With Enscape 2.6, we are able to offer greater reflection fidelity and more accurate indirect lighting, to provide an even more realistic & immersive experience. We have been able to achieve this by overhauling and enhancing our calculation algorithm, resulting in improved indirect lighting and ray traced reflections.

How do we achieve these results?

Enscape has been using ray tracing techniques for years; we realized early on the importance of using lighting and reflection calculations to deliver the most authentic images possible. Ray tracing techniques emulate the real world effect of light interacting with the objects in our view. In Enscape, an algorithm simulates light rays, tracing them from the imaginary eye, or camera, to the light source. As this is fundamentally similar to how light behaves in real life, it can achieve amazingly realistic results.

Off-screen reflections displayed correctly

Which optimizations can you expect in 2.6?

How exactly will you benefit from these optimization? It’s the fine details that will make all the difference. You will now see reflection fidelity, even when the geometry is off-screen, as in the image above. The woman, chair, plant, and painting are all behind the camera, but shown in the reflection in exact detail.

Texture maps and cutout materials are also now accurately displayed.  Where previously perhaps only geometry would have been visible, now textures you apply will appear in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. In the image above, the cutout texture of the plant is now displayed accurately. Any shadows cast by objects are also visible.

Even in mirrors, lights and textures are accurately displayed; project credit: Finn

Another benefit for you is that light sources are now accurately displayed in reflections. Domestic indoor scenes often have both artificial light sources and mirrors or reflective surfaces placed around the room. As shown in the image above, light sources show in the reflection, adding to the realism of the scene. In real life, we would expect to see these details; now we can have them in Enscape as well.

Accurate indirect lighting in an interior scene; project credit: Pablo Correa

Beyond reflections, indirect lighting in general has also been optimized. The improved indirect lighting lends a more natural, true to life atmosphere, especially to interior scenes. With 2.6, interior scenes with artificial lights benefit greatly with less indirect light leaking and more pronounced indirect shadows. Like reflections, lights and shadows are details that tend to draw the eye when they are off.

How do I make the most out of these improvements?

Now that we’ve covered what has changed, you might be wondering how it will benefit you directly. With Enscape 2.6, you will be able to create your projects knowing that when you click the Start Enscape button, your reflections and indirect lighting will be displayed correctly.

Beautifully accurate reflection; project credit: tas_1985

Accurate lighting and reflections can make all the difference in an image. Of course the most obvious reason why reflections in rendered images are important is the element of photorealism. Many materials like water or highly reflective surfaces like marble or glass act like mirrors in real life. We expect to see accurate reflections in them, so if these are missing from a rendering containing these materials, something feels off; with Enscape 2.6, your reflections will be eye-catching because of their stunning accuracy.

Stunning reflections on a water surface; project credit: tas_1985

More and more architects use reflections not only to achieve photorealism, but to give their spaces a greater sense of depth. Reflections are also important because of the atmosphere they can create. There is only so much you can show on a still rendering, and even if the space is beautifully arranged, you might not be able to capture every detail in one image.

Reflections allow you to add a sense of depth to any image, like when a reflective floor indicates high ceilings that would otherwise not be visible. If you are only able to show the corner of a room in your rendering, a mirror helps create a sense of depth, where the image could feel flat.

Conclusion

Have you already created a beautiful rendering using Enscape 2.6? Post it in the Showcase section of our Forum ! Our vibrant community is there to give you encouragement, tips and tricks.

The post Enscape 2.6: Enhanced Lighting and Reflections for Unprecedented Realism appeared first on Enscape.

Enscape 2.6: Next-Level Realism with the New ArchiCAD Material Editor

The Enscape Material Editor is now available to ArchiCAD users! You now have access to the full spectrum of material parameters, allowing you to enhance the realism of your image and streamline your workflow at the same time. Apply bump and roughness maps or customize your grass, all while keeping an overview of your used materials. For an indepth overview of the Editor’s individual settings, read through our dedicated Knowledgebase article. For even more ideas on how to use the Enscape Material Editor, check out this blog post  by Dan Stein about the editor in Rhino.

1. ADD NEW DIMENSIONS TO YOUR MATERIALS
2. BUMP MAPS
3. ROUGHNESS MAPS
4. CONCLUSION

Add New Dimensions to Your Materials

For this tutorial, I created a modern kitchen with lots of colors and materials. Do the appliances, decorative items, chairs and plants look familiar? They are all from our Asset Library; check out the over 300 new models here . The project already looks great in Enscape, but the new Enscape Material Editor lets you take your materials to a new level of realism. Let’s take a look at how it works.

A modern kitchen built in ArchiCAD

When you open the Material Editor, you can access and refine any material you have created in the ArchiCAD’s Surface Editor. Simply scroll to find and select it, or search the title in the Search bar.

The Enscape Material Editor with no selected material

Selecting a material reveals its changeable parameters

Upon opening the Editor you have a variety of refinement options. In this post, we’ll cover the features that are now new to ArchiCAD users: bump and roughness maps. But first, let’s take a look at some basic functionalities.

An unrealistically reflective stove

One thing that can definitely be improved upon is the metal of the stove. The basic ArchiCAD stainless steel material is extremely reflective; reducing this even slightly would already boost the realism of the scene. In the above stainless steel material profile, you’ll see under the Reflections category that the roughness value is quite low; this translates to a highly reflective material. This value defines basically how smooth or rough a material appears: a smooth material will be more reflective than a rough material.

A low roughness value translates to a shiny stove

A less reflective, more realistic surface

Higher roughness values make a surface less reflective

Increasing the roughness just slightly already takes the edge off the reflectivity. Reducing the metallic value gives the material the brushed look that many kitchen appliances have. This effect can be heightened even more by introducing a bump map, which we’ll cover below.

Unrealistically matte marble

If the stove was distractingly reflective, the marble countertop is not reflective enough. This popular material for a counter is extremely shiny, and if we were able to see reflections in it, the scene would already look more realistic. Here we simply reduce the roughness value to 0%.

The same marble material with a lower roughness value

Just like that the marble looks much more true-to-life. It is now as highly reflective as it is in real life, and we are able to make out the reflections of the objects standing on the counter.

Another quick setting you can play with is Tint, located in the Albedo section. You can change the tint of any applied albedo texture via the dropdown menu; select a standard color, or enter values in the Advanced tab to get the hue just right.

Choose the perfect tint color for your material

In our kitchen, I’ve played around with this setting to test out colors for the stucco walls. The color updates automatically, so I can see what paint color would look best without having to change the applied texture each time. In the end I stuck with classic white.

Test different paint colors in seconds

Bump Maps

Now that we have covered the basic functions of the Editor, I’ll cover how to most effectively use the new features for ArchiCAD users, starting with bump maps. Previously not supported in the native ArchiCAD Surface Editor, bump maps are usually the deciding factor in creating a realistic rendering. If you’ve ever looked at a stunning rendering and wondered how to achieve that photorealistic look, the answer is oftentimes simply: add a bump map.

Unrealistically flat tile

Add the bump map in the Bump section

This tiled backsplash is certainly an eye-catcher, but right now it’s for the wrong reasons. It looks less like real tile and more like a printed wallpaper. Adding a bump map will define the tiles and render them more realistic. The tiles are a free texture from CGBookcase . The download included a ready-made bump map, which I applied as a bump texture in the Bump section of the Material Editor.

Bump map results in more defined tiles

The effect is immediate: now we can clearly see the definition between the individual tiles. After lowering the roughness value and increasing the metallic value slightly, the tiles look much better than before. This is a small change that makes the backsplash now eye-catching for all the right reasons.

If your textures didn’t include a bump map, that’s absolutely no problem. If you have an albedo texture applied, you always have the option to use your texture as a bump map. Simply click the Use Albedo link in the Bump section and Enscape will take care of the rest.

When there is a bump map applied, you have the ability to control the amount of bump added. What does this mean, and what effect can it have? Bump maps are used to create the illusion of raised details on a surface: for example, the height difference between the tile and the grout in the previous example. Bump maps are grayscale, and the black and white areas tell Enscape two things: up or down. The black areas of a bump map simulate depths and the white areas raised areas.

So, adjusting the amount of bump controls the intensity of this effect: a high amount of bump results in deep groves and high raised areas, a low amount results in a more even-looking surface. Let’s test this on our kitchen’s wooden floor.

Use your albedo texture if you don’t have a bump map

Without any bump applied, it already looks pretty nice, but we can do better. I didn’t have a dedicated bump map for this texture, so I used the albedo texture. Below you can see the result of increasing or decreasing the amount of bump; 3 is the default value for bump.

Different amounts of bump on the wood floor

Here the effect becomes quite visible. At zero the floor is completely flat, like a photo. With a value of 10, the bump map is extreme and shows the grain patterns in detail. It’s a good idea to play around with the value to see what fits best into the scene. The default value of 3 already looks great, but it looked a bit too rough to be flooring to me, so I chose 1.75, for slight definition.

Roughness Maps

The second big improvement that the ArchiCAD Material Editor brings is roughness maps. These work in tandem with the roughness value we adjusted to make the marble shiny and the stainless steel more matte. Roughness maps control the sharpness of the reflections on an object. The roughness slider increases the reflectivity in a uniform manner; the whole surface will become more or less reflective. A roughness map defines roughness or reflectivity of certain areas of your texture. This map can be used to great effect to add character to the surface of an object: scratches, fingerprints, smudges, etc.

Speaking of smudges, there’s one clear place to show the effect of a roughness map, and that’s the kitchen sink. Right now it is very clean and shiny. But in a real kitchen, it’s probably the first surface to get dirty or splashed with water.

A very clean sink

Add roughness maps under the Reflections section

To test two different effects, I applied two different roughness maps to the Texture area of the Reflections section. Both also came from CGBookcase, who have a great variety of free roughness maps to simulate surface imperfections. There’s even a roughness map to add fingerprints to a surface!

Sink with water roughness map

Sink with smudges roughness map

Here you can see the results. The first image shows a sink with dried water stains, while the second is a smudge roughness map, which indicates an effect between wear and tear and imprecise cleaning. Another tip for our Material Editor: when you apply a texture, bump or roughness map, you can adjust settings specific to that map by clicking the corresponding tab.

Here you can adjust the brightness and inversion, and if you tick the checkbox next to “Explicit texture transformation”, you’ll be able to change the size and rotation of the map or texture.

Select the tab to adjust map settings

So here is our final image!

A modern kitchen with lots of eye-catching details

Conclusion

By using the ArchiCAD Material Editor to enhance small details in your project, you can take your rendering to the next level in terms of realism. Where before only textures were supported, you can now add bump and roughness maps to give your materials new dimensions.

Have you already created a beautiful rendering using the ArchiCAD Material Editor? Post it in the Showcase section of our Forum ! Our vibrant community is there to give you encouragement, tips and tricks.

The post Enscape 2.6: Next-Level Realism with the New ArchiCAD Material Editor appeared first on Enscape.

Introduction to the Enscape Material Editor for Rhino 6

One of the great things about Enscape is its consistency across the primary design platforms it supports: Rhino, Revit, SketchUp and ArchiCAD. With the recent release of Enscape 2.5, customers now have a Material Editor inside Rhino 6. It is very much like the Enscape material editor already in SketchUp. This article will highlight the extended visualization opportunities now afforded Rhino users, thanks to this new Enscape feature.

LIGHTHOUSE MODEL CREDIT

To show off the new material editor in Rhino, I downloaded a free model from Turbosquid called Lighthouse on the artificial rock  by user Shakudo . Be sure to click the link and take a look at the other models by this user; some are free and the rest are reasonably priced when you consider the time it would take to model each item. I only added the water (a large 3D box) and the Enscape assets, so you too can download this model and try these new features yourself if you wish!

Lighthouse Project Modeled in Enscape

INTRODUCTION

The first thing to know is that this feature only works with Rhino 6 and higher due to some technical limitations in older versions.

Next, each Rhino material you wish to adjust must be selected and have its Type set to Enscape as shown in the image below. Once that is done, those materials will appear in Enscape’s material editor.

Setting Rhino Material Type to 'Enscape'

Notice, in the image above that the Enscape material Type (not the Rhino material Type) has been set to Water. This setting changes the options shown to those related to water; Water Color, Wind Settings, and Wave Settings.

Enscape Material Type Set to 'Water' Results in Realistic Looking Water

Using a solid color and a plaster bump map, the walls have a realistic texture. Notice the bump map can be scaled as needed.

