No more "Lurking" ( Includes Photoshop )

[steve.70285]

Okay guys its time to stop being a "lurker" and enter the community.

If I'm hearing right I'm not the only one who loves this program.

I started working with Revit last year and am using it for residential construction drawings. Here is a small job I just finished for a builder. It could use some additional material settings and tweaking but I added some light, trees and a background and...Here it is. I'd like to render projects for clients so comments are appreciated.

I must also say that I find this site very helpful and you have some incredibly talented guys here.

[aggockel50321]

Nice rendering. The time of day really highlights the porch features.

[steve.70285]

Thanks, the day light is actually studio lighting. I set the sun to past setting and set up studio lighting outside the building to complement the background. Also set lights inside some interior spaces and the porch.

A little disappointed that the upload did not do any favors to the siding tile.

[PeterJ]

Actually I think the siding material oooks fine but the door looks rather flat, just one off point in an otherwise very nice rendering.

[steve.70285]

Thanks Pete, I agree.

Hey, this may not be the forum for this discussion any more but can anyone tell me if Photoshop is a good software for creating artistic images. I think Revit does an incredible job rendering but I'd like to worry less about some small photo realistic details and present a more artistic image for clients.

[Martin P]

Thanks Pete, I agree.

Hey, this may not be the forum for this discussion any more but can anyone tell me if Photoshop is a good software for creating artistic images. I think Revit does an incredible job rendering but I'd like to worry less about some small photo realistic details and present a more artistic image for clients.

nice model and rendering, dusk scenes look nice. Like the lighting inside the building makes it looked lived in :)

Feel free to make any suggestions on improving this elevation I have posted - its for the Mother in Law so I better get it right!!

Well, I cant see past using photoshop myself :) Shouldnt be a problem to discuss photoshop in the gallery area either....for me anyway it is without a doubt the easiest way to tweak a rendering. I am sure equal or possibly better results could be achieved with Revit, but it is all about time spent, and variety of people and cars etc. We do a lot of housing - repeat clients get upset when the same people and cars appear in our renderings. At one stage one of our clients was making us export models and farm out to a guy with 3D studio just so they could get some variety in the people and cars for brochures. We now add them in photoshop and have our client back to just using us.

It is also useful for creating your own materials - your sidings for example you could have got them just the way you wanted them in photoshop as a material. I find it much easier to use photoshop to arrange plants on a rendering - I have taken lots of digital photos of plants, cars etc that we see up here and put them in my renderings, may not be faithful to Revit, but for us it is all about keeping clients happy with the minimum of effort....

have attached an example of a before and after photoshop for you to compare, I removed the horrible porch with photoshop - client insisted on it then saw it and changed her mind (my Mother in law, Gulp!!) Seemed quicker than re-rendering, you can tell if you know it has been done, but it looks good enough. Also things like the trims around the windows I made darker - added a smudeged look to the edges, you can see this on things like the windows they dont appear a 1 colours but get darker toward the edges. and invisible plants. The car looks pretty dodgy I will admit, but it will do for now, I will get the angles/ perspective correct by doing a short mpeg movie round the car, the converting each frame to stills. Havent tried this yet but I am planning to get a load of mpegs round different cars to do this with. It took about 1 hour to do, not including preparing photos of plants etc.

[PeterJ]

Nice to see you here Martin, I thought you had been a little quiet.

Tell me, how do you trace around you cars and plants in Photoshop? I always find that extremely time consuming and inaccurate. Also, do you make them transparent gifs or do you place them on a plain baground and use the flat colour as a mask or alpha channel?

[Martin P]

Hi Pete - am on 2 weeks hols at the moment, so have been hiding for a while - doing the above house for Janets mum and dad......just a few hours a day

Several ways I trace things, plants in particular I find the "select" "colour range" in photoshop is very good, its kind of like a really good magic wand selection - if you select an area the colour range selection only takes place in area your rectangle is round.... cars I just really quickly use the "polygon lasso" - if you look closely at the car you can see some square edges - I just tidy them up with the eraser set on airbrush to soften the edges

[Joef]

Corel sells a photoshop plug-in called Knockout. It is a masking tool that allows you to mask complex objects such as trees. You might want to have a look at it.

[steve.70285]

Thanks guys, it sounds to me that Photoshop is an industry standard and I shouldn't worry about investing time into making work for me.

Does it create water color images, if so can anyone show me a before and after?

[mlgatzke]

Corel sells a photoshop plug-in called Knockout. It is a masking tool that allows you to mask complex objects such as trees. You might want to have a look at it.
The industry standard for masking is Mask Pro by Extensis. I've seen some pretty impressive masking done with Mask Pro. It does a really good job with hair and fur. In my opinion, if it does well with those then leaves and grass should be no problem.