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Good Renderworks settings for "architectural model" look?


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On 2/27/2018 at 10:03 AM, Luis M Ruiz said:

These are three samples of what I typically use for presenting renderings. A nice artistic pencil sketch style, white model, final rendering style including camera effects.

Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 10.02.06 AM.png

Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 10.01.14 AM.png

Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 10.01.38 AM.png

I have been trying to learn how to create soft shadows like this for weeks. I.E. the shadows under the chairs… is there a a video anywhere or a file I can dissect to learn how to do this? This is beautiful.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Soft shadows is one of the settings on any light object. We can choose from sharp - smooth - realistic. I tend to stay on smooth. Here is a sample of the three types of shadows plus a test with a custom light.

custom light.png

spots realistic vs smooth.png

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4 minutes ago, Luis M Ruiz said:

Soft shadows is one of the settings on any light object. We can choose from sharp - smooth - realistic. I tend to stay on smooth. Here is a sample of the three types of shadows plus a test with a custom light.

custom light.png

spots realistic vs smooth.png

Thanks for the reply. I understand the soft shadow settings on lights, my issue seems to be when the light hits an object the shadow cast from the object is too hard if that makes sense. The previous interior example you have is perfect, with the shadows under your chairs being soft and fading out. I am very new to Vectorworks and I am still trying to find my way around.

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1 hour ago, ColbyZ said:

Thanks for the reply. I understand the soft shadow settings on lights, my issue seems to be when the light hits an object the shadow cast from the object is too hard if that makes sense. The previous interior example you have is perfect, with the shadows under your chairs being soft and fading out. I am very new to Vectorworks and I am still trying to find my way around.

Looks to me like ambient occlusion is cranked right up - this may be contributing to some of the 'shadow' you see.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

My recommendation is not to add to the scene more light than needed. Turn off global illumination and let the light sources fill the room and adjust their power as needed. When done, if you feel like the rendering is too dark then make use of image effects, that brings the colors and contrast to life.

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2 hours ago, Luis M Ruiz said:

My recommendation is not to add to the scene more light than needed. Turn off global illumination and let the light sources fill the room and adjust their power as needed. When done, if you feel like the rendering is too dark then make use of image effects, that brings the colors and contrast to life.

Thank you for the advice. I will try that.

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  • 2 years later...

@line-weight I have been following this thread and am really impressed by how you have figured out the paper style model renderworks style. I am trying to do something similar, but with less texture. My goal is to be able to do post production in photoshop by layering a clay render and a hidden line weight render. I am having difficulty getting the material and light right and I am wondering if you would be willing to share some more about your workflow and renderworks style settings. 

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2 hours ago, ocean_organism said:

@line-weight I have been following this thread and am really impressed by how you have figured out the paper style model renderworks style. I am trying to do something similar, but with less texture. My goal is to be able to do post production in photoshop by layering a clay render and a hidden line weight render. I am having difficulty getting the material and light right and I am wondering if you would be willing to share some more about your workflow and renderworks style settings. 

Well as a starter here are the basic settings for one of the "white card" renderworks styles I have set up.

 

1945412713_Screenshot2022-11-02at16_50_52.jpg.b4b6bd717232a33ee1fb5158c87e6240.jpg1503664465_Screenshot2022-11-02at16_50_58.jpg.6b61ca62e6eba70c2952b2cd0966e4ac.jpg807153329_Screenshot2022-11-02at16_51_05.jpg.f56c7062a8128d503fd4f1ed95e6aa53.jpg1286505655_Screenshot2022-11-02at16_51_12.jpg.d1a8d9427140220e806df65ca55cc14f.jpg257505513_Screenshot2022-11-02at16_51_19.jpg.629d3306ca82d3728dbd575551ad3c27.jpg

 

 

Of course, this all interacts with whatever materials and lighting I have set up.

 

 

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For example...

 

1865.thumb.jpg.8ffb10026cfb8b3c4c2a1451ecfdbfc1.jpg

 

This is lit with a heliodon.

 

I usually fiddle around with the heliodon a bit, for each scene, adjusting the sun brightness and angle according to what look I want. Obvious stuff like lower angles accentuating detail or making the image more contrasty.

 

Getting the "exposure" right requires fiddling with the light levels. Too much light, everything is washed out. Too little and it can look grey and dreary.

 

Sometimes, as in this image, I try to exclude virtually all colour (from materials and light sources). Sometimes I allow a little bit of it.

 

For materials, something with a slight grain and variability in tone seems to work better, to give some hint of a real material without it being distracting. Some of my materials started out as "paper" renderworks textures from somewhere in the standard VW libraries.

 

In this case you can see I've chosen to model the trees as if they have been cut out from paper, rather than just taking a realistic tree model and making it white. There are elements in some of my models that probably wouldn't really be possible to make out of paper or card, at the imagined scale of my "model" but often it seems you can get away with this as long as you don't push it too far. In theory the actual 3d geometry you create should reflect teh geometry of the thing modelled in card, rather than the geometry of the thing itself, if you see what I mean, but like I say you can get away with it to some extent. keeping a similar level of "detail" across everything helps.

 

That image above, is part of a big model I have made in VW. People quite often think these are photos of a "real" model when I post them.

 

Probably better to ask questions rather than me try and describe a workflow, because a lot of it is built up from things I now forget how exactly I arrived at. The Renderworks styles tend to get copied from project to project and tweaked a bit for each.

 

 

 

Edited by line-weight
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for sharing @line-weight I was on vacation last week so just getting back to my renders now. Your models look great, mine are still either totally over exposed or more on the grey side. I also haven't been able to get interior spot lights to work in my models, could just be a setting I am missing. Would be curious to hear your thoughts.

Screenshot 2022-11-03 113204.png

Screenshot 2022-11-14 104511.png

test render with morning hdri.png

Edited by ocean_organism
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  • 2 weeks later...

@ocean_organism it looks to me like the lighting settings for the third one of those has worked best?

 

It's easy to end up with things over exposed or too grey ... my method is really just quite a lot of trial and error trying to balance sun brightness, amount of ambient light, and other settings. The angle of the sun (and its relation to the view angle) can also make quite a difference ... low angles can be better for picking out details for example.

 

As for getting internal lights to work... I'm not such an expert on that. It could be that they are simply overwhelmed by the brightness of the sunlight. But my normal approach with "white card" models would be to not attempt internal lighting - which wouldn't usually exist in a physical white card model.

 

If you are concerned about the appearance of dark openings, you can choose a sun angle that partly lights them (as in your third example above). You could try things like increasing number of light reflections to see if this brings out a bit more internal detail. If they are glazed openings you can try putting a "glass" material in them (if I do this, I aim for something that looks like it might be a bit of perspex, as might be used in a card model. Having a bit of glazing will help things look less hollow and dark.

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