General Settings for 'Wall' Material

Bump settings for 'Wall' Material

Resultant Wall Texture in Enscape

For the lighthouse lens, the material is adjusted in the Enscape material editor to be self-illuminating.

Notice the material now contributes light to the scene, which makes it look pretty cool at night with bloom and lens flare adjustments!

Notice, I also added to spotlights using the Rhino 6 light source tools.

Developing a Self-Illuminating Material

At nighttime, self-illuminating Materials Really Shine!

Enscape 'Clearcoat' settings

Using the Clearcoat option, we can get a nice dark black rail and platform, yet with highlights and reflections.

Without this setting the elements would not have as much definition and blend together.

But this model does not really do justice to this amazing option, so be sure to keep this in mind when you see the stunning car model coming up next in this post.

Clearcoat Result, showing Better Definition of Dark Elements

Using a solid color and a wood bump map, representing painted wood is easy!

General Enscape Material Settings for Painted Wood

Bump Map for Wood

Resultant Wood texture in Enscape

HIGH QUALITY VIDEO

The ability to easily create videos following a complex path is not new. However, seeing a video with the new enhanced materials is. Here are two examples below. For more information on creating videos, see this post: Best Practices for Video Creation in Enscape .

Enscape Video of Rhino Model with High Quality Materials - 01

DODGE CHALLENGER MODEL CREDIT

To show off the Enscape clearcoat material in Rhino, I downloaded another free model from cgtrader called Dodge Challenger 1970 3D Model Files  by user Danny Sanchez .

INTRODUCTION

Now for some fun with an American muscle car. Using this model along with a downloaded HDR skybox, for some beautiful reflections, we can really show how this clearcoat feature shines All this is implemented in just three clicks of the mouse as shown in the next image.

On a related note, nearly two years ago, I wrote a post on my blog on achieving similar results in Revit. Read about that here: Reflect on Enscape + Materials .

Enscape 'Clearcoat' settings

Here are several views of the car painted black… they speak for themselves!

Sample Car Model with 'Clearcoat' Material Applied

Clearcoat results in a highly reflective surface

Material with Bump and Self-Illuminance Applied to Taillights

Enscape Asset and Quality Reflecitons

What to try different colors? No problem…

Changing the Color is Simple

ADDITIONAL IMAGES

Because it is so easy to compose new views in Enscape, here are several more images. Some have slight material and environmental adjustment. By the way, I like to adjust the view angle down to 28-35mm for a more realistic look when exporting still images. Too much fun!

CONCLUSION

For additional information related to this new feature, take a look at this SketchUp article I wrote on the same topic: SketchUp Material Editor; Enhanced Materials in SketchUp . It is interesting that there are several material enhancements now possible in Rhino and SketchUp, that are not possible in Revit, the original platform supported by Enscape.

Enscape is becoming the one-stop-shop for all your visualization needs. This will help staff be more efficient as they only have to learn a single tool for the firm and the entire life of a project: especially those staff who are not visualization specialists. Please share your Rhino examples using the new material editor!

Please get in touch via twitter @enscape3d and @DanStine_MN .

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB - a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Enscape 2.5: Introduction to the Enscape Material Editor for Rhino 6 appeared first on Enscape.

Wood is an amazing and versatile natural material we all love, in its natural setting, as carved figures and furniture or as finishes within buildings. This material has many characteristics such as species, finish and modern applications like plywood and glulam beams and columns. In this article I will share some tips on ways to represent wood optimally in Enscape.

This article will focus on developing wood materials in Revit, but many of the concepts also apply to SketchUp. For more on wood in SketchUp, be sure to check out this YouTube video by Architecture Inspirations called REALISTIC Wood Materials Tips and Tricks | Enscape for SketchUp . He does a great job of covering many important concepts in just six minutes! And many of his tips also apply to Revit indirectly.

1. Revit’s Wood Material
2. Revit Advanced Materials
3. Plywood Materials
4. Distressed Wood
5. Autodesk Provided Wood Texture And Bump Files
6. Generic Revit Materials
7. Painted Wood
8. Conclusion

First, we will look at some of the materials that come with Revit, how they are setup and how they look in Enscape. Then we will look at how to adjust these materials and, finally, create new ones.

High Quality Wood Textures

REVIT’S WOOD MATERIAL

Revit has a physically based material type for wood. Enscape understands this material type, which results in high quality images. This first image is based on the Wood Flooring material that comes with Revit. Looking at the material settings, you should note three helpful settings; Stain, Finish and Relief Pattern. These three settings can drastically change how the wood looks.

As you would guess, the Finish controls the roughness, or gloss, of the surface. But, compared to the advanced materials covered later, this is an all or nothing setting.

The Relief Pattern setting is able to simulate the three-dimensional nature of the material, like the joints between the boards and the recess along the gain. Similar to the Enscape material editor in SketchUp, this material type can base the wood grain on the albedo using the Based on Wood Grain option.

Wood flooring material – default settings

Wood flooring material – stain color applied

When Stain is checked, the Stain Color becomes available. Adjusting this value affects the overall color of the wood as shown below.

Wood flooring material – default settings

Wood flooring material – stain color settings

Wood flooring material – Bump height adjusted

In this next example, using the same wood-based Revit shader, a custom material is used. I downloaded this material from SketchUp Texture Club . Here you can download quality textures for free, and for a fee you get access to the highest quality versions. I downloaded the seamless texture shown below and applied it to a new wood-based Revit material.

Tip
When creating a new material, remember to click on the image preview and adjust the size.

Wood-based material with bump defined by woodgrain in the main texture (albedo)

Wood-based material with bump defined by woodgrain in the main texture (albedo)

REVIT ADVANCED MATERIALS

Now let’s look at Revit’s new advanced materials for representing wood. With this opaque shader type, you can achieve the best results, which is closest to Enscape’s own material settings found in SketchUp. A few examples, rendered in Enscape, are shown here.

Examples of Revit’s new advanced materials

Examples of Revit’s new advanced materials

One of the best ways to test a material is in context, as shown in the next two images. Here we have daylight, artificial light, various shades and shadows as well as reflections. Just testing a material in an empty model does not reveal the true character of the material. Notice the difference between the finished bamboo flooring and the unfinished plywood. Also, a larger area like this will quickly reveal any unwanted repeating patterns, which results from the seamless texture sample area being too small.

Revit advanced material - Bamboo

Revit advanced material – Unfinished plywood

PLYWOOD PANELS

In addition to the plywood panel shown above, Revit 2019 also provides two materials which represent the laminated layers at the edge of a panel. In the example below, I painted the edge material to make the plywood panel look more realistic.

Advanced plywood material with painted edges with painted edges

Detailed view - Advanced plywood material

DISTRESSED WOOD

Now let’s look at customizing a Revit material to get specific results. In this case, we want to represent an old wood floor with several scratch marks. Let’s say the client likes the aesthetic and desires to simply clean and seal it. The first step is finding a texture that matches the wood species. This Revit walnut material is pretty close. The default settings produce a matte finish, so adjusting the Roughness value gives us the clear coat finish we want.

Revit advanced material – Walnut with default settings

Revit advanced material – Walnut with roughness adjusted to 55

Next we need to modify the bump map to add the scratches. I opened the bump map used in the original walnut advanced material, made a copy and then added two new Photoshop layers. On one, I added the scratch marks and on the other, the joints between the boards. Here is the final bump file and the results in Enscape… amazing!

Final bump with scratches

Sample result in Enscape

Now let’s look at the result in context. The next two images embody the idea that this floor as been in service for many years, and in this sustainably remodeled project, it will have many more!

Walnut floor material with scratches

AUTODESK PROVIDED WOOD TEXTURE AND BUMP FILES

When looking for wood textures, you can start with the ones installed on your computer. The following image shows the search results for “wood” in this folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials\Textures\3\Mats. You may find textures here not associated with Revit materials, or are used in some other context, such as fencing or soffits, but could still fit your needs.

Tip
Be sure to use the textures in the “3” folder and not “1” or “2” as those are lower quality versions.

Search Autodesk Textures folder for “wood”

Notice in the detailed list above, I added the Dimensions column to the view. This helps to identify the higher quality images, likely associated with the new Revit 2019 advanced materials. When switching to the previews, the same sorting is still applied. Notice how the high-quality material are not square? You need to keep this in mind with setting the texture size in Revit.

Search Autodesk Textures Folder for “Wood”

Of course, there are many placing to find high quality textures. Some are discussed in the YouTube video linked above and some in the “Free Resources ” Enscape blog post.

GENERIC REVIT MATERIALS

In addition to the advanced and wood-based materials (i.e. shaders) we can also use the Generic material type. In the example below, the exterior wood shake siding, I use a Revit provided material and then fade the image so the custom color bleeds through; similar results can be achieved using the Tint option here as well. The result simulates a green colored stain where the color variation of the wood is telegraphed through the finish.

Exterior wood shakes material settings

Exterior wood shakes

PAINTED WOOD

In this final example, we will look at representing painted wood. This is done using an advanced material with no main image, just a color. Then, a woodgrain bump file is used for both the roughness and bump. The results can be seen in the following image. There are many cases where this level of detail cannot be appreciated, but when it can be seen, it makes for a very compelling visualization!

Painted wood - window shutter with woodgrain bump applied

CONCLUSION

With these tips in mind, creating the right wood material for a real-world design project becomes a simple task. These assets can then be saved in a custom Revit material library and used on other projects. And, if saved on a shared network, everyone on the team – or in the office – can benefit.

If you keep an eye out for it, you’ll notice that wood materials pop up all over your project. So it’s even more important that you make sure each material looks its best. In the end, you want to give your client the most realistic experience of their project, before the construction has even started. By paying special attention to your materials, you’ll be sure to blow them away. For more tips on how to make your materials even more accurate, check out my previous post about getting your albedo just right .

Give wood the love it deserves… make a quality material and render it in Enscape!

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB - a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Best Practices: Wood in Architectural Design appeared first on Enscape.

Revit flat grass

Enscape 3D Grass

Here are a few images I have created which greatly benefit from realistic and natural looking grass. All three images where rendered with Enscape and have had no post-production edits.

Grass shown in a transportation project

Grass shown in a landscape architecture project

GRASS IN REVIT

Using Autodesk Revit, we can achieve amazing results in Enscape using various materials to define grass. Let’s look at how this works and what the options are.

Grass Height

The magic happens when Grass Rendering is ticked within the Enscape settings dialog and one or more Revit materials have the keywords “grass”, “short grass”, “tall grass” or “wild grass”. Here is an example of each grass style compared side-by-side.

Revit material with keyword ‘grass’ in name

Revit material with keyword ‘tall grass’ in name

Revit material with keyword ‘wild grass’ in name

Grass Color

Because Enscape samples the color or texture assigned to the material, we can achieve interesting results. I have been using this texture for a while as it has subtle variations in color, which translates nicely to Enscape’s 3D grass. It was acquired from a larger high-resolution aerial image. I set the texture size to 120’ square; the patterns are not obvious due to the scale.

Texture I often use for the grass material texture

Here are the results in Enscape… notice the color is not consistent, an effect that often occurs due to droughts. So, the result is more natural if this is the look you are going for.

Grass rendered using texture shown above

Grass rendered using texture shown above

A few grass types to study

Grass Types

Now let’s look at how we can create specific grass types. You will be happy to know it is easy. First, notice a few grass types shown in the image: Centipede, Bermuda, St. Augustine and Zoysia. I found this image by searching the internet for “grass types”. I then cropped the image down to just the desired grass type (no text or lines) and saved a separate image. Applying that new image, with a texture size of about 8-12” wide and 4-5” tall produced the results shown below. Of course, finding larger tileable samples would produce better results and look correct in Revit if ‘realistic view’ were ever used.

Here are the results of my ‘grass types’ study in Enscape…

Grass type study: Centipede

Grass type study: Bermuda

Grass type study: St. Augustine

Grass type study: Zoysia

Out of curiosity, let’s look at what the two default Revit grass materials look like in Enscape – these are the ones that install with the software. There is a big difference. The one actually called “grass” is way too dark. The other is better, but still a little off. And this will change with the lighting, so remember to consider the albedo .

