Visualizing a 3D model of an apartment in 3ds Max
Modeling always comes first, it is powerful, useful and even necessary in every project. Visualizing and rendering comes after to give life to the project and make it seem a lot more real. To do that we're going to be using another program from Autodesk which is called 3ds Max.
For architects, it is important to know and focus on four main things:
Light
Materials
Imported components
Cameras, video and render
3ds Max is capable of doing other things but let's not forget that it's not only for architects; it's used by designers, animators, cinema specialists amongst others.
Preparing the AutoCAD file:
It's recommanded to save the file to a DXF file (AutoCAD 2010) since it's a universal format.
Importing the file into 3ds Max:
Before the import, it's very important to make sure that the units used are all in meter and that the rendering engine is set to Arnold .When we're importing the file, a set of windows pop up lisiting the different layers of our file. We only choose the 3D files. The model appears in 4 windows: Top, left, front and in perspective.
Light:
Different types of light can be added to the project that we choose from the right ribbon:
Natural light:
It could either be a light generated by a Skydome, Sky Portal Illumination or a light which functions exactly like the sun. The Skydome simulates light from a hemisphere or dome above the scene, representing the sky. This is the node which is typically used for lighting exterior scenes. The Portal is a light object that gathers sky light (as opposed to direct sunlight) generated by a Daylight system. When a Sky Portal is applied to objects such as glass doors and windows, these objects become light sources. The Sunlight and Daylight systems use light in a system that follows the geographically correct angle and movement of the sun over the earth at a given location. You can choose location, date, time, and compass orientation. You can also animate the date and time. This system is suitable for shadow studies of proposed and existing structures. In addition, you can animate Latitude, Longitude, North Direction, and Orbital Scale.
Artificial light:
It can be done using multiple ways: Spot, point or cylinder which need to be attached to a lighting Equipment.
Materials:
Textures:
Materials and textures are one of the most interesting and useful things for architectural visualization in 3dsmax. To make it possible for us to assign materials to each component/family, it's compulsory to have each category under a specific layer. To proceed, we use the shortcut M to open the material editor, we click on Physical Material, we double click on the chosen material, we rename it, we choose a preset, we modify the parameter. When we're done we right-click on the tab of the new material and we click on Assign Material to Selection while having the layer selected. Now, we have our components with their new textures ready to be rendered.
Imported components:
We surely need furnishings, vegetation, lighting fixtures to make our space more lively and to do so we need to import files that we get by downloading them from the internet. We click on file, then import and we choose the file, then we check the Merge option and we resize and move it with help of the different views. Often, the imported object comes in different layers so it is important to gather them under the same group.
Cameras:
Photo rendering:
To make our rendering possible and to take shots, it is necessary to position cameras at specific angles. We go to the right ribbon and we choose one of the camera types depending on what we're intending to capture:
Physical
Target camera
But the one that we commonly use is the Target camera, a target camera views the area around the target icon that you place when you create the camera. A target camera is easier to aim than a free camera because you simply position the target object at the center of interest. We choose the camera and then we select a point to position it and then another one to define the target. It's also possible to move it in all directions so as to choose the desired angle.
To visualize the view generated by the camera, we go to the 3D view and we change from perspective to our camera.
Video rendering:
Video rendering is a bit like photo rendering but this time with multiple frames. We start by drawing the path for the camera by going to Shapes and choosing line, we draw several points that are automatically connected to make a spline that we smoothen by clicking on it and going to modify, we choose vertex and we right-click on the points and check Bezier to create curved corners. When we finish, we set the path from vertex to spline to unite the different segements. Afterwards, we draw a focal path towards which the camera will be positioned using the same steps we used to create the path.
We configurate the timing of the video we're intending to render by going to Time Configuration. We set the number of fps (frames per second) to 24 to have a video that runs smoothly and then the total number of frames during the entire video. In our case we're having a 30 seconds video so it would be 720 frames. The walkthrough camera from the Animation menu will be used. In the opened window a new camera has to be created (targeted camera). Going through the menu, the path of the camera has to be set in Path Control and after the path of the target will be inserted in the Look at Camera rollout.
To render, we open the rendering setting and we choose in the common settings Active Time Segment and we set the file format to .avi and we click on Render. Of course, there are other option taht could be change and modified depending on the result we're trying to obtain.
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