Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Learning to render in revit

tabletennisman

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Joined: Tue, Aug 12, 2008
40 Posts

Hi Everyone,

I'm wanting to start to learn the rendering aspect of revit. Where should i start? My renderings i'm currently doing are nothing like some of the work you guys do and are very very very basic. Attached is a quick rendering pretty much showing what stage i'm at. Using revit 2010, from the 3D view.

[IMG]http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2219/51920356.jpg[/IMG]

Where do i start? Where do i go from here? How do i make it look more realistic? What sites should i be looking at? I've spent hours searching through old threads here, but i'm still stuck on a hump...

Cheers!

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jarosa

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Joined: Mon, Feb 18, 2008
251 Posts

Like you, I'm starting to explore rendering in more depth.

Here's what I've learned so far.

1. Render a camera view not a 3d view. That way a sky background will show.

2. Add topography. Split the surface. Add planting beds, driveway, sidewalks and plantings. The more detail you add the more realistic. Some of the really cool renderings are night scenes. If you want this add exterior lights.

3. Render at higer settings. Go get a coffee...or lunch....

As a sidenote, I think you need to take a look at the glass in your windows. It doesn't look like the glass material is set correctly.

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WYS1WYG

Joined: Sun, Jan 4, 2009
356 Posts

tabletennisman-

i have been testing exterior render settings since the day

revit with MentaRay was released in may 2008.. i believe

i found the perfect settings for the best exterior results

for the time spent.. maybe you can try them and see if

you like..

quality settings>edit>custom- image precision 7-

all four reflection and transparency options as

low as they will go- enable soft shadows precision

to 7- check illumination with the first two set to 7 and

the third set to 2.. screen resolution is fine unless you

want to print a poster or something.. i never found a

good reason to see through glass- that just takes

way too much time anyway.. most exterior renderings

will only take about 10 minutes and look great..

see this one i did that took me 14 minutes.. notice

no see-through windows..

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tabletennisman

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Joined: Tue, Aug 12, 2008
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Thanks for the tips! Have got the windows sorted out, as well as all the textures, grass, plants, camera view, etc.

What's the best way to create driveways and garden bed edges?

Cheers!

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hisdirt

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Joined: Sun, Nov 6, 2005
123 Posts

 Hi tabletennisman,

Rendering can be such a rewarding feature, long may you experiment! Here is some of my stuff: www.box.net/hisdirt

Consider:

- fore/mid ground elements (stuff up close vs, stuff far back)

- off-screen shadows from trees etc

- generally, its a far better idea to grab a dramatic sky off google images and put that behind your images rather than using Revits default sky.

Beware also of how Revit likes to 'yellow' your images - so tweak your images towards 'cooler'.

Let us know how you get on, hope this helps! 

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tabletennisman

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Joined: Tue, Aug 12, 2008
40 Posts

thanks mate. When adding in sky's/backgrounds from google into revit, are you just using photoshop to put the background in, or is there a way to do this using revit?

Some pretty good renderings there too btw!

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trombe

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Joined: Sun, Nov 26, 2006
7 Posts

yo tabletennisman,

The guy who runs this blog site is a good dude and clever like Phil Read !! You should read his comments regarding this particular method

http://buildz.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-got-couple-offline-questions-about.html

The attached renders are iterated from 2 I posted last week on the gallery but these ones use Zach Krons method for 3am night time render with Exposure opened up to blast it into daylight really and this takes very little time to render on my nearly 3 year old Core 2 Duo , 8Gb x64 machine//less than 15 minutes usually. Read his method and it will help a lot for a few particular results.

Some general tips include:

Use section boxes to limit un needed geometry. Try and keep HD mats to a minimum of need not greed because high def materials suck cpu power. Only use the mats you really need. Experiment  with the Exposure controls dialogue and try things like exporting many iterations of the rendered image with this control set after one render while its still up to see what you can do with this dialgoue and controls, 

if you are not already, go and register with AutoDesks AU Online (assumes you are a Revit subscription holder ?)  and access the very good AU seminars and materials for free on rendering gigs. Check on Phil Reads method of utilising Phases to assign materials to for project wide form only type rendering checks / tests or review uses. This is a way to have a single colour applied to all elements in a single phase but otherwise to have the true respective materials assigned to the correct element in the correct phase for final rendering uses.