Grass study: Revit’s default grass material

Grass study: Revit’s default ‘Plant’ material

With this, we can see the variety of options we have to represent grass in Revit. Some of the techniques offered in the next section on SketchUp can also be applied in Revit. However, Revit does not have the detailed sliders for height and height variation.

Tip
If the grass is poking through your floor or walk in Revit, add a Building Pad below the floor/walk to stamp out the top of the toposurface in that area.

Grass settings in the Material Editor

Notice in the Enscape Materials dialog the Type is set to Grass and we have two sliders; one for Height and another for Height Variation. You can quickly set you material type to grass via the dropdown menu. The grass settings are only visible if the type is set to grass. Use the Height slider to adjust how long your grass is. The Height Variation slider adds variation to the height and size of the grass blades. The higher the amount of height variation, the wilder your grass will look. If you would prefer a more uniform appearance, set the slider to a low value.

When setting the material via keyword, the type is automatically set to grass because the SketchUp material name has the word ”grass” in it. But, we can also manually change the name if needed. In this model, there were a few materials with the words “vegetation” and “grass” in the same name. Those materials default to Vegetation so I must either change the name or manually change the type… I did the latter.

Grass height (0,50,100) and variation set to zero

Sports Examples

If you design sports stadiums or athletics fields for educational institutions, you will be happy to know Enscape can produce extraordinary results for this application! I did a quick search, again on 3D Warehouse, and found a high quality model of the Gillette-Stadium created by Cleveland Rocks to explore this use case.

In this SketchUp model each grass color is a different material. All I did for each of these materials was make sure the type was set to grass and adjust the height and variation sliders to zero. And that was it! Just five minutes into opening this model and I was able to navigate a photorealistic model in real-time, even adjusting the time of day.

Various grass materials used to define sports field

Here is a close-up shot of the logo defined by several different grass colors.

Detailed view of logo defined with grass material

Thinking Outside the Box

In this last example I selected a carpet texture for the albedo, and the result is not too bad in Enscape! There are likely many ways in which this versatile material can be used. However, keep in mind it cannot currently be used on vertical surfaces.

Using grass to represent carpet, outdoor carpet in this case

Example: Using grass to represent carpet, outdoor carpet in this case

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB - a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Best Practices: Grass in Architectural Design appeared first on Enscape.

Best Practices for Emissive Materials in SketchUp

You may have seen my recent post about artificial light sources in SketchUp , in which I covered different techniques to realistically light your model. But there is another way of creating light in your projects: emissive materials. These self-illuminated materials emit light, but differently than artificial light sources, and can be used to create effects that you can’t achieve with artificial lights.

Making your material emissive turns it into a glowing light source, which you can assign to any shape and even add a texture to. This means you can be incredibly creative with emissive materials. They are often used on objects where some part should appear to glow, such as a television or computer screen, the brake lights of a car, or an exit sign. But you can also use them to create light in areas of your model where it might be impractical to use artificial lights: to create the effect of recessed ceiling lighting, for example.

It can be difficult to differentiate when to use emissive materials versus artificial lights; both have their benefits and drawbacks. Understanding when to use which type of light can take your project to the next level in terms of realism. In this post you’ll learn all about emissive materials, how to apply and adjust them using Enscape’s Material Editor in SketchUp, and their many different uses. This post show examples from SketchUp, but you can of course work with emissive materials in Revit, Rhino and ArchiCAD as well!

What Is an Emissive Material?

Emissive materials are self-illuminated materials, that is, materials that emit light across their surface. When an emissive material is used in a scene, it is rendered as a visible light source, and depending on the intensity you set, its glow can actually light up the surrounding area. The great advantage of emissive materials is that you can use them to create complex forms that glow; you can get really creative! Check out the picture below; I just created some shapes in SketchUp, and made the generic white material assigned to them emissive.

White material applied to simple geometry

The effect created by making the material emissive

Emissive materials belong to the global illumination calculation. Global illumination (GI) is an important element in the rendering of realistic scenes.  When light hits a surface, it does not simply end there, but bounces. With GI, these bounces result in an indirect light, which illuminates areas of your project that may not have artificial light or direct access to sunlight, like a long hallway or the corners of a room. Emissive materials are part of this GI calculation, meaning they emit indirect light. You won’t be able to use them to simulate a spotlight, but you can recreate the glow of a television screen, for example.

Let’s take a look at how you make a material emissive in SketchUp; with Enscape’s Material Editor, it just takes two clicks! First, open the Material Editor by clicking on the button in the Enscape ribbon, or by selecting Enscape Materials in the Enscape dropdown menu. Then use the native SketchUp pickup tool to select the material you would like to make emissive. This will allow you to adjust various settings relating to the material; to make it emissive, just check the box next to Self Illumination.

Check the Self Illumination box to make your material emissive

An emissive surface emitting white light and creating shadows

As you can see, the material surface emits a very bright light, which casts softer shadows. Emissive materials have one bounce less than artificial lights, which results in the light not being able to bounce around many corners. To change the brightness of the material, adjust the Luminance slider.

Tip
Global illumination is switched off in Enscape’s Draft Mode, so the light emitted by your emissive materials will no longer bounce. The surface will still be bright, as you can see in the image below, but the materials will no longer contribute to the overall lighting in your scene.

An emissive material contributing to the bounced light in the room

The same emissive material in draft mode

Tip
Emissive materials can be noisy and cause an effect known as fireflies. These types of surfaces cause artifacts commonly known as fireflies. If you encounter this effect, increase the size or decrease the brightness of your emissive surface. It is best to use emissive surfaces that are as large as possible to avoid noise.

What makes emissive materials so versatile is that you can illuminate both colors and textures. To apply a color to your emissive material, simply select a color from the drop down menu in the Enscape Materials Editor.

Emissive surface emitting a blue color

Match you color values for identical colors

Tip
To exactly match your material’s color to the color that is emitted as light, simply copy the color value out of the Advanced tab of the albedo color drop down menu into the same space in the emissive color menu.

Now check out what it looks like if you apply texture. For this example I have applied a wood floor as my texture, to emphasize the effect. It’s up to you whether to match the color of the light emitted to the color of the material itself. The generic white light that is emitted will still be slightly tinted to the color of the texture. If you would like the effect to be more intense, you can adjust the color of the light emitted, as I have done below.

Apply a texture and match the color

The texture applied to an emissive material with also glow

Emissive materials do have certain drawbacks. Occasionally, if the geometry you applied an emissive material to is not visible on screen, the light emitted by the surface may not contribute to the actual light level in the scene. For example, if you apply an emissive material to some geometry and then turn the camera so that it is no longer in view, the light being emitted by the surface might not show. If this occurs, try changing your camera perspective until part of the geometry is visible again, and the light will return.

How to Use Emissive Materials

One great way to use them to boost your scene’s realism is to apply them to digital screens. Have you ever looked at a rendered scene of a living room with a television, or an office full of computer monitors and felt there was something a little off? That’s because in real life, we are surrounded by glowing screens. Applying a low level emissive material can give your scene the authenticity it needs. Check out the living room below. It already looks pretty great, but the television and tablet appear a bit flat.

Select the texture on the screen using the pickup tool. You will see it in the albedo section of the Enscape Materials Editor. Just enable Self Illumination, and the screen will glow. Play around with the brightness; you probably won’t need it to be so bright that it contributes to the overall light level of the room – just bright enough to give off a visible glow. Depending on the situation, you can adjust the color of the light emitted to match. Above I did this with the television, but left the tablet with the default white light. Get creative!

A comfortable living room scene

Check out that reflection on the coffee table!

Another way to apply emissive materials to enhance the authenticity of your scene is to apply them to small glowing elements we see every day. One of my favorite new ways to use emissive materials is to enhance car models. The car below is meant to be idling in the main drive, but none of its lights are illuminated, detracting from the realness of the scene. Illuminate a few materials, and it looks like it could drive away before your eyes.

Tip
Use emissive materials in combination with artificial lights. Enscape doesn't render the actual source of artificial light, just the result: you won't see the point the light originates from, but you will see the light hitting part of your scene. Make the geometry inside the light fixture emissive to achieve a realistic lighting effect, without any post-production.

Just a little touch of light…

can make your scene much more authentic!

Emissive materials are also perfect when you want to create a lighting effect similar to an LED light, or for lighting up areas that are tricky to get to with artificial lights. Take for example recessed ceiling lighting, or LED lights that are installed along the tops of cabinets. These types of lights are seen both in residential houses and in office buildings or stores.

Achieving this effect with artificial lights can be time consuming, and might not give you the result you are looking for. Instead, try using emissive materials. It’s usually quick and easy, because the geometry already exists. Just apply an emissive material to the right spot, and it will give the effect of an LED light rail installed in a recessed space.

Tip
Emissive materials, along with any applied colors or textures, will be visible in reflections, unlike other types of indirect light. However, it is not possible to guarantee 100% accuracy in reflections; the more geometry that is involved, the less likely it is that the reflections will be accurate, for performance reasons. So if reflections are an important part of your scene, keep it simple.

Emissive Versus Artificial

So what is it important to consider when weighing emissive materials against artificial lights? Oftentimes it is not entirely clear which type of light might be the best for your situation. Take a look at the table below for a quick overview.

	Emissive	Artificial light
Shape and Size	Illuminate every possible surface and shape	Restricted to certain types and sizes (Spot, sphere, rectangle, disk, linear)
Light	Potentially noisy, especially if powerful and small	Almost noise free
Shadows	Rather blurry	Sharper
Bounce light	Needs one indirect bounce to be visible at all	Directly visible, therefore have one indirect bounce more than emissive
Customization	Change the color and apply a texture to illuminate	Only color can be changed
Performance	Cause less performance strain than artificial lights	Many artificial light sources can impact your real-time performance
Visibility	Light can appear to turn off if the camera does not see the source	Light is always visible, even if the camera is not facing the source
Light Level Adjustments	Must be individually dimmed or brightened	Can be collectively turned on and off via the Enscape Setting menu
Source	Emits light, and shows where the light is emitted from	Emits light, but shows no visible source

Size and Shape: Emissive materials can be applied to any size or shape of geometry. There is basically no limit to your creativity! Artificial lights, on the other hand, have pre-defined shapes and sizes.

Light: Diffuse light is potentially very noisy, especially if the emissive surface is small and bright. In these situations, it’s a better idea to use an area or point light, as artificial lights are virtually noise free.

Shadows: The light emitted by self-illuminated materials casts fuzzier, very blurry shadows. If you are looking for sharp, clean differentiations between light and dark, you might try a spot light instead.

Bounce light: The light given off by emissive materials has one bounce less than artificial lights. This results in the light not being able to bounce around many corners. Artificial lights bounce one time more and are therefore generally brighter.

Customization: You can apply a color to your artificial lights if you want to create a certain atmosphere or effect. However, emissive materials allow you to illuminate not only a color, but also an applied texture, leaving no limit on your creativity.

Performance: Placing many artificial light sources in your project can impact your performance, even if you have a top of the line graphics card. Using emissive materials to replace artificial light sources can improve your performance if you find your project lagging.

Visibility: It can be the case that the light from emissive materials seems to turn off when the source is not directly visible to the camera. You might find that if the light source is behind the camera, the emitted light will disappear as well. The light cast by artificial lights is always visible.

Light Level Adjustments: You can adjust the individual brightness of you artificial lights, but if you want them to be collectively brighter, or turn them all off, you can do this using the Light Brightness slider in the Advanced tab of the Enscape Settings menu. This setting does not affect emissive materials: if you want to dim or turn them off, you’ll need to adjust each material’s settings individually.

Source: Emissive materials emit light and show where the light is being emitted from; their light source is visible. With artificial lights, you will only see the light emitted, but not the source of that light in the form of a point or shape.

Rendering by Enscape Forum User Tas_1985

Conclusion

Emissive materials have numerous benefits, and can transform your project in terms of realism. They are easy to apply, and even easier to customize. Using emissive materials to make your screens glow and to achieve the effect of LED lighting is an easy way to add interesting elements to your project that draw the eye and spark the imagination. In terms of client presentations, it’s not simply about showing the project: it’s about creating and presenting a surrounding they could actually see themselves in. And with emissive materials, creating this world doesn’t have to take forever.

Finding the right combination and balance of emissive materials and artificial lights can be the difference between peaking your client’s interest, and making their dream project a reality. It’s important to know when to best use which type of light to achieve the effect you are going for. Take the time to carefully consider which light will serve you best, and you’ll end up blowing them away.

