YafRay 0.1.0 and architectural visualization?
I know, at this point you may say that this is old news, but it I still believe that the release of a stable version of YafRay, is a huge milestone for anyone working with Blender 3D for architectural visualization. Before anything, visit the YafRay web site to download a version of YafRay and start to use it! What`s the big deal about YafRay? Well, ever since I started to use Blender 3D as my main tool for visualization I began to use YafRay as my render engine as well. I had some advanced ray tracing options that weren’t available for Blender at the time.
What`s the story behind this release? If you want to know this kind of details, I recommend the reading of this article, which explains the origins of the name YafaRay.
This version of YafRay, also called YafaRay was under development since mid 2006, when it was first announced to the community. Since it was under development, I choose not to use it for production, and only test it with a few scenes and wait until a stable release. While I was waiting, another render engines come to my attention like Indigo and LuxRender, but YafRay is the render that has the best integration with Blender, and of course, it`s open source.
Do you want to see an example of how YafaRay can help, artists working with architectural visualization? Let me show a simple example, related to cameras.
In this scene, we have a camera placed near the ground plane, and since the target of this camera is aimed to the top of the objects, we have a slight distortion in the perspective lines:
How to fix that? The new YafRay has several types of cameras, and one of them is called architect. If we select the camera, and change the camera type to architect, like the image below shows:
This is the resulting render:
The vertical lines of the perspective are not distorted by the differences between the camera origin and target!
With this new release, I`m working on a few tutorials and guides about the use of YafRay 0.1.0 for architectural visualization! Stay tuned for more articles in a few days.
In the mean time, you can visit the YafRay Wiki to find out more tutorials and guide about the installation and use of YafRay 0.1.0.
How to use the Bevel modifier to chamfer edges of a model?
Almost all artists that start a visualization project want a photo real result at the end. There are a lot of ways to get that result with external renderers, great textures and some other tricks. But, one of the first things that you should do to improve your scenes is to chamfer all edges in your model. Yes! That’s it; with a simple chamfer you can make the difference. Why? One of the goals of a photo real image, is to make people think that the image, wasn`t produced by a computer.
All images produced by computers with software’s like Blender 3D, end up to be perfect images. With the Bevel modifier of Blender 3D, we can add a bit of imperfection to the edges of your scenes. Just take a look around you, and you will see the edges of walls, windows and doors with small imperfections, that look like chamfered edges.
How to do that in Blender 3D? Let`s take a look!
The bevel modifier is pretty simple to use, but to apply the chamfer to only a few selected edges, we have to use a property called Bevel Weight.
For this example, I will use a simple model of a wall.
When I select the bevel modifier and apply it to the wall, all edges of the model receive the chamfer. But, I only want it in the edge pointed at the image above.
Here is what we have to do:
- Enter in Edit Mode and select only that edge
- When the edge is selected, press the CTRL+SHIFT+E keys to change the bevel weight (or use the menu Mesh -> Edges -> Adjust bevel weight)
- Move your mouse to change the weight value, and right click once to finish
That’s it! Now go to the modifiers panel and choose the limit option of the bevel as BevWei. Make a few tests with the weight value, to find the amount of chamfer that best suites your model.
Now the selected edge of the model is chamfered!
You can control the amount of chamfer, with the width parameter.
How to find examples of interior design to practice architectural visualization?
One of the things that my students always asks me is; how to find good references for practice interior design with Blender? If you ever started a visualization project with Blender, and tried to model and render a scene from scratch, you probably know that a good set of CAD drawings or photos can make a huge difference. With this kind of assets, all we have to do is follow the design guidelines and build the geometry in Blender. Since my students aren’t architects, but 3d artists, they are not very comfortable to design an interior scene, and place objects like real professionals, so they want good photos with real design projects to use as reference.
If you are an architect, it won`t be hard to setup an interior design project to practice 3d visualization, but if you are in the same state of my students, I will post some great resources to find reference photos.
One of the best places to find image references for projects is Flickr! Yes, all you have to do is browse for a while into some of the Flickr groups to find a few groups specialized in interior design.
Here are a few of my favorite groups, where I always try to find some inspiration for scenes and exercises.
With only those two groups, you will find a lot of images to play around.