Experiment with having all one colour in a shot, except for one strongly contrasting colour or material for effect.

Don't try and use Best setting as it is a complete waste of time. Use maximum setting of High. Vary your Printer / dpi setting as you choose. I never use more than 600 dpi on high for interiors as it is a lot of rendering time for no significant reward and there sure is a big time hit- especially on a 2 core machine but even a 4 core machine at /Revits' max allowance is not great.

Experiment to find  "your"  best Custom settings in the Exposure dialogue and don't be afraid to check things like Daylight Portals for interiors.

Be disciplined about the COV rules for perspectives as that actually helps the shot.

Don't whack in too much detritus like people unless you are trying to sell a mall, a restaurant or s school ! I know its personal preference but after seeing so much on galleries and elsewhere for like 9 years, it is still the details on the building or overall the building itself that win hands down over a few trees and a few people trying to hide a bare bones job.  Some of the better galleries like VRay, Fryrender, and Cinema 4D should give you all you need to see about composition of interiors and exterior scenes.

Lighting is key and its true that the Revit Help and associated stuff is a big zero when it comes to anything to do with this subject. Perhaps they feel it cannot be taught or should not be informative about all this because to get some good oil on it, you need to go onto the web and look around on CG articles on how the pros do things and photographers are also an equally useful source of good material on techniques , lighting and composition.

After reading a bit though its still down to your judgement about what you think looks the deal and I can only suggest very humbly (cos we are all learning all the time) that there is more to rendering an arch viz scene that a Revit set up can give you but it is still a case that something in the shot beyond gee whizz look I rendered this with my big fast machine on xyz . It is still about composition and trying to capture an emotion or something intangible somewhere that takes you to be more interested.

Check these out form the Luxolgy modo gallery pages - you might not like the subject however you should quickly appreciate the care and results:

This one is Karlsson - a veranda - interiors

http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/index.aspx?page=11

http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/index.aspx?page=26      look for the image on Stairs by Paq wak

http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/index.aspx?page=28      look for the image by JO Rust - this is a context montage I assume because I know that modo can make everything you see in this scene (yes everything) but equally, it is likely to be Photoshopped into the scene  and I am not a cg expert !!

They are all useful to illustrate my points above. Have fun and good luck.

regards

trombe

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tabletennisman

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hisdirt

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Topo's work fine for driveways, but choose a rougher texture so it obscures the plastic smoothness of the surface. See if you can get some off screen trees to cast shadows over for interest, and to draw the eye towards the better lit areas of the image. Its all about the composition!

And on that note, often the boundaries of elements can let an image down, ie the edge of the drive where it becomes grass, the edge of the house as it sits on the top, the edge of the horizon in the distance, so try and obscure these with your view angle or site features etc.

Oh, and section boxes can be found under view properties. Its a very good piece of advice from trombe to have one on your view to exclude unnecessary geometry from the rendering calculations.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with! 

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trombe

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Joined: Sun, Nov 26, 2006
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Hi

cheers HSD.

 TTMan

COV = Cone of Vision sometimes also noted as FOV for Field of Vision.

Its related to the human eye and the natural range of the eye described as a cone.:

go here to see this set of useful diagrams:

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Am7FPeFo1ycC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=perspective+Cone+Of+vision&source=bl&ots=CPkPRgI0Zi&sig=desg--BosCJJ9TlShoa5JoAwNqc&hl=en&ei=2x2HS6_zBJXk7APJue2zDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCcQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=perspective%20Cone%20Of%20vision&f=false

There is reasoanable consistency of information and guidance I guess, on photographers web site, books about perspective drawing,art and  graphics web sites and even some math web sites to get a handle on some sound basics to help with composing perpective drawings using the Revit camera or other  relevant programs and how to fool the eye, or how to best leave something out.

The Revit camera is severerly limited to what controls you have and rather than say here that you have COV controls.

I  think (rightly or wrongly) that the Revit camera has a FOV control more than COVC to make a distinction here,  because that really seems to me to be more of a field control as you can open up the width super easy and very quickly distort the scene content. Example is interior shot where it is often desirable to show the client a lot in one shot but almost always too easy to show too much for other reasons, and particularly where there is a restriction on length from the camera. Distortion follows widening of the camera unless used with great care.