The post Best Practices for Emissive Materials in SketchUp appeared first on Enscape.

You’ve probably seen it before, that rendering that at first glance fools you into thinking it is a photograph of an actual room or building .

Just by viewing your project in Enscape, you can achieve fantastic results, but how do you take your project to the next level, to amaze your clients with the authenticity and atmosphere of the scene? As beautiful as your building is, you’ll be hard pressed to inspire your client’s imagination if all the rooms are empty.

Choosing this content can be overwhelming, simply because there are so many different sources. And acquiring the content can get expensive, especially if you need a lot of it. But if you know where to look, the right elements don’t have to cost an arm and a leg – in fact, they don’t have to cost anything at all!

This blog post will summarize some of the best sources out there for free elements to add to your architectural project: from furniture and skyboxes to textures, and everything in between! Create an emotional experience for your clients without breaking the bank!

Overview about free resources for architectural projects:

1. Free Textures
2. Entourage and Accessories
3. 3D People
4. IES Lights
5. Trees and Vegetation
6. Skyboxes
7. Sound Files

The right textures can take your rendering from lifelike to astounding. And there are a lot of resources out there were you can find high quality, free textures that will take your model to the next level. Let’s take a look at some of my favorites.

Why textures are important to architectural design:

Let’s take a look at what these textures can do. The ground floor of this beautiful Revit project already catches the eye, but free textures can make it pop even more. I downloaded just four free textures from the above websites, a wood floor, a plaster texture, a wallpaper and some tiles, and quickly applied them. Take a look at the results: in just a few minutes, the project already looks much more inviting! Applying textures, in this case especially the wood floor texture, gives the room a more authentic feel. And the tile backsplash in the kitchen livens the scene up immediately.

A living room and kitchen area without any applied textures.

The same space with five textures applied to the walls and floor.

1. CC0 Textures   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
At the top of the list is CC0 Textures. All of the available textures and maps are licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 License, so you use them however you like, even commercially. The textures are available at high resolutions, many with sizes of up to 8192px, allowing for detailed surfaces.

2. 3D Textures   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
3D Textures is the website of João Paulo, a freelance designer and 3D artist from Portugal. He offers free seamless textures with diffuse, normal, displacement, occlusion, specularity and roughness maps. The quality is great, and you have the option to download all of the maps together in a ZIP file, or just download the one you need.

3. 3DXO   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
3DXO has around 600 free textures to choose from. Their website is incredibly easy to navigate: find what you are looking for through a keyword search, or browse their extensive categories list. With one click you can download a ZIP file containing diffuse, bump and specular maps.

4. Poliigon   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
The vast majority of the textures at Poliigon.com are not available for free; in fact, they only have 54 textures available free of charge. However, the textures they do have are high quality, and spread across a wide range of categories. You need to register an account to download the free textures, but it’s relatively painless when you consider how nice the textures are.

5. Textures.com   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
Textures.com has a huge selection of textures across a wide variety of categories. The only drawback here is that you have to register an account to download the textures, and you are restricted as to how many you can download per day. When you have registered your account, you receive 15 credits every 24 hours, and with these credits you can download small and medium sized images. Every night at midnight, your credit number resets itself to 15.

6. ArtchViz   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Facebook Account Required
ArtchViz has around 200 textures available on their Facebook page for free download. They mainly have wood, marble, and flooring textures, but they are high quality, seamless images. Additionally, the company frequently updates it’s page with new textures. You do have to have to be logged in to a Facebook account to download the textures, but beyond that there is no additional sign-up required.

3D models, entourage elements and RPCs are invaluable for creating realistic renderings, and they will take your projects to the next level. This covers everything from plants to trees, knick-knacks, furniture, people, and everything in between. Your project will impress based on its architectural beauty alone, but when you add these extra elements, your clients will really be able to see themselves in the scenes!

Why entourage and accessories are important to architectural design:

Let’s use the above resources to keep developing our Revit model! It can take a little work to find the right elements to add to your space, but if you invest the time, you can enrich your model and your client’s experience immeasurably! In the below pictures, I have added some furniture to the model to make it more realistic.

Furniture already transforms the space, but what really elevate a scene are the little things that make up daily life, the glasses and books and vases that make a space look lived in: entourage. It is important to take a little time and care when placing your entourage. Try to skew and rotate the objects to make them look more natural; almost no one lives in a home that is always perfectly in order!

An empty architectural space becomes…

… a realistic living space decorated entirely with free models.

1. SketchUp 3D Warehouse   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
The SketchUp 3D Warehouse almost doesn’t need to be mentioned here, as it is already so well known. It houses an enormous library of free content, with varying quality. A lot of users complain that overall, the quality of the models in the Warehouse is not high enough, however I have had a lot of success by searching for collections, instead of models. I also wanted to emphasize for Rhino and ArchiCAD users, that you can download and use the models from the 3D Warehouse, too! Both Rhino and ArchiCAD support .skp files. You will find a little bit of everything here: furniture, cars, light fixtures and much more!

2. ArchiBase Planet   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
I have to say right at the beginning that archibaseplanet.com  is not the most appealing website you will ever see, design-wise. However, this is something I can personally get over pretty quickly, as the amount of free, quality models is just amazing. Sure, there are a lot of banner ads, but the categories are easy to navigate and each category has hundreds of models to choose from. There’s almost 300 models in the fireplace category alone. Best of all, you don’t have to register to download the models!

3. Cgtrader   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
Cgtrader.com is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, they have hundreds, maybe even thousands of lovely 3D models available for free. You have to register an account to download them, but after that you can choose from up to 10 different file formats and download the models with one click. On the other hand, you can’t filter out the paid models. If you search a category or keyword, you can check the box for “Free”, but you will still see models that require you to pay. For example, I searched for free plant models, and only 15 of the 30 shown options were actually free. But if you can get over this, you will find nice, high quality models!

4. pCon.box   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
This website is quite possibly one of my favorites on the list, simply because it is just a really slick tool. At box.pcon-solutions.com you will find brand-specific 3D models of mostly office furniture. You don’t have to sign-up an account to view and download the models. The very cool thing about pCon.box is that you can immediately view and adjust the model in a 3D modeling space. Not only that, but you can immediately customize your models to the fabric and materials you want to use. And, you can add multiple 3D models to the modeling space, arrange them how you would like, and export them as a group.

5. Bimobject   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
If you are looking for manufacturer specific BIM models, look no further than bimobject.com. They have models from over 1000 brands, organized in a pretty smooth category system. You can navigate by object type, brand, or even file type. You do have to register an account to download anything, but this is a small price to pay for the amount of quality models made available. And even better, bimobject has apps available for SketchUp, Revit and ArchiCAD, which are free to download and use, so you don’t have to manually download the models from the website: you can drag and drop them right into your project!

6. Modlar   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
Modlar.com is another website that provides manufacturer-specific 3D models, free of charge. You do have to register an account, or log in using your Google, Facebook or LinkedIn account. You can browse models by category, brand or project type (residential or commercial). What is particularly cool about Modlar is that you can save, or essentially bookmark, 3D models to download later. Not all models are available in all file types, so sometimes you have to search a bit to find what you are looking for; however, even if your desired model isn’t available for your CAD software, there are plenty of great alternatives.

7. RevitCity    (Revit) – Sign-Up Required
RevitCity.com is similar to the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, in that the content is user-generated, and therefore the quality can be hit or miss. On the other hand, the amount of content specifically for Revit is overwhelming, and there are some cool features, like being able to comment on models and start conversations with other users. You can also rate the models. To download, comment or rate, you have to register a free account.

Adding 3D people to your scene can really be the icing on the cake, especially in still renderings. Your office might be perfectly decorated, but until there are workers milling about, the scene lacks that certain something. Take the scene from one your client likes, to one they can imagine themselves in. Finding quality 3D people can be challenging, so check out some of the sources below as a jumping off-point.

Why 3D People are important to architectural design:

One last step is to add some 3D people to the scene. I just quickly copied and pasted some characters out of the Enscape RPC sample project, and check out the results! Carefully consider which people models to add to your project. In the best case scenario, you want it to look like they are interacting with your scene, not just dropped into it. To maximize this effect, look for models that are naturally placed, for example, holding a phone or taking a step.

Placing RPCs turns this from an empty house…

… to a family affair.

1. 3D Warehouse and Archibase Planet (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
To repeat two of the websites named above, the SketchUp 3D Warehouse  and Archibase Planet  both have a number of people models available, though in both cases, you might have to search a bit until you find the right, high quality ones.

2. RenderPeople   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
Render people mainly offers paid 3D people, but have also made several test models available for download. They are available in a variety of file formats that will cover SketchUp, ArchiCAD and Rhino users.

3. Human Alloy   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
Human Alloy also offers mainly paid content, but they have made a couple of their models available free of charge in a variety of file formats. You do have to sign up for a free account.

4. RPC Content for Revit (Revit)
If you are looking for free, high quality RPC content for Revit, specifically for 3D people, you might be looking for a while. There are few free resources that reach the quality of Archvision. You can, however, try out a free RPC Entourage Starter Pack  if you don’t already have an Archvision subscription. Additionally, there are several human models that are shipped with Revit which look great in Enscape; check out Dan Stine’s previous blog post  about this. Or, if you are feeling creative, you can follow Dan’s instructions here  and create your own RPC content. Maybe the quickest way to add RPCs to your Revit model is to use our free RPC test project . It has a selection of ten 3D people to choose from.

Adding IES light profiles to your fixtures is a subtle but effective way to make your model even more authentic. IES stands for Illuminating Engineering Society, which created a file format to transfer photometric data via the internet. Today the format is widely used by lighting manufacturers. The great thing about IES lights is that they represent realistic light  emission patterns based on manufacturer specifications; it’s the digital version of a real world light. This means that if you know which lighting product you are going to use for a project, you can check whether there is an IES profile available for that product, and give your model a huge dose of reality. IES light files are created and made available by many major lighting manufacturers and can usually be downloaded from their website at no cost. IES files can be used in any of the CAD programs supported by Enscape.

Why IES Lights are important to architectural design:

Here is what our developing model looks like in the evening and at night with some added IES lights. I don’t have to tell you that the biggest difference is that you can now actually see the model after the sun has gone down. But much more importantly, carefully placing your lights adds accuracy to your scene. If you are designing a new home for a client, they won’t just want to know what it will look like during the day. Using IES profiles, you can give them an accurate picture of the atmosphere in their new home at any given time.

Your room can’t make an impression in the dark.

IES light profiles let your model shine at any time of day.

1. Phillips   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
Obviously one of the leaders in the lighting industry is Phillips, who have developed an extremely handy and extensive database of IES profiles. You can access them all for free using their Philips Photometric Database. If you know which product you are using, you can search for that specific IES profile. However, what is so great about the tool is that you can search by light fixture, and see which lighting options are available for that fixture. Once you have selected your product, you can download the IES profile directly to your computer.

2. American Electric Lighting   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
America Electric Lighting joined the Acuity Lighting Group in 2001, and you can find IES profiles for their products on their website. They offer well over 1000 IES profiles. You can either find the specific profile you are looking for and just download that file, or download a ZIP archive of all available files.

3. Lithonia   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
Lithonia is another member of the Acuity Lighting Group, and also provides lighting for everything from commercial buildings to residential projects. Just like American Electric Lighting, Lithonia lets you download individual files, or their whole archive as a ZIP file.

4. Erco   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
The German company ERCO is one of the leaders in the field of architectural lighting using LED technology. On their website, you can search their product catalog and download ZIP files containing IES profiles for entire product families.

5. LA Lighting   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
LA Lighting is a great resource for commercial and industrial lighting. Browse their extensive catalog, and then download the corresponding light profiles for over 200 light fixtures directly from their website.

Trees and vegetation are important to ground your scene in reality, inside and out. Whether it is placing potted plants in the lobby of an office building, or adding trees to the exterior of your model, vegetation makes your scenes more dynamic and authentic. We are so used to seeing nature elements in our everyday lives that it is immediately apparent when they are missing from a rendering. Take a look at some of the websites below and find the plants that are just right for you.

Why trees and vegetation are important to architectural design:

As you can see in our model below, adding tree and vegetation especially to the outside of your model can make all the difference. It’s rare to see a house without some form of landscaping in the real world, which is why our model looks so stark without any plants by taking the time and adding some of the models from the Enscape RPC test project, I can give the model a welcoming yard that makes the rendered image much more dynamic.