How to use those photos? The objective here is not to copy the design, but use it as reference to add objects and details in the scene. I see that all the time in my classes, where the less experienced artists design a scene with almost no details, which will end up in a very minimalistic scene.
With a quick look in the photos at the groups, you will find that the details and objects that fill the empty spaces are the soul and heart of the scene.
If you want to take the challenge, here are a few things you can do to use those images from Flickr, to create exercises and practice your modeling and rendering skills:
- Pick a scene with some challenging light setup
- Another great exercise is to use a scene with lots lights coming from transparent walls or big windows
- Pick a piece of furniture, like a table, and try to model this piece of furniture along with all objects placed above it
- Try to setup a daylight and night shoot for the same scene
Well, those are a few of the guidelines to find exercises that I always try to work with my students. I know that those tips aren`t related to Blender 3D, but they can aid an artist to find a good place to start a project. The rest of the process is up to you knowledge of 3d modeling and rendering.
How about you? Where do you find image references for projects?
NPR with Blender and Freestyle: First builds of the SoC 2008 project
If you want to work with Non Photo real Renderings (NPR) with Blender 3d, a new feature of Blender will probably make your lives easier. One of the SoC 2008 projects will enable all Blender artists to use Freestyle as an external renderer of Blender, with only a few mouse clicks. Today, the easiest option if you want to use an external render with Blender is YafRay, I mean easiest because all we have to do to use it, is choose “YafRay” at the render panel and hit F12. Of course you still have to install the software, but it`s a lot better than export a file and open another software to render the scene.
That’s the workflow if you want to use Freestyle today. With the efforts of Maxime Curioni, we will have the same easy of use with the Freestyle render. But, what is Freestyle and how can it help me with my architectural vitalization projects?
Well, most people only imagine architectural projects been presented with photo real images, but for some projects the use of stylized images is a better option. Before the spread of 3d visualization software, a lot of projects were presented with watercolor images and other formats not related to computers.
And that’s what we will be able to do with Freestyle, render a scene directly to a stylized type of image.
I know, you are probably wondering that it would the same thing as take the rendered image and post-process it in Gimp or Photoshop. But, what if you want to make an animation? Or just don`t want to post-process it?
In my opinion, the project will bring another great option for all professionals and students that want to use Blender as a tool for architectural visualization. The project is in development, but there are a few experimental builds available to download at graphicall.org.
The image that illustrates this post was rendered with the test build for windows, but there are options for OSX and Linux as well.
If you want to give it a try, download the build that best suites your OS and test it!
There are some artists already using the builds to create some stunning work, go check out this animation test.
The new Layer Blending feature of Indigo brings Multilight to Blender?
What is this feature called Multilight? This is an incredible feature of Maxwell Render, which allows an artist to change the color and intensity of a light source, while the render process isn`t finished. That’s right; we can actually make adjustments on-the-fly, and even create a cool animation of the light changes. Well, all those features and possibilities are available to anyone with a Maxwell Render license, but an option similar to Multilight is now implemented on Indigo Renderer, and the name of that feature is Layer Blending.
The Layer Blending of Indigo has showed up a few weeks ago at Indigo 1.1.6, and works pretty much like Multilight. Of course, the Indigo feature is still in development but it already shows a lot of potential.
If you want to see, what it`s capable of doing, visit this link at the Indigo forums. There you will find a nice animation, made by an artist using Layer Blending. And this link shows another great example of scene and animation made with the Layer Blending feature.
By now, there is only two down sides of the feature:
- The script that exports a scene in Blender to the IGS file format, still doesn`t support Layer Blending
- You have to hand code the IGS file of Indigo, to setup Layer Blending
I have made a lot of testing here, and the tag <layer>, which setup and object to be a layer only works with materials.
I`m still trying to learn more how about the setup of each light layer, and make it works like an independent source. By now I know that the <layer> tag only works with materials, every time I tried to add it to a light source Indigo shows up an error message and quit the rendering process.
Well, if you want to give it a try and test the new feature, be ready to do a lot of copy and paste. Even with a feature that isn`t much friendly like that, we can be sure that Layer Blending will be a powerful feature in Indigo.
