Interior/Architectural visualisation

Hello all,

I am newish to 3ds max (good experience with C4D) but I'm pretty sure I will be able to produce some very high end work soon (Internal/External visuals).

I was wondering is there many careers in this for example building designs and interiors? (without doing 5 years architecture in uni) Does anyone here work in that field? how would I go about getting employed in that line of work?

One of my first 3ds max renders(very basic I know just stared it really)

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Thanks

I do only CAD work, used to work for an architect though and think I have a fairly good eye.

I think that's a pretty nice render if it's one of your first! Personally, I really struggle with lighting.

There are two things that strike me about that picture. Firstly, your lampshade doesn't appear to actually be 3D. Secondly, that window, being so short, just looks weird, as does the design of it. I'd make it taller and perhaps remove the handles.

Anyway, I know nothing about working designing interiors, but with some programs you can easily make a house look nice. Check out Chief Architect for an idea of how easy it can be...I expect at the high end that it's substantially more difficult.

Yep the light is actually 3d but I messed the intensity of the bulbs so its all blown out (should be an easy fix). thanks for the advice on the window will make it bigger and add some more in my spare time tomorrow.

I'll take your word for it

Pleasure, you've got some awesome textures there, particularly the sofa and the floor.

Here is another shot after some more work!

I'm no expert but the bump map on that floor could be a bit more subtle. Looks like a recipe for claims direct!

Loving the picture on the right though..

its a tv, not lit it properly yet

Man, that looks awesome! How long have you been at this for?

4-5 hours

the high res version looks a lot better

Very nice. I suppose you're somewhat comfortable with this sort of program, but how difficult is it to learn, do you think?

I do this for a living - run my own studio in west london.

My advice:

1) work hard, really hard
2) test yourself but try to master each thing properly before moving on to the next
3) listen to the advice of the professionals and try not to be too precious about your work
4) decide if you're an artist or an illustrator (actually quite a big question)
5) learn photography using a proper DSLR
6) reference the real world at every opportunity, for lighting, materials and geometry
7) construct your spaces as if you would build them in real life (within limitations)
8) be very critical of yourself and your work
9) get on cgarchitect and the vray forums
10) learn 3ds max and vray as a minimum, and mental ray as a bonus
11) learn how to clean autocad DWGs, import into max and model from them

Good luck!

Well, I had a knowledge of cinema 4d and Auto cad, I would suggest you start with cinema 4d. 3ds max is very daunting if you go straight into it, and ofc you need to learn about Vray render or corona to get good realistic render qualities

Really depends how much time you have to spend, I really enjoy doing it and would love to be able to do it as a full time job as I work in graphic design I have an eye for what looks good.

If you enjoy this type of thing you will progress quickly

mothermachine any jobs going !?!?
and is there much work/ decent money in this trade?

I think there's money to be made if you have the connections (and clients willing to pay for it - usually the biggest issue!)
We tend to farm out viz stuff when it's needed by the client for sales etc so it does have a fairly specific market, most of the time we do a basic sketchup and maybe run it through another program to render it - which is normally enough for discussions and most presentations.
Out of 100 projects I've done since being self employed, I've farmed out maybe 5 jobs for proper viz!
And of the practices I previously worked, the ones that valued a realistic render usually had an in-house team that could produce images in the "house-style"
The fees we've paid have been fairly significant in terms of the whole architectural fee, but then, you will end up spending a small fortune on the software to do it!

9/10 doing viz work in-house (as an architect) will either cost you or your client more money or will actually lose you a project. I've seen it so many times. A client will see that their architect can churn out a load of CGIs for half the cost a proper viz firm/freelancer would charge, but the images end up so poor that the client then has to instruct that proper viz firm to do them all anyway, costing them 1.5x in the end. I get called up maybe 5-6 per year to "fix" problems like this because the client has been cheap. That and the fact that being a visualiser is not like being an architect. It takes a very different approach and "eye". That is unless your architecture practice has a dedicated viz department, which is fine obviously. But these are rare for obvious (cost) reasons.

yup, agree, not something I would bother with myself - too time consuming to get right and the software is too expensive! I have worked for a couple of large commercial places that had their own in-house team who were probably paid just as badly as the rest of us, so probably did ok in bringing in fees, any small (design led) places I've been, seemed to not value the photorealistic stuff too highly, (apart from when a client demanded it and it was farmed out)

Update

Want to redesign my house?

Looks great really does. I had a play with blender a year or so ago I could render rooms/random objects happily but fell flat when it came to textures. Kinda jealous.

stufflol, let me know your email address as I may have s project for you.

Looks good mate

I'd dial back the bump / normal on the floor a bit though, and up the samples on the glossy reflections on the floor and the shadows as well as they're a little bit grainy.

Nice lighting set-up though and the sofa looks ace.