Without trees, this scene is rather stark…

… but, add a little vegetation, and it really blooms!

1. SketchUp 3D Warehouse   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
Obviously there are hundreds of vegetation models in the 3D Warehouse, but I wanted to emphasize those by user SkapeUp . He originally posted in the Enscape Forum in 2017  that he had made some plants specifically for use in Enscape, and they really look great! He now has nearly 100 2D and 3D vegetation models available.

2. Cgtrader   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
Cgtrader was also already mentioned in the section about entourage, but I wanted to repeat it below because it has some really nice vegetation models, especially houseplants. Once again, you have to search a bit to find your desired file type, but with close to 1000 free models available, there’s something for everyone.

3. SketchUp Texture Club   (SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
SketchUp Texture Club also has a nice selection of free textures and entourage, but I wanted to specifically mention their vegetation collections. They have six collections available for download, with a wide array of variety. There is a really nice palm tree collection, and a collection that has some bare trees, if you are going for a more wintery effect. You do have to sign up to download the models, but by doing this you will also get access to their free textures, so it’s worth a look.

4. Polantis    (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD) – Sign-Up Required
Polantis has over 100 trees available for download in many different file formats. What is so great about the vegetation available at Polantis is that most of the models available are for specific types of trees. So if you are looking for a baobab tree, a California buckeye, or a maidenhair tree, look no further than Polantis. The drawback is that you have to register an account to download the models, and you can only download three models a day, so you’ll need to practice patience.

5. Enscape RPC Test Project   (Revit)
The easiest way to add vegetation to your Revit model is to use our free RPC test project. Just copy and paste the trees and plants you like directly into your model. There are nearly 100 models to choose from in a variety of sizes, colors, and types. No sign up required!

If you want to vary the background in your model, the easiest way to do this is to use a skybox in Enscape. You can load it right into your model via the Atmosphere tab of the Settings menu: Skybox as a background. Skyboxes loaded into Enscape must be either in Longitude/Latitude (panorama) or cross format. For more information, check out our Knowledgebase article  on this topic.

Why Skyboxes are important to architectural design:

Take a look at our model with two different skyboxes applied; just that little adjustment changes the atmosphere completely! The generic Enscape sky is a nice backdrop by itself, but if you have a specific location in mind for the building, using a skybox can transport your client there with one click. Even if you are not aiming to represent a specific location, you can use skyboxes to lend a certain atmosphere to the rendering. Use a forest skybox for a more intimate, rustic feeling, or any residential street to ground the scene in reality.

Use the Enscape sky for a more universal look…

… or add a skybox to place your model in a specific location!

1. Enscape Backgrounds   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
You can download a collection of 12 skyboxes directly from our website. They are HDR backgrounds in cross format, which can immediately be loaded into Enscape.

2. Textures.com   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
Textures.com doesn’t just have a lot of high quality textures, they also have HDR panoramas available. They have a nice selection available, though with your daily free credits, you are only able to download the smallest image size.

3. Texturify   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
On Texturify you’ll find both sky background and environment panoramas. The environment panoramas are great if you want to set up a scene to make it look like your building is situated along a city street, or a more exotic location. You can download high quality panoramas without registering and with just one click.

4. HDRI Haven   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
HDRI Havenis one of my favorite resources for free high quality panoramas. They have everything from urban backgrounds to countryside scenes. All of the panoramas are free and available in varying qualities, from 1K to 16K.

3. sIBL Archive   (Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, ArchiCAD)
The sIBL Archive has upwards of 100 free high quality panoramas available for immediate download. You don’t need to register an account, just choose your panorama and with one click download a ZIP file containing varying resolutions of the image.

6. Make Your Own!
If you didn’t find a skybox from one of these sources, or if you are going for that extra level of realism, consider making your skybox! Enscape supports Skybox image files (*.hdr, *.bmp, *.jpg, *jpeg, *png, *tif, *.tiff, *.tga) either in cross or panoramic (Longitude/Latitude) format. Panoramic skyboxes should have a resolution ratio close to 2:1. You can, for example, take a panorama of the site where your future building is to be situated to show your client exactly what the view from their future office will look like.

The elements discussed above are all great for still renderings, but sound sources are the way to really make your model pop during a real-time walkthrough. In Revit and SketchUp, you can add a sound source to your model in just three clicks, and immediately boost the authenticity of the scene. Add crown noises to a shopping mall, conversation to a restaurant, or make music come out of a record player in the living room. You can use any MP3 or WAV file for your sound source, but most people probably don’t have an MP3 of rain sounds or a crowded room. Luckily, there are great websites out there where you can find just such sounds for free.

Why sound files are important to present architectural design:

Placing an Enscape sound source takes just a few clicks, and takes the live walk-through of your model to the next level. Learn more about placing sound sources here  in our dedicated Knowledgebase article. During your live walk-through you will then be able to create the exact atmosphere you are looking for. Add the sound of soft rain to create an intimate space, or footsteps to enhance your crowded shopping center, or airplanes flying overhead your future airport terminal. If you are viewing the model in VR, you might even forget that the project hasn’t been built yet!

Where to find free sound files:

1. FreeSoundEffects.com   (Revit, SketchUp)
This website has both free and paid sound effects, but their free ones are definitely worth a look. You don’t have to register an account, and can choose between MP3 and WAV formats. They have a lot of specialized sound effects you might have difficulties finding on other site, like office sounds or airplanes passing overhead.

2. SoundBible   (Revit, SketchUp)
SoundBible.com is another site with a lot of variety. You don’t have to register to download the files, which are all available in MP3 and WAV formats. You can preview the sound directly on the site, and they upload new files every week. You’re sure to find what you’re looking for here.

3. freesound   (Revit, SketchUp) – Sign-Up Required
At freesound.org, you can download hundreds of sounds for free; they have all been released under Creative Commons licenses. If you are not sure what you are looking for, you can browse by keyword or tags. There’s a little something for everyone, from city street recordings to sounds of crickets chirping in a meadow. All the files are free, though you do have to register an account to download anything.

Manage your resources effectively!

One thing to keep in mind before you begin to browse through the websites we have summarized above is how to manage all of the files you will end up downloading. Between testing out materials, and seeing which chair looks best at the kitchen table you picked out, you can end up with a lot of files floating around on your computer. Here’s some tips on how to organize your resources so they don’t end up lost in your Downloads folder.

First, decide which elements you need for your project. Depending on the effect you are going for, you might not need to add all of the elements discussed above. Next, create a resource folder list to house all of your files. You can think of it as your personal library. Expand this collection even further with each project you work on. With a nicely organized list, you’ll never have to search through your Downloads or Documents folder again; all of your free resources will be right at your fingertips!

Refining and enhancing your model with the five elements discussed above can make all the difference between a happy client and an amazed one. After all, you don’t simply want them to like your model – you want them to see themselves in it. Adding some furniture and decorations, 3D people and the right background will make your clients think they are looking at a picture of the finished product. And this wow-effect doesn’t have to be expensive: in fact, as you have seen, it doesn’t have to cost a penny! Elevate your project with these resources, and improve your time-management by organizing them effectively.

So here is our finished model, before and after! In just seven easy steps, and using completely free elements, we took it from ordinary to extraordinary!

A beautiful, but empty architectural space is transformed into…

… a vibrant, lived-in house!

The post Free resources for architectural projects appeared first on Enscape.

A rendering technique nearly perfected in the gaming world is the understanding and application of Albedo to their materials. The result is a consistent, more realistic effect throughout all your images and projects.

It is fruitful to continue to develop your skills professionally. This is true in any profession, but even more so in the AEC space, given the complexity of the built environment: materials, costs, science, health, environment, art, efficiency, human comfort and much more. There are small things that can be done to make the results even more appealing and realistic. Albedo is one of them.

It’s important to know the meaning behind the colors if you want to create consistent renderings. For example, the brightness relation of concrete, paper and snow can be easily mixed up and lead to implausible images. It becomes obvious for vegetation if you use unrealistic greens. Using albedo reference images or tables ensures that your materials are physically correct and if you’re still unhappy with the result, it might be a better idea to change the lighting conditions.

Let’s start with a high-level overview of what this somewhat uncommon thing called albedo is.

Albedo is similar to, but not exactly the same as, luminance which measures the brightness of light reflected off a surface. It is scaled by the materials albedo – a darker surface reflects less light, hence causing less luminance. We use the terms luminance and illuminance in lighting design along with specific surface reflectance values.

For albedo, the amount of light reflected depends on the surface. For example, fresh asphalt is very dark and reflects little light; 0.04 (RGB 59-59-59). At the other end of the spectrum we have fresh snow which is a light color and reflects a lot of light; 0.80 – 0.90 (RGB 243-243-243).

Going briefly back to the comparison with lighting design and surface reflectance: some material manufacturers publish surface reflectance values for their products. For example, USG makes ceiling products in North America and have published Light Reflectance – a listing of the surface reflectance values for their products. Here, you will notice the ceiling components are mostly white and have a high light reflectance value between 0.81 – 0.89.

Example surface reflectance values for USG ceiling systems

The fundamental principal is the same between albedo and reflectance/luminance, in that darker colors result in a lower number (less reflective) and higher numbers indicate lighter colors (more reflective).

Why does the concept of albedo matter in architectural visualization? Let’s take a look at a simple office rendering, comparing a bad and good image in terms of albedo.

Looking at the first image below, something just doesn’t look right. It is not believable nor realistic. We know what the image represents – it’s an office space. But can you tell what’s wrong? The whites are too white, the grass is too dark and the mousepad is solid black.

Now compare this with the albedo-corrected image. The whites are softer, the grass is natural and even the mouse pad looks better. When the proper albedo is applied, the combination of all elements will look more realistic from any view and lighting condition. We no longer need to compensate for a poor rendering engine by using full whites/blacks and other tricks. We can now focus on the physical environment and its measured attributes.

Unrealistic image due to wrong albedo

More realistic image due to correct albedo

Scientists have measured and documented the albedo of many materials. And, by the way, astronomers measure albedo of planets and asteroids to help understand surface composition. Gaming developers have done a great job of applying those results in the development of Physically Based Shader (PBS) materials to increase the level or realism and consistency in their game environments. We can and should do the same in architecture!

Here is one simple list of albedo values for a few materials spread out across the full spectrum between 0.00 and 1.00. The links provided below offer more detailed charts.

Enscape rendered image depicting the base-range of the full albedo spectrum

I highly recommend you read what some of the gaming designers have written. Marcos Borregales published a nice reference on his blog Technical Art Adventures here: PBR – Albedo Cheat Sheet.

Unity offers this interesting document on representing dark materials, Materials authoring guidelines 1: dark dielectric materials (PDF). This document starts with the following introduction: “With the large adoption of Physically Based Shading, game materials parameters changed and replaced diffuse color with Albedo. This parameter represents the characteristic color of an object, and is independent from the lighting conditions. It can be measured and a lot of documents have appeared online, giving reference values for Albedo. Most of them recommend using a range of albedo comprised between 50 and 243 (in 8 bit sRGB).”

Finally, for reference material, if you really want to get into the “weeds” on this topic you should also read these two posts by Sébastien Lagarde:
• DONTNOD Physically based rendering chart for Unreal Engine 4  
• Feeding a physically based shading model 

One last comment on these charts is that they are listed in various formats, such as 0-1, RGB, sRGB and a three-digit number representing the RGB average. If they provide a color swatch, I will sometimes use Photoshop’s color picker tool to sample the RGB value for entry into Revit or SketchUp.

Enscape encourages designers to consider the proper albedo to generate more consistent and realistic imagery. Thus, this blog post! You will even see the term used within Enscape’s Material Editor in SketchUp as shown in the image below. In this context, albedo refers to the main texture or color, from which the albedo value can be derived and compared to the “standards” charts previously mentioned.

Enscape Material Editor with Albedo Settings in SketchUp

A good example, using a regular challenge introduced by a default Revit material used by many, is grass. The image below contrasts the two default Revit-provided grass materials, left and right, with a custom material using a standard albedo in the center. The second image below is the raster image shipped with Revit for grass. It is easy to see how this texture is way to dark to represent the average grass in a rendering.

Comparing grass in Revit

Default Revit grass texture

In the second image, with corrected albedo for grass, the overall image feels more natural. Notice even the grass visible through the building does a better job of fulfilling the design intent compared to the first image, which leaves the backside of the building looking dark and even stormy.