I am finding it more useful to restrict these inteterior shots to the vignette rather than a pan but you will quickly figure out how much angle you should have to avoid distortion and foreshortening etc.

I read somewhere that theatre perspectives are around 60 degrees and assume this is also for when the set builders are designing the sets and working out sight lines for the audience because if they don't try hard, some people will see a quite distorted view of the set while others will see it at a perfect angle of (repose? lol). Its porbably worht having a look at the general approaches for single, 2 point and 3 ppoint perspectives because all of this stuff applies directly to computer perspectives, photography and so on so your knowledge then covers off much more than Revit camera set up.

Lastly, those 2/3 am blast renders and backgrounds,......

depends on what your use is. Don't forget you can export into PNG or TIF out of Revit to get an alpha channel then slip it into Photoshop / Gimp / Core PSP and add backgrounds or,  import the png/tif right back into Revit in a Drafting View and you will still get to be able to have a another layer of say a background sky / photo and get it to work as a single composition within severe bounds of Revit.....its much easier to do it in an image editor though.

Sorry about the long posts.

cheers

trombe

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tabletennisman

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Joined: Tue, Aug 12, 2008
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Thanks for the replies so far! Haven't had too much time to muck around with the rendering, but here's some progress images of what i've done.

 http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/3033/90111442.jpg

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/6315/59664100.jpg

http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/1382/15559285.jpg

 http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/1605/37588725.jpg

And this is what i'm up to now:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/4332/82005259.jpg

I'm not too happy with it. Mainly the rendered cement fence pier as well as the mailbox rendered cement textures... Not sure what i can do? have played all around with a heap of different textures with no such luck. The trees look fake, not sure what i can do about that either. rendered @ 300DPI on high setting, reduced 50% in size.

After some good constructive criticism as to improve it! The following picture is more after the look i'm going for. I like the "softer" look it has to it:

  http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7409/examplejr.jpg

Cheers!

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hisdirt

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Hi again tabletennisman,

Youre definately on the way! A couple of comments on the sample image you posted:

- The softness in the sample image you show uses an ambient lighting method not naturally achievable in Revit, but the strengths of that image are more than just the soft light

- Notice how you cant see the whole building in that view, how it runs off the two sides of the image - a good tip for keeping your building slightly mysterious

- The trees on either side frame the composition, and focus your view on the building 

- There is some use of foreground vs. midground elements, which enhance the perception of depth in the view

The view you have posted is looking nice though, the depth of the shadow under your entry lean-to shows that you are using the 'adjust exposure' settings well! The fascia/guttering is looking really nice too.

- Be careful not to stretch the crop region manually too much, you notice how on your third image the garage looks like its leaning forward? That is a result or manual stretching, rather select the crop boundary and click on the 'adjust crop size' button to make sure the proportions are maintained

- Try using large trees off screen to cast shadows over your building/site elements, and use the shadows to lead the eye to what you want people seeing

- The darkness of the grass may be causing the trees to look a little washed out

Using lanscaping elements in Revit will always be somewhat uphill (like trying to soften where the grass meets your building), but you do learn ways to draw attention away from the weakness of the image and towards the strengths.

Hope this helps!

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tabletennisman

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Joined: Tue, Aug 12, 2008
40 Posts

thanks for the tips. Didn't know about that crop region, and the front of the building looking like it was leaning forwards! Was wondering how to overcome that!

I'll have a play around with my textures for rendered cement fence pillars and mailbox, and grass (found cgtextures.com with heaps of good textures), then think i'll have a crack at rendering with 3DS max as i do have a copy... Just wanted to work out how to render in revit properly before i moved onto 3ds max.

If anybody has any more advice feel free to give it!

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Dafpfy

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Joined: Sat, Dec 29, 2007
286 Posts

The last image looks great ,

only on point of criticism i'd like to make is the sky,

try to get the perspective right when you photoshop in an other sky,

 Kind regards,

D

-----------------------------------

"There is no path to peace,

peace is the path."

Mahatma Gandhi.

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tabletennisman

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Joined: Tue, Aug 12, 2008
40 Posts

cheers guys.

so is this how most people do the rendering process?

model in revitadd textures and materials in 3ds max

render with vray?

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