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!
New snapping tools for Blender 3D
If there is one thing that everyone involved with architectural visualizations likes is precision tools. And the snapping tools of Blender are evolving a lot, especially with the upcoming Apricot project. A few days ago, they released a test build of Blender, with a small addition to the existing snap option, which allows us to automatically rotate an object, and align it to any type of plane or surface. All you will have to do is drag and drop the object, near a surface and the snap tool will rotate it!
I decided to write a small tutorial on how to do it. To follow the tutorial, you will need an Apricot Build of Blender, since the tools used for this tutorial aren`t finished yet. So, use it only as an experiment and not in production environments!
You can download the build at graphicall.org, just look for a build labeled Apricot.
The snapping tools of Blender are located on the right side of the 3D View Header.
For this example, I will use a simple object made by three planes. Two of those planes are a bit slant. If we won`t use the new snapping tools, we would have to find out the inclination of those planes and apply an exact rotation to the object.
Now, let`s use a chair model, from one of my projects.
The next step is to turn on the snapping mode. You can use either a shortcut (SHIFT+TAB) or press the magnet icon (1). Then, turn on the button right next to the magnet, which is the “Align Rotation with the snapping target” (2). Choose the face option (3) and the Closest (4), to make the snap align the object to the closest face.
Now we are all set. If I select the chair model, hold down the CTRL key and drag the object, see what happens:
The chair will rotate to be perfectly aligned to the plane. Well, I know it would be hard to put a chair at plane like that! But, with a tool like that we can place luminaries, switches and all sort of decorative objects with a simple drag and drop action.
Interior design with Blender 3D and Indigo Renderer
I`m working at a very simple project now, you may remember it from my previous post, which is a living room model rendered with Indigo, and modeled with Blender 3D. This last weekend I got some time to update the model and render it again, with a few more details. Most of the details are decorative objects like vases, portraits and a console table, and two paintings from Matisse, one of my favorite artists.
Is it a commercial project? No, actually it is a scene that will be used in an e-learning class I’m working on here in Brazil. Maybe in the future I will release an English version of the course as well. The scene is now complete! This course will be all about this project, where the students will learn to create this scene from scratch.
Here are a screenshot of Blender, with the scene:
And the last rendered image, which take almost 2 hours to render. I know it may seem long, but it`s the way Indigo works.
Why not use YafRay for this scene? The first reason is that the e-learning course will be about “Interior design with Blender 3D and Indigo”, and the second one is that sometimes it`s good to have an option to YafRay. And for me now, Indigo renderer is becoming a very good option to YafRay. While YafaRay doesn`t reach a stable release, I will try to start some of my projects with Indigo.
This week I will try to work on a few extra objects to the scene, and create a night shot of the scene with IES lights.
Since I have used a few models from Resources blogscopia, I have decided to share the console table model, which I have modeled in Blender, based on a console table I saw on a magazine.
Here is a rendering of the console, with a studio setup in Indigo:
The console has two small vases and two portraits above it. Let`s see how to model it. You can download the model from this link (Please, don`t make direct links to the file).
And that`s it, another finished project. Let`s move on to a new one!
Blender 3D and External Renderers
If you are used to Blender, then you must know about the use of external raytracers with Blender 3D. If not, then you are probably asking yourself, can I use V-Ray or Mental Ray with Blender? I know a lot of people use 3ds Max and V-Ray to create architectural visualization, but you can find some pretty good options in Blender as well. As a replacement for V-Ray in Blender, I would suggest two options, one them was mentioned in a previous article, which are Indigo Renderer and YafRay.
I am a YafRay user, and from the past few months I have used it for almost all my architectural visualization jobs. But, the YafRay project is not update since 2006, and another raytracers like Indigo are coming to my attention and offers some great tools to work with.
Even not being open source like YafRay, Indigo caught my attention with some great light and GI options. And better yet, Indigo is freeware software.
Indigo works much like next limit Maxwell Render and the recent released Fryrender. It’s an unbiased render engine, which gives the scene a great level of realism. Just take a quick look at this project that I’m working on:
This is the Blender 3D wireframe scene, and with the proper settings I’ve exported the scene to Indigo and render it:
The scene is still a work in progress, I still have to add some furniture to the scene, but the result is already looking great. This scene was rendered in Indigo 1.0.9.
How about YafRay? Well, I still believe in YafRay and his new generation called YafaRay. There are some great renders at the YafRay forums with YafaRay, but it’s still not stable enough. This makes me feel a bit uncertain about using it for production. The Best option would be using the YafRay stable or Indigo, both of them work fine with Blender.
So, now you know a bit more about the external raytracers and Blender 3D. Just a quick not, you can actually use V-Ray and Blender with a very experimental Python script, that exports the scene in Blender to V-Ray, visit this link to learn more about it. Remember, it’s experimental and probably not very good for production environments, use it at your own risk.
How to use photometric lights in Blender 3D?
How to use photometric lights with Blender 3D? Is it possible? Of course it is! When I have a project that requires the use of Photometric lights, I use Indigo as an external render for Blender. Just recently Indigo is supporting the use of IES lights, and it opened a whole new world of possibilities to light interior scenes, using real data from light manufactures.