I will admit that the grass is still not perfect in this image. This is an academic example using a solid color for Enscape to sample. In the near future, I have some exciting tips to share about making grass more natural looking through randomness of color within the extents of the grassy areas.

Wrong albedo – grass too dark

Corrected albedo – grass more realistic

Albedo might seem like an insignificant setting, but in fact it has a big impact on the believability of your renders. The game industry understood this and applies albedo consistently to achieve realistic effects. We can and should do the same in architecture!

It can be a challenge finding an albedo standard for all materials we use. But, with a firm understanding of the concept and application of the basics, we can make some assumptions which will result in beautiful images which will impress our clients and peers. Please check the tables and links in this article – save them to your bookmarks to find them easily.

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB – a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Best Practices: Albedo in Architectural Design appeared first on Enscape.

How do you elevate your model, and create an experience the viewer will never forget? Lighting is crucial to creating not only realistic scenes, but also to leaving a lasting impression and conveying a certain feeling. All lights are not equal, and it is not surprising that many users are in the dark about which light best suits their needs. This post will provide an overview of the lighting options available via the Enscape Objects window in SketchUp: spot light, sphere light, rectangular light, disk light and linear light.

The aim is to provide you with useful information and helpful tips to take your scenes to the next level. For a more focused, but equally illuminating discussion of lighting techniques in SketchUp, take a look at Dan Stine’s blog post on the topic. He recently also wrote a similar post for Revit users. Let’s get started!

There are five different lights you can add via this window:

• spot lights
• sphere lights
• rectangular lights
• disk lights
• linear lights

Once you successfully add a light to your project, you will be able to fine-tune various settings for the individual lights in this window. In addition to lights, this window also allows you to add sound sources and proxies to your model.

Let’s take a closer look at the five different lights you can add in SketchUp. All of the lights can be placed with the easy 2-Click System; even if you’ve never placed an Enscape light before, you can learn it in seconds! It is important to note that while Enscape has a good performance impact in relation to lights, real-time rendering can’t process an unlimited number of light sources. How smoothly your project runs comes down to a combination of your hardware, the size of your project, and the number of lights. The number and intensity of your light sources will impact the performance greatly, especially if the lights overlap.

A spot light is fairly self-explanatory; it functions similarly to a spot light in real life and provides a very direct source of light. A spot light is a cone of light which emits light from a single point in one direction (Image 1). By changing how wide the cone angle is, you can control how much of your scene is actually illuminated. The width of the cone can also determine whether the light is hard or soft.
Practical uses for spot lights include store displays, desk lamps, street lights or stage lighting. They can also be used in a scene to create dramatic lighting effects, as they are useful for creating an obvious falloff from light to dark.

Placing a Spot Light

To add a spot light, select it in the Enscape Objects window. I’m going to place a spot light in my project to add a bit of drama to a rooftop terrace. There is already geometry in place representing light fixtures along the edge of the roof.

1. Light cone of a spot light

2. Placed spot light and Objects window with adjustable settings

A spot light can be placed with four clicks: two to determine the endpoint and two to determine the direction of the light cone . Click once to place the endpoint of your light. You can then decide whether to slide the light along a certain axis. Do so and click again to affix the light source. On the third click, you will have the opportunity to determine the point you want to illuminate. Adjust to the desired point and click one last time.

You will see the light represented as geometry in SketchUp (Image 2). As soon as you have placed the spot light, you will be able to edit two settings in the Enscape Objects window: Luminous Intensity and Beam Angle. The Luminous Intensity slider allows you to adjust the brightness and maximal range of the light, measured in candelas. The Beam Angle slider controls the width of the beam, in degrees. If you have an IES profile you would like to use, you can load it via the Enscape Objects window by clicking Load IES profile.
Check out what our spot light looks like on the roof (Image 3). Kind of lonely, right?

3. Single spot light

4. Four spot lights placed using Copy/Paste

Copying ensures that lights that should look the same have identical settings, without any extra effort (Image 4). You can also group your light geometry together with the components or fixtures they are placed in. This way, you can quickly place lamps that already contain a light source. Just select the elements while holding the Shift key, then right click on one of them and select Make Group.

Let’s take a look at the sphere light next. In its default state, the Enscape sphere light is a point light, which sends light out from a single point in space, equally in all directions. In this way, the effect it gives is similar to a common incandescent light bulb. Sphere lights are useful not only because they can simulate light sources like light bulbs or candles, but also because they can be used to light areas with a gentle falloff in all directions.

Placing a Sphere Light

Most sphere lights can be placed with just two clicks. The scene below doesn’t currently contain any light sources (Image 5). But say I want to place a sphere light into the lamp next to the couch, so that the room will be illuminated even if I change the time of day to night.

5. Empty light fixture in SketchUp

6. Placed sphere light at night

Click Sphere in the Enscape Objects window. Click once to place the endpoint of your light, then click again to place the light (Image 7). You will now see the light source geometry in the lamp (Image 8).

7. Placing the endpoint of a sphere light

8. Sphere light geometry

When you have placed the geometry, you will again be able to edit the luminous intensity, to avoid being blinded by the light. With the sphere light you also have the option of adjusting the Light Source Radius slider. This controls the size of the source in meters, though this is only visible in reflections.

Now that the sphere light has been placed, the lamp will appear to be on at night in Enscape, as you can see above (Image 6). The sphere light effectively mimics how this type of lamp would light a room in reality.

Next up are two similar lights: the rectangular and disk lights. These are area lights; this means that they do not emit light from one, infinitely small point in space, like the spot or point light. Instead, they emit light across their surfaces uniformly, resulting quite literally in an entire area of light. Because an area light emits from across its entire surface, it tends to produce light that is softer and more subtle than other lights. It produces a diffuse light with softer, less dramatic shadows (Image 9).

Because of this, an area light has ample uses. Perhaps the most tangible use case example of an area light is to create a florescent light fixture, like the ones you find in any office building. Similar practical applications include light banks, backlit panels, and florescent tube lights, but they can also be used for more atmospheric lighting, for instance light shining in through a window.

9. One rectangular area light illuminating a dining room

10. Light beam of a rectangular light

Because these two lights are so similar, I will mainly refer to the rectangular light in the below examples. The only difference between the two is the shape of the beam.

You can place the rectangular light using the same 2-Click system described above for spot lights. The beam, however, looks different from a spot light. Check it out below. As you can see below, both ends of the beam are rectangular, and the face from which the light emits covers a much bigger area than a spot light, which ends in a single point (Image 10).

Placing the rectangular light allows you to adjust three settings in the Enscape Objects window (Image 11). The first is Luminous Power, which controls the brightness and range of the light; it is measured in lumens. Additionally, you can define the Length and the Width of the light source in meters via the Objects window. The maximum size for a rectangular light is 3 meters by 3 meters.

11. Rectangular light window

12. Editing a placed rectangular light

Let’s take a closer look at the controls you have in regards to editing your lights after placing them. Double clicking on the light will enable the edit mode (Image 12).

By clicking any of the red squares located along the edges of the rectangle (1), you are able to adjust the width or length of the area light, just like in the Enscape Objects window. The advantage of doing it by hand is that you have the ability to match the size of the light exactly to the light fixture you want to place it in, especially if you don’t know the measurement of the fixture in meters.

Clicking the middle red square (2) will allow you to move the face of the light source around, if you decide it should be placed a little differently. You can also move any of the lights by selecting it and clicking Move Light in the Enscape Objects window. You can adjust the angle of the beam by clicking the square at the end of it (3). Clicking the magenta square (4) will allow you to rotate the face of the light source.

So what else can you use rectangular lights for, other than the practical uses of filling light fixtures? Obviously it is worthwhile to light your model meticulously, so that when you are showing it to a client, you are prepared for any eventuality. The client might want to see what the house looks like at night, and if you haven’t added lights, there won’t be anything to see.

But even with Enscape’s easy 2-Click system, it can take some dedicated time to light a model, especially if it is very large. Area lights are perfect if you want to take a quick screenshot of your model at night, but don’t have the time to add too many lights.

Take a look at our model below (Image 13). It currently only has the lights we added on the roof and in the living room. It’s pretty hard to see anything at all.

13. Exterior view at night

14. Exterior view at night with four area lights

Now take a look at this second screenshot (Image 14). In this one, I have added four rectangular lights, one each in the bedrooms and kitchen. Looks a lot better, right? And it took no time at all to get this image ready to screenshot.

The fourth light in Enscape’s arsenal is the linear light. It resembles a fluorescent tube in shape and can only be scaled in length, which can be adjusted in the Enscape Objects window or by editing the source itself (Image 15 and 16). Again, you can also set the luminous intensity of a linear light.

15. Geometry of a linear light

16. Adjustable settings for a linear light

The linear light can be placed with two clicks, like the sphere light. After you place it initially, you can define the length and rotate it to fit the scene. The placement of your linear light will affect where the light shines: the shadows along the length are soft, while the shadows on each end of the light are somewhat more focused. Below I have placed a linear light in our SketchUp model to show you what I mean (Image 17 and 18). Most of the light is emitted along the length, rather than from the ends of the light.

17. A long linear light

18. Light emitted by a linear light

19. Colored linear lights in SketchUp

20. Rendered view of Image 19

Here I’ve added some linear lights to the pond in our model for a glowing effect (Image 19 and 20). You can use this feature to achieve a more decorative effect, like the one above, but also to add realism to your model. If you are trying to match your 3D model to a real-life lighting concept, you can use the paint bucket tool to mimic the crisp white of an LED lamp, or the yellowish glow of an incandescent bulb.

You can then check the box next to Self-Illumination to make the material emissive. Use the Luminance slider to adjust the emission intensity; the maximum intensity is 100,000 candelas. You can also assign a color to the material.
Check back to the blog soon to see a dedicated blog post on emissive materials!

However, do not forget to check out this wonderful Video from The Rendering Essentials about Interior Lighting and Colored Lighting:

You can implement and combine the Enscape lights I have presented in limitless ways to take your model to the next level. Whether you are shooting for extreme realism or dramatic scenes, light is one of the easiest ways to achieve your goal. Place a few, quick sources to light up the rooms in your model for a screenshot. Or, take the time to develop dedicated lighting for each room; this will wow your client during a walk-through presentation. Your models are already stunning by themselves, but adding lights elevates the experience for the viewer.

The best part is that integrating lighting into your workflow doesn’t have to be complicated, if you follow the tips you have learned in this post. In fact, you probably knew how to do all of these things already, before reading the post. Now just apply that to your Enscape lights! Place your lights just in front of your geometry with the quick 2-Click system. Duplicate identical lights quickly by copying and pasting them. Double click a light to edit it immediately, and use the ESC key to abandon changes if you make a mistake. If you prefer, you can use the native SketchUp tools to rotate or move your lights. And, don’t forget to add some color with the paint bucket tool!

However, don’t take my word for it: to test out Enscape lights yourself, just download our 14 day free trial here. I’m sure you will find it enlightening!

The post Best Practices: Lighting in SketchUp appeared first on Enscape.

Architectural visualization can often incorporate water, whether as an integral feature like a swimming pool, or as an indirect detail, such as an adjacent lake. In either case, this amazing element can help set the tone or mood of a graphic, when implemented correctly.

This article will discuss the ways in which Enscape can deliver a stunning result in real-time! Whether for a static image  replete with reflections and refracted light, or a livelier video  of turbulence on the water’s surface, the result is sure to please any viewer.

Revit has a built-in water material. This means things like transparency and refraction are not adjustable options, due to the material properties being based on real-world physical properties. The various built-in options are listed below.

Water Types:
• Swimming Pool
• Generic Reflecting Pool
• Generic Stream/River
• Generic Pond /Lake
• Generic Sea/Ocean

Water Colors:
• Tropical
• Algae/Green
• Murky/Brown
• Custom

Water Wave Height:
• Value between 0.0 – 5.0

Tint:
• RGB color

Water with tropical color

Various combinations of these settings will produce unique results. In the image below are four examples, featuring from left to right: Swimming Pool, Stream/River + Murky/Brown, Lake/Pond, and Sea/Ocean + Tropical. Combine the water settings to match the real-world condition you wish to depict. For example, an ocean-front property would naturally have the Sea/Ocean water type selected. However, the designer could choose any setting they want for dramatic effect when appropriate.