Blender 2.47 and architectural visualization
After a long pause, I`m finally back to the blog. This long time without updates was due to the revision of my Brazilian Blender book, which is going to the third edition. I guess it`s a great milestone for me, after all, the editorial market here in Brazil is not that big, and it shows that Brazilian artists are getting interested in Blender. The Apricot project (Yo Frankie!) is calling the attention of game artists and developers, I`ve received almost five messages a week, with people interested in learning Blender to develop games.
Now, let`s get back to Blender and architectural visualization.
A brand new version of Blender is out, Blender 2.47! This is mostly a bugfix release, but it doesn`t mean that new features aren`t available. In fact, there are new features for this release! Unfortunately, the Grease pencil system was not on of them. What about the new features? Most of them are related to the Yo Frankie! (Apricot) project, and involves the new snapping tools, already mentioned here and new options for the Logic Panel of Blender. If you work with architectural visualization, there aren’t many improvements besides the new snapping tools.
Since we talked about Blender improvements for architectural visualization, I haven`t mentioned a really cool project going on at the Blender Wiki. It`s called BlenderArchiProject, and the goal is to gather suggestions to improve Blender, or develop new tools specially for architectural visualization. If you have any ideas or suggestions, just make a user at the Wiki and put your ideas there.
Here are a few areas that could get improvements, and new features that would help a lot the work for architectural visualization:
- Precision modeling
- Render API
- Parametric modeling
- Customizable units
- Offset tool
These are some of the items in my “wish list”, and almost all of them are listed on the BlenderArchiProject already.
Some of these features are already planed to be released with Blender 2.50, like the Render API. With this feature, Blender will be able to use a lot more external renders, and the new generation of YafRay (YafaRay).
If you have some other ideas, go there and put them on the list.
Tips for precision modeling with Blender 3D
This is a common question I always have to answer about Blender; How to model with precision in Blender? Well, first of all we have to realize that Blender is a visualization and animation tool, not a CAD system like AutoCAD or ArchiCAD. It will never have precision tools as good as AutoCAD, just like other 3d suites like 3ds Max or Maya. But, it doesn`t mean you can use a few tips and tools to create models with precision. I know architects do like measurements and are concerned about the dimensions of their models.
That’s why I decide to make a small list of things you can do to model with precision in Blender.
Those are the tips:
- Know how to use the transform properties menu: This is a menu where you can type the position, rotation and scale of selected objects. This menu can be viewed when we press the N key.
- Use the 3D Cursor: We can easily say that this is the key tool to work with precision. With the 3D cursor we can move and place objects exactly where we want, like above a face or aligned with a specific vertex. The best way to work with the 3D Cursor is use the snap tool.
- Use the 3D Cursor and the Snap tool: The snap tool can deal with selected objects, 3d Cursor and the center of objects. For instance, we can place the 3D Cursor at the center of a plane, which could be the floor of a scene, and select a chair model. With a snapping option like “Selection -> Cursor” the object will jump to the position of the 3D Cursor. What part of the object will be used to make the alignment? His center. There is the vertex snap too, which is useful as well.
- Change and manipulate the center of objects: Since the snap tool use a lot the center of the objects to place them, it`s quite important to know how to change the position of the center.
- Always turn on the edge lengths: At the Editing panel we can turn on the display of edge lengths, for selected meshs. This is very useful to check the measurements of a model.
- Use the Grid lines: And the last one, use the CTRL and SHIFT keys to make transformations snap to the grid lines.
If you want to study and start to model in Blender with precision, those are the tools I always use to model in Blender.
Using objects and meshes to emit light in Blender 3D
Sometimes we have to use more than a standard light of Blender to simulate an interior scene. Let me show you a really interesting project that I have been working on. It`s only a preliminary study for an art galley, where the objective is to use mostly indirect light for the scene, and put some special lights aimed to several pieces of art. Since it`s only a study, I manage to produce and render the image in just a couple hours.
Here is the final image, rendered in Indigo and modeled in Blender 3D.
If you notice, there are two big sources of light right on the upper side of both walls. How can we do that? This is all setup in Blendigo, the script that export a scene in Blender 3D for Indigo.
