Interior design is one of the most inspiring industries for architectural visualization artists. We continue to discover incredible design proposals and hyper realistic CG images that deceive even the sharpest eye.
My name is Ricardo Ortiz, and I am a product specialist at Chaos. I have been a 3D instructor for more than 10 years. In this article I want to share with you a series of recommendations that will improve your workflow and make your interior images look more professional and stunning.
Keep reading to discover my top 10 tips that can help improve your interior renderings with V-Ray.
Always look for references in the very beginning. Once we have our project brief and before opening any 3D platform, I usually look for many references of everything that the project would require; similar existing spaces, decorations, materials, styles, lighting, objects, colors etc.
Investing time in references is very important, because it allows you to define a mood board that will give a clear route of what you want to represent.
Gather references in different ways– use Google, interior design communities, Pinterest, magazines or even visit the places and take a lot of pictures.
Sort and carefully select your models. A rule that I always establish with my students is to define an order for each 3D scene, using layers or tags, renaming models, optimizing geometries, etc. It will make life easier, and even more so if you are working in a team.
If you want to achieve photorealism, your 3D models must look like the real world. Keep the following things in mind:
Never forget to define a color palette. This requires nothing more than color theory. In most cases, your brief will contain the color palette information previously developed by an interior design department. In creating the color palette, some fundamental aspects are considered:
Surely you have already read in many places how important it is for us visualization artists to know everything about photography; theory, concepts, rules etc.
Each space we create has peculiarities, and before placing a camera we must know if our client has a specific idea about elements or spaces to highlight and thus determine the points of interest.
Lighting is perhaps the most important factor and often the most complex of all to achieve photorealism, you will find hundreds of tips and tricks, and many times, they all work. At this point I will omit the interior spaces of bars, restaurants etc. Since they involve a specific lighting design that deserves to be discussed in a full article.
So, let's simplify this point to only interior visualizations with natural and hybrid light, as they are the most common.
There are two very efficient methods to resolve illumination;
Remember this, both methods require a dome light and use its adaptive algorithm. This allows for a quick configuration without the need to place portal lights in the windows or openings, (as was done in previous versions).
Now, if you would like to create hybrid lighting by adding artificial lights (such as IES profiles), it is important to consider the new LightMix system, so that after rendering, you can freely control the contribution of the lights until you achieve a perfect balance.
Material work is key to making your models look realistic. Today we can use free and commercial libraries of incredibly detailed materials, however, we must consider some aspects when applying them to obtain better results:
Years ago, we as artists would spend a lot of our time discovering the appropriate settings for our images, now everything is simpler, a couple of clicks and that's it.
The default V-Ray settings resolve most images, of all types. Basically we only need to add some extra functions and some render elements for our final render.
-Use Denoiser, an amazing tool that will help you remove noise without sacrificing render time. Consider only something, not all surfaces in a scene require it the same, so if you make zonal adjustments, it will be much better.
In V-Ray 5, the composition possibilities were expanded thanks to Composite and LightMix within the new VFB, these tools offer you greater possibilities for adjustments, and without leaving the 3D platform, consider the following:
Always finish the images, this process is not only technical but also very creative, it gives your images your personality, it can be a bit complex at first, but with practice and taking references you can create great results.you
Just like the composition process, I recommend - whenever you can - use the VFB, as it will be very practical for you not having to export your images, in addition to the fact that the VFB works with pure pixel information.
A common mistake we often make as artists is that sometimes we focus too much on one point of interest or one technical or artistic aspect of our image, that we forget to see the big picture.
To avoid ending up in that situation, always ask for feedback. Before you publish or send that image, it is worth listening to the opinion of a colleague or partner. I am positive that on many occasions it will help you.
Creating interior renderings is a process in which we always face new technical and artistic challenges that we must solve. Many times there will be no information or tutorials, and we will have to invest time in researching and experimenting. However, defining a work methodology considering aspects such as the ones I have mentioned will greatly simplify your workflow.