It is interesting to note that even though the Wave Height setting is the same for each of the images below, except the first one, the reflections are all different. Whenever Enscape renders water on the screen, it randomizes the water’s surface, resulting in a natural look.

Compare Water Types, from left to right: Pool, Murky River, Lake and Tropical Ocean

When working within Revit, the water material is a physically-based material with water-specific settings, as described above. Additionally, all Revit materials have an overriding Tint option. The Tint setting can be used to make water look as if a colored dye has been added; think the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day in the USA. The RGB color can manually specify the additional absorption by particles or dirt in the water, where white equals clear water with it’s natural, slightly blue absorption properties.

Tint Water Color | Red Tint Applied to Water Material

The following image shows how the wave height, or its turbulence, can be controlled. Here we have the two extremes, one near zero, and another at 50%: 0.0, 0.50, 2.5 and 5.0. It is possible to have multiple wave heights within the same project by creating additional materials. This way it is possible to represent a glass of still water on the dining room and then a more active adjacent body of water, such as a river or lake, in the same project.

Compare Turbulence Values: 0.0, 0.5, 2.5 and 5.0

Seeing the results in the context of real-world projects is perhaps the most compelling way to appreciate water in architectural design. The following video is a high school swimming pool. The water is set to a low wave height of 0.5, to give it just enough turbulence to liven up the water’s surface with light and reflections. The video also depicts the natural movement of the water when navigating a model on screen or as recorded in the MP4 video.

Before moving on, make a note of the lighting on the water’s surface as well as the increased transparency for deeper water. Also, most of the materials in this model have been updated with Revit 2019’s new advanced materials. Also, keep an eye out for the reflections that appear on the narrow multi-colored floor tiles in the video.

Combine Enscape’s realistic water and grass  features to achieve dramatic scenes in non-architectural works. The following model is 100% Revit and Enscape without any post production. This project was created in just a few hours, as an example of a park restoration project planned together with a landscape architect. The four images below are the same, except with various wave height values applied. This image uses RPC’s , Megascan  content, SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse  content and one of Enscape’s built-in skyboxes . Also, the sun rays are emphasized by an increased fog setting from the Enscape Settings menu. As you can see, the results are simply astounding:

Wave Height Setting: 0.0

Wave Height Setting: 0.5

Wave Height Setting: 2.5

Wave Height Setting: 5.0

SketchUp Example

When working in SketchUp, the Enscape Materials  dialog also supports various controls used to represent water similar to the examples already shown. This sample project, used to create the image below, was created using various downloaded components from 3D Warehouse followed by making a few adjustments to those materials.

Water Material Settings in SketchUp | Nice Scene with Water Elements in SketchUp

Water is an amazing element in architectural design. With the right combination of water type, color, wave height and turbulence, you can not only create more realistic renderings but also control the mood of your scenes much more effectively.

With surprisingly little effort, and even less time to process (think real-time,) a Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, or ArchiCAD model can truly come alive with water elements, even in a still image. Oh, and wait until you see this water in VR – simply amazing!

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB – a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Best Practices: Water in Architectural Design appeared first on Enscape.

When a Revit model has materials  set up correctly and properly placed lighting fixtures, it will look great in Enscape without changing any of the default settings . For example, the image below was saved using the default settings. Simply starting Enscape in Autodesk Revit can produce beautiful graphics like this without any user input.

Revit model with default Enscape settings with daylight

This is great, but what about models in the schematic design phase that do not have materials fully developed yet or lighting fixtures placed? Or what if I want to explore the plenum space, for a project in the construction document phase, to look for structural or MEP issues? You may find that the space is too dark. This post will address these questions.

To better understand the issue, we will look at a space with no windows or lighting fixtures. As shown in the next image, this example will also use the default generic wall, one of the walls found in the templates provided with Revit, around the perimeter of the room. Enscape usually does a good job illuminating a scene even when it does not have lighting fixtures or materials applied; it works similar to the auto exposure on a camera. However, when we open our test model in Enscape it looks like this:

Revit view of subject model

Example of dark image

This image is way too dark by default. Let’s take a look at why the walls are so dark. The generic wall’s material is set to By Category, which means it uses the material assigned in the Object Types dialog (if one has been assigned).

Default wall material settings

Object Style settings

Looking at Object Types, the ‘Default Wall’ material is assigned to the wall Category. Interrogating that material, we see the Appearance asset, which is what Enscape uses by default in a Revit Material, is set to a rather dark color.

Just like in the real world, and in lighting analysis applications, lighter colors reflect more light than darker colors. Thus, when Enscape is applying ambient lighting and calculating exposure, the result is the dark image above.

What happens if we delete the material assigned to the wall category in Object Types? In this case, there would be no material associated with the walls under consideration. What does Enscape do when no material exists? Does it apply the less-than-awesome grey tone we often see in Revit itself? When a surface does not have a material, Enscape applies a white tone as shown in the image below.

Only the wall material was changed in this image

It is not uncommon for a family to not have a material associated with it, as materials can be freely deleted in a Revit project; you can even delete the last material with no warnings. Enscape deals with Loadable Families the same way, applying an aesthetically pleasing white tone.

Ok, that makes sense. But what if my design or client dictates the walls are a darker color? There are a couple of ways to deal with this. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, proper materials and lights almost always result in a nice image. So, just to make this point again, here is what the space would look like by just adding lights and not changing any Enscape settings or adjusting the wall material:

Only lighting fixtures added to the scene

If you are not ready to place light fixtures, or your MEP consultant has not added them to their model yet, you can still quickly get a decent looking image from Enscape. If we open the Enscape Settings dialog from within Revit, we can use the Rendering Quality setting to adjust overall image quality as seen here:

Adjusting rendering quality

Enscape settings in the previous image:
1. Rendering Setting: Draft
2. Rendering Setting: Medium
3. Rendering Setting: High

For some users, realistic lighting and high quality graphics are secondary. If you don’t want to spend time on lighting your scene at this point, consider setting the rendering quality to “Draft” mode for an evenly lit display of your project.

The Ambient Brightness slider in the Image tab of the Enscape settings can be used to brighten a scene. Not only that, but the occluded regions remain darker to emphasize the geometry and depth. This cannot be done in Photoshop! Making changes in the settings dialog results in an instant update in Enscape. Here is what Ambient Brightness and Auto Contrast looks like. The image gets a little better if we check Auto Contrast as seen in the left side of the composite image. Notice how this change enhanced the quality of the flooring as well.

Adjusting contrast and ambient brightness

Enscape settings in the previous image:
4. Ambient Brightness 100% plus Auto Contrast
5. Ambient Brightness 100%
6. Ambient Brightness 75%

Another option, without changing Ambient Brightness, is to manually adjust the Exposure Brightness setting as shown here:

Adjusting auto exposure

Auto exposure result

Here is a video highlighting the steps used to improve ambient lighting of the interior scene:

The next two images show the same space which has been further developed; windows and lighting fixtures have been added. The first image has the darker walls and the second has a lighter option.

Final image with lights and windows with darker wall finish

Final image with lights and windows with white wall finish

Another similar issue is exploring Plenum spaces in Enscape. When you are in a watertight ceiling space with various structural and MEP materials, the settings described above can help. We will look at one example and introduce a time saving option.
In the next image below, with the Enscape settings completely reset, this is what we see in a plenum space filled with pipes, ducts and structural elements. Way too dark!

Initial view of enclosed plenum space

Simply adjusting the Auto Exposure makes the image look pretty good.

Exposure brightness modified in plenum space

Now, if we go back into the occupiable parts of the building, the image will be way too bright. We would have to turn Auto Exposure back on.

Scene overexposed due to previous plenum space settings

Using Enscape’s saved settings option  (see image below) will streamline the effort to switch back and forth when needed.

Spaces lit with natural daylight, electric lighting and/or employing lighter color materials will automatically look good in Enscape. When these elements are lacking, Enscape has settings we can use to quickly compensate and still achieve quality images that will convey our design intent faster than any other product on the market today.

Consider using these techniques to present your design live in front of your client using Enscape. They will be impressed by the quality of the real-time rendering experience, as well as empowered to explore portions of the project which are important in that moment. If you have not yet given Enscape a try, download the trial today and bring your Revit, SketchUp, Rhino or ArchiCAD model to life. Things will never be the same again!

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB – a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Best Practices for Lighting and Exposure appeared first on Enscape.

I previously wrote a post on using Enscape with SketchUp which covered light sources. This post will cover the monumental improvements to materials in the current release of Enscape. It is truly amazing, the level of realism we can achieve with so little effort and with blazing fast speeds. What used to take hours to render and look decent in our old software, now takes seconds and looks remarkable using Enscape.

The first image is a reminder of where we left our sample SketchUp model in the previous post: BEST PRACTICES FOR LIGHTS AND MATERIALS IN SKETCHUP. In this post, we will look at how the new Enscape Materials tool will allow us to enhance a few of the materials in this scene.

Enscape render from previous blog post

Let’s start with the wood material at the transaction surface of the reception desk. Next images are designed to let you see details and how the lighting looks on surfaces.

Wood desk closeup in SketchUp

Similar to what we saw in the previous post, the following image shows how the wood material would look like in Enscape without special naming or new adjustment opportunities.

Wood desk closeup in Enscape

Again, heading to where we left off in the previous post, simply adding the word “granite” to the SketchUp material name causes Enscape to apply a pre-set reflection to the surface as shown in the next image.

Wood desk material name change

We’ll now cover what else can be accomplished with this material representation in Enscape. While the special names in a SketchUp material still work, we have several more options which can be adjusted in a number of ways.

The great thing about Enscape is its emphasis on simplicity. And to that end, anything we can set in the primary author tool, SketchUp in this case, such as selecting a texture, Enscape uses that information rather than creating duplicate functionality. Thus, the process of editing a SketchUp material starts with selecting the material in the Materials tray as shown in step #1 below. Next, if not already open, the Enscape Materials dialog is opened. This dialog is tied to the currently selected ’In Model’ material.

Enscape material edit based on selected SketchUp material

Albedo (texture) settings

In the left image, we see the texture (wilsonart01.jpg) and a minimal surface reflectance. Everything else represents new opportunities to enhance a material above SketchUp’s native capabilities. Note that these material ‘extras’ are saved within the SketchUp file by Enscape. Thus, anyone with Enscape installed and licensed, can work with these same settings. However, for bump and glossy, only the paths are saved in the SketchUp file, so you have to ensure that they are located at the correct position.

At one point, in addition to the General settings, there is an Albedo tab as pointed out below. This tab offers a few additional adjustments to the texture, such as Brightness, Inverted and Size.

If we would like to create a high-gloss finish we can adjust the Roughness slider to a lower value (item A). In a subsequent step, we will also add a bump map. This image points out the option to quickly use the original image by clicking the Use Albedo link (item B).

Adjusting Roughness value

Roughness: Defines the amount of microscopic surface structure that spreads the reflections.

After clicking the Use Albedo option, notice that texture is listed in the Bump section. There is also a Bump tab at the top of the dialog as shown in the next image. The Bump ‘Amount’ slider is used to determine how much the surface is deformed based on the selected texture.

Enscape makes the process very simple in that when you clicked ‘Use Albedo’ the same scale was applied and the texture is gray-scaled.

You can actually see (left picture) ridges in the wood grain and the light and shadow interacting with them. Beautiful. To continue our experimentation, let’s make a more drastic change to the bump ‘Amount’ value and set it to 3.03. As you can see (right picture), the result is very pronounced; both in the surface deformation and the lighting.

Bump texture applied based on albedo

Bump texture applied based on albedo

Wood desk results based on material edits

On the bump tab, we have a few settings available. One is the ability to invert the image. The area that projected out previously will now be recesses and vice versa. The right image contrasts the two settings which have been aligned along this diagonal line. In the case of woodgrain, this setting may not be useful, but this example helps describe the opportunity.

Inverting bump texture

Compare inverted bump map

Setting the bump back to our previous value, let’s see what the Roughness value does; changing it from 10% to 30%. The result is as seen in the left image. This result is close to what a Wisonart laminate surface might look like. Roughness, as a percentage, can be thought of as the opposite of reflection as a percentage; a lower Roughness number is more reflective.

Result of adjusting Reflection’s ‘Roughness’ value

Laminate Samples Board

Like most architecture/interior design shops in the US, we have a large Wilsonart sample board in the office I work in. Notice the highlights from the light and the texture of the woodgrain in the image below and compare with the Enscape render above.

