It’s time to foray into some new software again. I’ve heard lots of good things about Enscape 3D rendering, and finally decided to give it a try. I’m finding it a joy to use, and for visualizing designs, especially interiors, it does a splendid job. It’s one more tool I can add to my repertory, alongside Blender and V-Ray. The following kitchen interior renovation was modeled in Sketchup and I used Enscape to provide quick, and interactive views of the design.

I also have some new renderings I’m happy to highlight here. Included are an interior rendering for new construction, a chapel exterior, and a urban landscape design proposal.

The release of the new version 3 of V-Ray for Sketchup has taken a bit of effort to incorporate into my workflow. There are many changes in how V-Ray handles materials the net effect of which has made large swathes of my existing models obsolete. On the one hand, the render engine that uses video card rendering has been substantially upgraded, which makes for fast renders. On the other hand, the workflow changes have been most pronounced in this method of rendering. The massing study image above is the first project for which I’ve actually used the latest V-Ray for Sketchup.

The image below is a photo-realistic view of a commercial project that I had rendered previously in a watercolor style.

Conceptual interior renderings of a proposed shared office space in an existing building.

Exterior renderings of a small-footprint development within Lochlyn rendered with Vray for Blender.

Here are a variety of interior renderings I’ve completed recently, mostly done for helping the clients confirm finishes and design. They were all modeled in Sketchup, and rendered with V-ray. I really get a kick out of the wow! factor when a client sees a completed rendering.

Here’s a brief behind-the-scenes look at the variety of information that I can start out with when I begin on a project. These are three recent projects for which I prepared renderings, and before each finished rendering, I have included an image of the base information from which I began my work.

This first project is a house rendering for a homeowner who was interested in seeing some color options for their new house under construction. I was given the builder’s hand-drawn elevations and site plan from which to build and render a view of the house.

The next project had a similar requirement of generating a visual for a homeowner to see how the house would look in real life. With this project, I had CAD drawings of the plans, elevations, and site from which to generate the 3D model.

The third project is one where I took an already completed Sketchup model and added lighting and materials to prepare some marketing images of the project for the designer/builder. The first image is a screenshot of the Sketchup model, and the completed render follows.

I’ve been working on a fun side-project in my spare time recently. I’ve been tasked by a certain task-master (read: wife) to get a chicken coop designed pronto. While I would also have fun building it, using a contractor neighbor whom I’ve worked with before made the most sense. I had already worked out a basic Sketchup model of the coop, but to get it in the contractor’s hand, I ended up putting a basic working drawing set together as well. And since I can’t resist doing more rendering, I went ahead and generated some photo-montages of how the coop will appear in the backyard. I found lots of useful examples, stories, and basic information from the http://www.backyardchickens.com/ website.

The coop is now finished, with new residents! See below for pics.

Here is the Sketchup model of the coop.

Here is a photo of where the coop is going to go in the backyard.

Here is a rendering of the coop montaged into the photo.

And here is the completed coop.

One more.