What is up Steemians!

What do you think of this:

To other 3D Artists here: please go easy on me :)

3D rendering 101

Even the most seasoned 3D Artists, occasionally, have trouble distinguishing a good render from a photo (disclaimer: the render above is not one of them!). That is mainly due to many years of software development and writing algorithms which calculate light bounces from different types of surfaces in the 3D environment - which produces a close-to-real image. 

Whether used in Hollywood, architect firms, 3D studios, advertising agencies etc. the principle and software used is roughly the same:

3D modeling

 First you create the scene from 3D objects modeled in software packages such as: 3dsmax, Maya, Blender or Cinema 4D. In the ArchViz industry the models are hardly ever modeled by hand. Instead studios purchased massive libraries of models from on-line providers. 

Once you put everything in place, it looks more or less like this:

Lighting

Secondly, you use a combination of different light sources to imitate real world lighting environment. There's a whole study that goes into lighting, but a simple sun and sky usually does the trick:

Texturing and rendering

Possibly the most time consuming part of the process is texturing - ensuring the textures, reflections, transparent objects looks as real as possible. Very often artists use reference photos to imitate real life objects. 

There are many different rendering engines that you can install inside of your 3D package. Most commonly used, V-ray by ChaosGroup, works well for both still images and animations.

Once you're satisfied with your textures, press Render and voila~

Hardware

The more advanced the 3D software and the rendering engine, the highest the hardware requirement. Most 3D studios spent a FORTUNE on a network of computers, working together to create high quality images and animations.

I personally invested heavily in my workstation to maximize my work efficiency:

Dual CPU Xeon E5-2620 8-Core
MSI GTX 1080
ECC RAM 32GB
500GB SSD

Steemit 3D animation - Work in progress

I've decided to use this scene and create a 20 second animation involving the STEEMIT logo. It'll take a couple of days - but its a super fun project :)

I am also currently working on an Augmented Reality STEEMIT app, so stay tuned and follow me for more cool Steem 3D art/technology coming up in future!

Steemit incubator project 

My intention is to gather a team of similarly-minded Steemians, supporting each other in their ventures through:

• Knowledge and skill sharing -  Share your industry (any industry) experience, challenges, potential markets and technologies,
• Networking - Meet people from other industries and obtain the talent you need,
• Curating each other's contents - Help your fellow entrepreneurs out by offering advice or assistance and an upvote of course,
• Learning from each other’s mistakes - What do you wish you had known before you started your business?  Share you story! 

Join me on my journey through the development of an upcoming ArchViz start-up, from formation to platform development and recruitment.