Exterior 3d max. Exterior creation and visualization using VRay

A 3ds Max tutorial covering a relatively simple way to set up a scene for high-quality exterior rendering using VRay rendering.

There are many ways to create realistic exterior renderings in 3ds Max using VRay rendering, but not all of these methods combine ease of setup with speed of rendering. This lesson aims to show you just such a balanced method. To repeat the visualization technique presented in the lesson, you will need 2009+ and VRay 1.5 SP2+. An example will be a simple scene with a house and some vegetation.

01. The final result with the adjusted lighting and materials will look like this (to speed up the render processor, the quality settings were not set to the highest, but you can increase them for your own scene):

02. General settings for the example scene:

Adaptive DMC was chosen as a sampler, which does not blur textures. The Max subdivs value was set to 25 to ensure the image was clear and rendered quickly. Mitchell-Netravali was used as an Antialiasing filter. For the color mapping mode, Intensity Exponential was used, the Dark Multiplier and Bright Multiplier parameters were set to 2.0 and 1.0, respectively. There, the Affect background option was activated so that the background matches the color and brightness of other objects in the scene.

In the global illumination settings, it was necessary to reduce the Saturation value to 0.82, and at the same time increase the Contrast to 1.32. The overall global illumination quality was set to quite low, as exteriors typically require no better than average quality. The Irradiance Map presets needed to be set to Low, and for Light cache it was enough to set 600 for Subdivs and 4 for Number of Passes.

The final image was rendered with the Noise threshold set to 0.003, which naturally made the image look better, but also increased rendering time significantly.

03. Now about creating an environment map.
First you need to select a suitable environment map. This is a very important point in setting up the correct visualization of the exterior, because the environment map makes the scene more natural - it illuminates objects and is also reflected in their materials.

Press the 8 key to open the Environment and Effects window, where under Environment Map we click on the empty slot and select the VRayCompTex map. Then we transfer the newly created map to the material editor and in the dialog that opens, select the Instance option. In the VRayCompTex settings for Operator, set Add, and then click on the Source A slot and find the VRayHDRI card (in the settings, select your HDR image, adjust its brightness with the Overall mult parameter). For the Source B slot, you need to select a VRaySky card, in which we set the values ​​​​shown in the picture above. Next we transfer VRayCompTex to two slots under VRay:: Environment:

Moving the VRayCompTex map into the VRay::Environment slots is optional, but it does provide the ability to individually adjust the lighting and reflection of the scene.

04. Add a VRayLight light source to the scene.
To add a subtle shadow to the scene that will lie under objects, imitating the shading effect of Ambient Occlusion, you can use the VRayLight light source. This is how it should be positioned in the scene:

VRayLight settings should be like this:

The VRayLight color should be close to the background color, as it is the dominant color. The Multiplier value should not be set too high so as not to disturb the dominant background color. The light sources inside the house were adjusted in a similar way, except that the color was yellow and the Multiplier value was set to 60. In the light source settings, you can activate the Store with irradiance map option, which will significantly speed up the rendering process, but will negatively affect the quality Pictures.

05. Add and configure the VRayPhysicalCamera.
Without a camera in the scene it will be difficult to achieve believable lighting, so you should add VRayPhysicalCamera to it - together with VRaySky it gives a very good result. The camera settings look like this:

For the white balance parameter, select Daylight - the scene has the desired color. Since the scene has become too dark, you need to reduce the f-number value to increase the brightness.

06. Post-processing in Photoshop.
Image post-processing plays an important role in visualization. The image below was first processed with the Curves command to increase contrast and brightness, then sharpened using Sharpen, and finally a blue photo filter was used at 35% opacity.

The finished image looks like this:

Professional skills in working in a 3D modeling program will be widely used in various fields of activity, ranging from architecture or residential design to creating video games or animation. By improving in 3D visualization, you become a sought-after specialist.