Enough small talk, let`s take a look on how to use this type of lights with Indigo. If you want to follow this tutorial, you will need:
- Blender 2.46
- Indigo Renderer 1.0.9 (I know there are newer versions, but this is the newest stable version)
- Blendigo 1.0.9 (Script to control Indigo from Blender)
- Python 2.5
In this tutorial, I won`t explain how to install and setup Indigo and Blendigo. You can find all information get started in here, just go to the bottom of the page and download de BlenderIndigoTut.
Ok, with everything installed and working we can start to setup our scene to use a photometric light. Before we start, let me just explain how this type of light works. To use a photometric light as a light source for the scene, we have to add a unique material, to any object that will work as a place holder for the light. Actually, the object will work as an emitter.
Here is our test scene, which consists of a very simple scenario.
At this scenario, we have a very small plane, which we will use as emitter. Add a material to this plane, and take note of his name. In my scene, this material is called “Material.001″ and the material is only applied to the plane.
Now open the Blendigo interface, just split the Blender 3D view to create two windows and then go to the File -> Export -> Blendigo 1.0.9. It will open the Blendigo interface.
There you have to click on the Materials button, to edit the materials option.
Choose Material.001 to edit the material applied to the plane, and then from the next combo box choose EMITTER = Lights +Meshes. It will make the material work as a light source.
And, to make the light emitted by the object to behave like a real light, click on the Photometric button.
When we click there, an option to choose an IES file will appear. There we can choose a photometric file to setup the light. If you don`t have any IES files in your hard drive, you can find a lot of them for free here. When you install Indigo, it will place a few IES files at the installation folder as well.
When you decide, which IES file you will use, just point Blendigo to use this file.
Now, we are almost finished. Go to the Environment area of Blendigo and choose “None (lit by emitters)”, to make the scene to be illuminated only by the IES light.
And that’s it! Press the EXPORT Scene button and wait a few minutes to start seen some images. You will have to wait a bit longer to see a noise free image.
To make the image more interesting, I`ve putted a few chairs to the scene. Here is how it looks:
Now you know how to use photometric lights with Blender 3D! Here are a few final tips to work with IES lights:
- If you don`t want the plane to show up in the render, just decrease his scale to something near zero, like a value of “0.001″ for all axis
- Some IES files don`t work with plane objects, if you get an error before the render starts, change the object type or the IES file
- We can control the direction of light with the face normal
Now it`s up to you!
Download furniture models for Blender 3D
If you are going to work at a project, that involves architectural visualization, it will be very important to use furniture to humanize your renderings. There are two ways to deal with furniture models, for your 3d environment, you can either model all pieces of furniture, or find a good online library to download models to use in your scene. Of course, the second option is the easiest and the dream for every artist. But, sometimes we won`t find a specific piece of furniture to use, then you will have to model.
This time I won`t work with the modeling of a chair or table. But, I will point some nice resources to find furniture models to work with, and better yet, all of them are free to use.
So, here is the list:
- Resources blogscopia
- E-interiors (require registration)
- Blender Wiki for architecture
- LineDStudio
From all those resources, the best most complete to use with Blender 3d are Resources blogscopia and the Blender ArchWiki, which offer furniture models in the native Blender file format. All you have to do is Append or link the models to your scene, with no loss of data. The models available at Scopias Resource have their lighting and materials setup to work with YafRay, one of the best external renderers to work with Blender.
This an example of model from Resources blogscopia
The other links have furniture files in 3ds, obj, dxf and other file formats. With this other formats, we will have to import them to Blender, and it can result in triangular faces or small issues in the furniture model.
When we append or import the model in your scene, a lot of work will be required to setup the model. Because most of them doesn`t came with materials or textures. So, get ready to add some materials and textures to all models, but this is a task that I will cover on another article.
For now, be sure to gather as much links with furniture models, to use in your projects. They will be a great help to build a good scene.
Well, for sure these are not the only good resources to find furniture models, but they are great and I use them a lot.
Blender 3D for architectural visualization
How to produce architectural visualization with Blender 3D? And before anything, what is Blender? Well, Blender is the free open source 3d content creation suite. It has a huge user community, but most of them use Blender only to create character animations, or animations not related to architecture. Since I am an architect and have been used Blender 3D, as my main 3d content creation for the past years, I thought it was time to help other artists to use Blender as a tool to create architectural visualization.
With that in mind, I wrote a book on the subject, which will be released next month by Pack. This book has everything you need to know about Blender, and how to apply that to architectural visualization. I talk about the basics, modeling, modeling for architecture, importing CAD files, materials, lights and everything else that is related to the task.
The book is great! And I`m really proud of it, but to keep showing my experiments and to show how Blender can be used for architectural visualization, I decided it was time to start a web site as well! So, here I am writing the first article. You can expect to find out here tutorials and articles, about the upcoming features of Blender and how these features can influence artists that want to work with architectural visualization.
Just to show what Blender can do, here is one of the examples of the Book:
Blender is a great tool, but it doesn`t work alone. There are a few extra tools, which can help a lot in the process like CAD software, Image editing software, Ray tracing render and a lot more. Here is a list of some other tools that will be covered here:
- YafaRay (External Ray tracer)
- Indigo Renderer (External Ray tracer)
- Inkscape (Vector illustration)
- QCAD (CAD)
- GIMP (Image processing)
- Wings 3D (Subdivision Modeling)
Well, I hope you find the information published here useful, and feel free to send me a message or comment, about the book or any tutorial posted here.