With the settings and results we just reviewed in mind, we have a good understanding of how easy it is to develop realistic looking wood material in our designs.

Let’s now shift our attention from wood to fabrics. The first thing we will do is look at the view I composed in Enscape to see what the material looks like before we change anything. The chrome legs and the brown plastic base look great with no changes. But, in this case, I already enhanced the wood flooring using the techniques we previously covered.

Fabrics viewed in Escape with no Enscape material edits

The technique for getting a realistic looking material is to apply an appropriate bump map. In this case, we do not have a Use Albedo option as the Albedo is simply a color. In this case, we choose an image file to, essentially, be overlaid on the colored surface – which is then used to deform it. We also adjust the bump ‘Amount’ to control the amount of deformation.

Adding unique ‘Texture’ and ‘Amount’ for bump

Setting unique bump texture dimensions

Once the texture has been selected, we have a Bump tab available. Here we can set the scale of the texture. This is an important setting to get right when trying to achieve a realistic effect. People will generally be able to tell when a material does not look proportionately correct.

There are many places to get texture image files on the internet. The textures I used happen to be from the Autodesk Revit texture folder, which anyone could access, even just by installing the trial version. If you use the Autodesk materials, you should know there are three folders, all with the same images, but at different resolutions. Be sure to use the high resolution ones in this folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials\Textures\3\Mats.

Example of textures installed with Autodesk Revit

Search a texture library in Windows Explorer

Once the textile bump has been selected and adjusted, the results are astonishing in Enscape. Just amazing. I used a different bump texture for the ottoman and will show those settings in the next images.

Fabric results after Enscape material edits

The next two images show the settings for the ottoman fabric… I really love how the textures turned out in Enscape from just a few simple adjustments.

Settings for ottoman fabric

Settings for ottoman fabric

When modeling custom plants, or downloading them from the 3D Warehouse like I did, we can apply the special Foliage material type to the SU material to get more realistic results in Enscape. Notice, in the image below, the selected SU material and then the Type setting in the Enscape Materials dialog.

The Foliage material type also gets a Mask applied. Clicking the Mask tab reveals the settings shown below.

Exploring the Enscape ‘Foliage’ material type

Foliage ‘Mask’ settings

The results are as seen in the next image. You can almost feel the photosynthesis happing! Notice the sense of light passing through each leaf.

Foliage material results in lightly translucent leaves

Next, we will take a quick look at a masonry example. Be sure to compare the workflow and results with the similar previous post, but using Revit. The next image starts with the final results. Notice the texture of the brick material as well as the 3D – feel applied to the wall covering.

Just like the disclaimer on a cereal box; “the image has been enlarged to show texture”. Except, in this case, it is not a disclaimer, it is a proclamation! It looks really nice.

Exploring more materials; brick and 3D – wall coverings

Exploring more materials; brick and 3D – wall coverings

We previously have seen the bump can be tied to the Albedo. In this case, I have selected a separate image file to get more pronounced results from the bump. However, using the Albedo for the bump would have still worked well in this case.

Again, we have an option to Invert the bump. My Albedo and Bump are the same sizes so I do not have to adjust the transformation settings.

Brick bump settings

3D – wall covering material settings; bump settings

To achieve the dramatic 3D-texture, I adjusted the Bump ‘Amount’ and the transformation disproportionately as seen in the second image.

The next two images show the brick from another angle and with the bump ‘Amount’ adjusted.

Exploring Brick material bump adjustments

Exploring Brick material bump adjustments

These last two images highlight several materials into a single scene. And while some of these details may not be apparent from a distance, when a portion does fall within close-up view, or you are using VR, the results will certainly be perceivable! It is worth it.

If you have a certain palette of materials you use often, consider creating them in a SketchUp template file and applying the Enscape enhancements there. Then, every new project will have these advanced materials set up and ready to use!

The images in this post speak for themselves just like the previous SketchUp post. If you use SketchUp and would like to quickly take your design visualization to the next level in terms of graphics realism, then Enscape is the tool for you!

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB – a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post SketchUp Material Editor – Enhanced Materials in SketchUp appeared first on Enscape.

Dan Stine
He is an Author, Blogger, Educator,
BIM Administrator and Wisconsin registered architect.
He works full-time at LHB – a 250 person full-service design firm.

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danstinemn

The post Best Practices for Lights and Materials in SketchUp appeared first on Enscape.

General Explanations

Rendering

The term “rendering” describes an artificially generated image, unlike a photograph. It does not describe the process behind it, or the quality. The common question “Is this image truly rendered?” to describe the quality of a rendering hence does not make sense. If someone describes an image as rendered, the only contained information is that the image is not a real photo.

Resolution

To save images on a computer, we have to tile them into little pixels. The resolution does only describe the amount of pixels in the image, not the quality, sharpness or anything else. Even if you have a high-resolution rendering, it can still look edgy and unrealistic.

Real time vs. Offline

The generation of an image can last up to days (Offline) or down to milliseconds (Real time). We call a process real time, if it enables you as a user to interact with it without waiting for the result. This is usually possible if the image appears in less than 50 ms which equals more than 20 frames per second.

The timescale between a real time and an offline rendering varies in magnitudes of scale. In contrast, the resulting image does not have to do so. The techniques used to create those images are fundamentally different – an offline image that takes hours is not just a real time image with a lot more time. Generally, you can achieve the highest quality by using offline rendering and investing some time. However, the quality gap between the fast techniques applied in real time rendering and old-school offline rendering is getting smaller, thanks to advances in software research and faster end-user hardware in your computer.

Imagine it as the difference between early digital photography compared to classic film. The underlying process is different, yet it achieves the same effect with different frameworks. With advancing digital photography, the benefit of shooting with true film almost vanishes.

Ray-tracing

To create a rendering, you can assume that the light consists of little particles moving along a ray. In order to simulate this, we are using ray-tracing. Ray tracing is commonly associated with offline rendering, because it is computationally complex. However in modern real time renderers (e.g. like Enscape), we already using ray-tracing for some of the calculations.

Technique Descriptions

(Anti) Aliasing

We want to mimic images from a camera: a photograph. Even a digital photograph consists of pixels. Every pixel on a real photograph describes the average light that hits the sensor over the whole area of this certain pixel (really small – but still an area, not an infinite small point!). Now, if a pixel covers the area where – let’s say – a black wall stands in front of a white background, the pixel would not be purely black or white, it would be gray. This leads to a naturally smooth image.

An aliased border, without proper anti aliasing

An anti-aliased border, as photographed with a real camera

In computer graphics, we are sometimes tempted to treat a pixel like a single very small point. This makes our gray wall transition pixel either black or white. We do so, because it makes many computations faster, but it creates an unpleasant effect: aliasing.

In order to counteract this outcome, there are a variety of techniques available. Some of them, like e.g. FXAA employ a smart blur filter. Unfortunately, blurring the image does not solve flickering, even if every image itself is “blurred” correctly . The only reliable solution is to render the image at a higher resolution (still aliased) and then to scale it down. We call this super sampling (the way to go, if you have a lot of time) or in a variant multi sampling.

Solution for real time graphics

In current realtime graphics, the computational demand of a super sampled image is temporally divided. The software recycles the last video or animation image while adding new information about the edges image after image. It is called temporal anti aliasing and can make your image a bit blurry or noisy in motion. At least if you have a stationary camera position, the image becomes very sharp and crisp within a fracture of a second.

Physically based rendering

While developing a software that creates a rendering, you have to tell the computer what it should do – in every detail. This includes the question of how the light behaves (without light we would only have a black screen). You can quickly come up with a few basic observations: The light particle is reflected or absorbed if it hits something. It then bounces through the scene, creating shadows and colorful imagery. Until a few years ago, it was still usual to rely on simple assumptions: One part of the light spreads evenly (the diffuse part) and the other one forms a glossy or rough highlight (the specular part).

These observations are not inappropriate, however this is not exactly how nature behaves. The term physically based rendering describes the effort of replicating the real world material interaction with light as close as possible. It turns out that the way a light particle bounces across a surface is strongly angle-dependent. This is based on special scans, where scientists measured the behavior of light on materials under special lighting conditions. Considering those exact measurements, we can now design more complex simulations in order to match the light properties of real world materials, without too many simplifications.

The visual impact of using physically based materials can be little – but leads to an overall coherent and consistent look.

Unbiased rendering

Given your set of materials, lights and your whole scene, mathematics tell us exactly how your image should look. Just like in nature, there is only one sort of visible light and we expect a certain behavior of it. The behavior of light is mathematically described.

If you want to create a truly correct simulation of the light in your image, it might take a long computation time. By obeying the mathematical rules of light, you are then creating an unbiased rendering. However, if you allow an almost invisible difference in image quality (the bias) – the computational process can be a lot faster. The challenge for us developers is to keep the visual bias very low while increasing the speed we get from accepting this bias in our image.

Note that you can create an unbiased rendered image, which is totally aligned with the laws of light without using physically grounded materials.

Global Illumination

If the light hits a surface, it does not end there. For example, in indoor environments, you have areas in your building, which are not illuminated by artificial light and have no direct sight to the bright sky or the sun. However they are not completely dark. They receive the light bounced from other surfaces.

Left: Global Illumination, Right: Only direct light. Compare the light on the ceiling and the reflections on the ground.

These bounces make the lighting not local anymore – it is global. The classic computer game look of the first 3D games emerges from a constant brightness instead of a global illumination depending on the scene geometry. Enscape for example calculates multiple light bounces in real time to simulate the indirect light even in indoor environments.

Auto Exposure

A camera has a limited range of brightness values that it can capture. For example, if you adjust your camera to allows you to see all the details in a dark room, you would see only a plain white image if you now point the camera in broad daylight. The reason for this, is that the potential brightness range in real scenes is much larger than our eyes and a camera can capture. That’s why your eyes have a flexible pupil diameter and a camera has a shutter. At Enscape, we replicate that to make the image look like a photography.

Finding the right exposure is sometimes not trivial. You can of course set the exposure manually (similar to what happens if you use your camera app at your smartphone and tap somewhere on the screen) but that would require a manual readjustment if you move from inside of a building to the sunny outside. That’s why there’s something called auto exposure: The exposure is automatically calculated to ensure a right exposure for most of the screen. If most of the screen is very bright due to the sun, it may happen that darker parts of the screen including weak artificial lights seem to disappear because they are underexposed. Keep in mind that real sun light is magnitudes brighter than most artificial indoor light.

Left: Sunny day, exposure set to correctly capture the outside. Inside looks too dark. Center: Sunny day, exposure set to correctly capture the inside, the outside looks too bright. Right: Clouds adjusted to simulate a cloudy day, now the outside is not as bright anymore. The camera is now able to capture the indoor lighting and outdoor lighting situation without over brightening or darkening.

Ambient Occlusion

Recall the above paragraph about unbiased rendering. Sometimes you have to agree on some limitations to make it non-physical, but faster. That is why graphic developers invented Ambient Occlusion.

Due to the complex phenomena of light bouncing on different surfaces, occluded corners sometimes become a bit darker. This is often the case, but if you look at the corners in the room you are sitting in, you might notice that there is sometimes no darkening at edges at all.

Anyway, it is a common technique to imitate a correct global illumination calculation. The rendering software darkens areas where anything might be in the way of approaching light. This is not very very close to “real” and does not represent the natural properties of light. Yet it enables the viewer to grasp easily the geometric appearance of the scene. Then again, it sometimes looks like some dirt in the corners or even creates images that appear too dark. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is an even rougher approximation of the normal ambient occlusion. It only considers occlusion from objects inside of your current screen.

Left: Ambient Occlusion, Right: Global Illumination. Note the varying occlusion radius with regard to the scene lighting environment

An unbiased rendering software does not use ambient occlusion, neither do we at Enscape (only if you disable the global illumination). We obtain the effect of naturally appearing darkened corners thanks to the multiple light bounces.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article will contribute to a better understanding of a few important graphic buzzwords. If you do not know Enscape already, then try it now! Enscape is our Revit plugin for realtime renderings at a very high quality level. You simply walk through your architectural project based on the CAD planning data – no export, import or tuning needed! If you liked this post or have any comments, please send us a mail. Thank you!

The post Architectural Rendering Glossary appeared first on Enscape.