3D visualization of the exterior - training from Joseph Chetvertakov

Most designers begin to master 3D modeling on their own, drawing knowledge only from free sources. Most often, they face a fiasco, since any free courses and articles contain only part of the information.

Joseph Chetvertakov has prepared a structured course “Exterior in 3D Max” for beginners and experienced professionals. Training takes place both in the school office and online, depending on the student’s wishes.

Basics of creating an exterior in 3Ds Max

The course by Joseph Chetvertakov consists of a theoretical basis and 100 hours of practical training. All students receive bonuses from the School of 3D Design:

• collection of video courses for learning AutoCAD
• a collection of 3D models for creating an exterior;
• collection of textures and materials.

During the Exterior in 3D Max course, you will start working on a real project and gain experience for your future career. You will learn how to put together a strong portfolio so that you have a queue of clients.

We looked at modeling the building box and landscape in 3Ds Max, and examined in detail various approaches to exterior lighting (day and night) in Corona Renderer and V-ray. We briefly looked at Speed ​​Tree's capabilities for creating three-dimensional plants. In addition, at the webinar he reviewed the stages of creating an exterior real time project in Unreal Engine 4.12.

Exterior in 3Ds Max, Corona renderer and V-ray - part 2

At the webinar we looked at the creation of the following materials: wood, glass, concrete and stone, metals (chrome and polished with abrasions), earth (we worked in the B2M program - we made a seamless gravel texture for part of the landscape). We applied all the materials to the objects created in the first lesson, correctly arranging them using standard Max mapping. We talked a little about the application of PBR and PBS principles in setting up Corona shaders. We examined the creation of a composite material using Corona LayeredMtl. During the online lesson we had time to work with vegetation - set up both grass and trees for placement on the landscape, set up their materials, played with corona multimap and corona scatter, looked at their basic settings. We started rendering the resulting views from the cameras:

Exterior in 3Ds Max, Corona renderer and V-ray - part 3

RECORDING OF THE FINAL WEBINAR FROM THE SERIES “EXTERIOR FROM A TO Z”. At the webinar, we prepared a building in 3Ds max for import into Unreal Engine - we created scans on its elements, converted materials into standard ones, and reset pivots.
We created a project in the game engine, worked with the landscape and materials, imported the building, and talked about fbx export settings. Also during the lesson, a texture set was created in Quixel Megascane and ZBrush was mentioned, applicable to the visualization of exteriors and interiors. In the second part of the webinar we discussed the topic of monetization of knowledge in the field of 3D:

Architectural 3D studio Avshare offers you the development of exterior visualization quickly, efficiently, and on favorable terms.

By contacting us, you can use a service such as exterior visualization. It includes the creation of a three-dimensional model of buildings and their facades, garden plots, private areas, lawns and flower beds and allows you to present the final result of the work of the architect and landscape designer before he begins to implement his own ideas.

The most realistic look is the advantage that a 3D model of the exterior has. It will allow you to examine the visualization of your ideas and wishes in great detail. In addition, 3D modeling will allow you to save significantly: if you decide to reconstruct a house or transform the landscape of a site, with the help of the project you will be able to calculate the budget you need and the amount of building material. But the most important thing is that you will always have a clear vision of what should happen in the end.

Review of 3D model of the exterior

Exterior visualization, the price of which is calculated strictly individually, is a photo image that is as close as possible to the real-life object. And a 3D model is created based on photos or drawings of an existing structure, site plan or park area.

Prices for the development of 3D exteriors

Advantages of cooperation with us

AVESHARE is an architectural 3D studio whose work is widely known among large companies and design bureaus. Using our experience and the most modern technologies allows us to implement ideas of any complexity, and also guarantee our clients:

• strict adherence to work deadlines,
• quality of work at all stages,
• taking into account the individual wishes of the client,

In addition, you can order work as a package from us and get a nice discount. We are waiting for your applications by phone or through the contact form on the website.