First of all, we have to create an object (Mesh), to use as emitter. For this objects there is an important tip, use the most simple shape as possible, a plane if you can. With complex shapes, the render time will be highly increased.
The object that I have used is a plane. I have scaled the planes to make them fit the space above the side walls.
To finish the setup of lights, there is one more thing you have to do. Like what we have seen in the use of photometric lights, what control the direction of light are the normals of the planes. So, if you don`t want to face troubles, setup the normals to point towards the right direction.
The lights that illuminate the pictures are all mesh emitter, actually all lights in the scene are mesh emitters. And to finish the setup of the scene, we have to choose the right settings for the environment. In Blendigo we can choose a set to use only mesh emitters to light the scene.
Is that all? Of course not, besides the lights we have to add textures to the surfaces. To add and render textures in Indigo, you can setup them in Blender and then add point the image file at the “Albedo” option in Blendigo.
For now this is just a study, but if the development of the project goes well, I will add a lot of small details to the scene and create a full high-res render. By now, this image suite quite well the pre-visualization of the environment.
Grease Pencil improves review work in Blender
The review of any kind of work is very important for the artist, it gives feedback on the project and could give him some insights of what`s working and not working with the model. Until now, if I want to send a project for review, I had to render a test and send the image or a lot of images. Well, great new feature of Blender is in development that can change this workflow. The feature is called Grease Pencil, coded by Aligorith, and it will allow you do draw directly on the 3D View!
I was curious about it, so I decided to download a test build from graphicall.org to check it out. It`s quite simple to use, but you have to use a new work mode and create an especial layer for the drawings.
Let`s take a look on how it works.
First of all, you have to enable the Grease Pencil. Go to the View menu and choose Grease Pencil.
Then, turn on the “Use Grease Pencil” button.
The next step is to choose a new work mode called Grease Pencil. You will only be able to draw if this mode is active.
One last step before we draw something, add a new layer. All layers can hold draw lines with different colors and thickness, if your team has more than one reviewer, each one can use a unique setup.
That`s it, now you can hold down the left mouse button and draw.
This is a very interesting feature, and I will be probably using a lot of grease pencil for review. You just have to be careful, if your notes are placed right over a model, you can`t move the view or the notes won`t be aligned to the models.
If you want to review a job from a client, a test render is still the best option, unless you want your client to have a copy of the blend file. But for team work, the Grease Pencil will help a lot! I`m looking forward to see the final version of the tool.
LuxRender 0.5 for architectural visualization
Last week a new version of the Open source Unbiased render engine called LuxRender was released. It`s been quite awhile now since the last time I have used LuxRender to make any kind of rendering for a project. This new version has a great list of improvements and I decided to give it a try again, and this time on my Ubuntu workstation. If you want to try too, it`s actually quite simple to download and compile the source code of LuxRender to use it under Linux. You can find all instructions to download and compile LuxRender in this link.
After all the process of downloading and compiling the source code, the integration with Blender 3D work out with a script called LuxBlend, just download the script file and place it in the Blender scripts folder.
When you run the script for the first time, it will ask for the luxRender folder.
How it works? I have to say that I`m most used to work with Indigo and Blendigo, and the LuxRender seems to have a lot more options to setup the render. At least more than Blendigo, but it doesn`t mean it`s better or worse, I`m just saying that it has more options. Here is a collage of four menus from LuxBlend.
For testing purposes I use a simple scene, to see how the sunlight simulation works in LuxRender.
The scene is a kind of room, with openings at all sides to allow sunlight to easily enter in the environment.
What`s the best settings for this scene? The image below shows the main settings.
I have to say that this render took about 5 hours to finish! I`m still learning how to setup the options in LuxBlend, so we can`t take any conclusions about the LuxRender render speed based on my test.
Of course I would get the same scene rendered a lot faster on Indigo, not because it`s better or faster, but because I`m more used to it.
So, what`s the point of this test? Just use LuxRender? Well, besides the long render time, I can say that this test shows me that LuxRender can become a great option to render in Blender, and especially in Linux! The software is still in development, and probably we can expect more updates soon.
I will try to render more scenes with LuxRender, and when I get the right settings for a few of my projects, I will post them here.
At least one thing I can say for sure, I will keep a close eye on the project updates!
