle last minute (guaranteed to happen).

Concept

I was inspired by the image MIT Day Versus Night by Alex Hogrefe that can be found here:
https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisualizingarchitecture.com%2Fmit-day-versus-night%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cadam.brennan%40bdp.com%7C9287e2fc39014939021408db16a7ca7f%7C40f4096c6d404821a38016520cde7af3%7C0%7C0%7C638128682134053943%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=u%2BqfpSw6w%2BdtVsa6%2Fc5BzNDwZaYXn%2BT3th5mpjzx1QI%3D&reserved=0

I created a quick concept image to test ideas and framing for the scene. I quite liked the image, but without a theme pulling it together it still felt quite empty and aimless.

Enscape Assets

I try to use Enscape’s base library of assets to generate scenes as much as I can, I find they’re of a great quality especially at a distance from the camera and it allows me to keep my workflow in Revit checking the results in the real-time renderer. Creating a narrative by making the assets interact with each other or the architecture is key. In my company most architects will just scatter these everywhere and it actually takes you out of the scene when the people look unnatural.

Texture Generation

Rain, puddles and good fog aren’t really available in Enscape like in Lumion. This article called “Cyberpunk in Enscape by Lasse Herbo Madsen” on the Enscape blog inspired me to try something new and try to create that wet weather look we often have in the UK. A link is provided here: https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.enscape3d.com%2Fenscape-users-render-cyberpunk-2077&data=05%7C01%7Cadam.brennan%40bdp.com%7C9287e2fc39014939021408db16a7ca7f%7C40f4096c6d404821a38016520cde7af3%7C0%7C0%7C638128682134210180%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FRDTp%2BvxVmGvjyyrhF9UNOCt5IuUO54pjw1%2Fkao3AFo%3D&reserved=0

I edited and combined some assets to create my own seamless textures for raindrops splashing on the ground and fog. These were then applied to multiple planes in front of the camera and staggered to achieve an equivalent to the volumetric effect possible in other software.

Another great discovery from Herbo Madsen was using Quixel Mixer to generate a seamless texture that reduces the usual repetition that often makes the CGI obvious. I’ve since experimented with this more and it’s a really useful tool and free to use! I used it to generate a large scale texture for the playground without obvious repetitions and a reflection mask for the puddles.

I used Rhino & Grasshopper to generate the perforated texture of forest scene for the facade from an image. It’s quite a simple process that can be found on YouTube. A short piece of code uses an image sampler on a monochrome image to set the radius of the circles from the pixel’s brightness value. Ideally I like to use this as modelled geometry, but it can generate a high poly count, so I opted to create a transparency (cut-out) mask instead.

Lighting

I tried a number of different lighting setups on a white material override, it’s a good way to test the colour cast of the lighting and really focus on the shadows in the scene. I opted for an early morning autumn light with part cloudy skies to soften the light, it made sense for the school scene.

Post-Production

I was really pleased with the image straight out of Enscape, putting the work into the model pays off. The only photoshopping I ended up doing was the autumn leaves framing the scene. Enscape does a bad job of a shallow depth of field look and so the bokeh of the leaves in the foreground came out quite poor quality. I always try to minimise photoshop work.

Conclusions

There was a lot more I could have done to this image. I was still learning Quixel Mixer and would have liked to apply it to the bricks specifically as I find they often look like “brick wallpaper”. Chamfering some of the edges would have reduced that sharp edged look that doesn’t really happen in reality and gives away the CGI. The interior could have done with more work to add details behind the glass, it was a bit rushed. On the note of glass Enscape is lacking a reflection pass so it would have been good to render the camera view 180 degrees to get the reflection and photoshop it in. I often make a alternative glass material to use as a Material ID when photoshopping (it doesn’t render glass).

I hope this was interesting and helpful. Thank you for reading if you got to this point, I’m glad I could contribute something back to this blog. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Hotel in Norway

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From the name of our new non-commercial project, you can find out where it is located, as well as what exactly it is. This week we are pleased to present you Hotel in Norway.

The concept is made in the traditions of modernist architecture with its rational and progressive foundations.

Maximum functionality, manufacturability and simplicity of form.

Long-range plans and accents on the water are not accidental. We noticed that by the way the water is rendered, you can determine how long ago the image was made and how high the skill of the studio is.

MORE PROJECTS ON: https://omegarender.com/gallery