3D Tutorial - Architectural Visualisation in 3ds Max From Autocad Drawings - Stay in Wonderland

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Posted on J uly 16, 2012 by stayinwo
THI S I S THE FI RST 3D ARCHI TECTURAL VI SUALI SATI ON TUTORI AL I VE MADE WHERE WELL GO
FROM AUTOCAD PLANS THROUGH TO 3DS MAX AND PHOTOSHOP!
Overview
For this 3d architectural visualisation tutorial I m going to start with an autocad drawing, clean it up a little then bring it into 3ds max for tracing. I ll finish the model and then light it with
vray and finally render it out to be placed inside a location shot.
Heres the final image (click for larger):
3D Tutorial: Architectural Visualisation in 3ds max fromAutocad drawings... http://www.stayinwonderland.com/2012/07/3d-tutorial-architectural-visua...
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Step 1: Preparing Autocad Drawing
First we need to prepare the Autocad drawing for importing into 3ds max. This can take a while as we need to make sure everything is pretty damn clean and who knows what state a
drawing is going to be in.
This is a before screen grab (click for larger):
This is an after screen grab (click for larger):
The basic idea here is to take every view (front, back, left, right, floor 1 and floor 2) and group them so they are each one block item on its own layer. I even had separate layers for the
doors and balconies this can be useful if you have objects or features which can obscure details behind them.
Obviously from image 1 to image 2 I have removed any unwanted line work such as people, trees, lettering, landscaping and furniture this brief was exterior only.
I also took the ground floor and 1st floor and made them perfectly overlap using the snapping function. Snapping is key in this whole exercise. I ve separated the floors above for illustration
purposes, but on export they were on top of each other.
With each side on a separate layer, I can then move them around in 3ds max to get them in position.
Step 2: Aligning the views in 3ds max
Note: you can align everything in autocad if you feel more comfortable doing so. I prefer max is all.
This is a tricky step. One false move and the whole house might be ruined but you might not even realise until hours if not days of work have passed. Get this right first!
Snapping
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As you can see here, Ive got my snapping set to 2.5 and highlighted the vertex snap and the Edge/Segment snap. Youll be swapping between these two frequently.
Heres another set of useful tools axis constraints
You can access these by r-clicking the top toolbar (r-click menu shown above) and choosing Axis Constraints. This is very useful for when you want to drag something and align it to the
edge of something. I t may already be perfectly set up in X so when you drag in Y you dont want the objects X values to slide around. Or vice versa.
Heres an example of getting the two sides to line up (left side and right side of building)
First we select the initial side we want to move/align (note: hover over the side, dont just drag the entire object you can see the side or edge I ve chosen i light blue). Here I also made
sure to use axis constraint to only drag in one axis.
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Then drag to your desired align location side or edge. Again, anything that qualifies as a side will light up in blue and be snap-to-able (thats not a word!).
Next I changed the axis constraint and did the same to align it vertically. Now both sides are identical in their alignment.
I wont go into more detail about aligning. I basically used this method throughout until I got somehting that looked like this
Step 3: Tracing the Drawing.
This step is fairly straight forward. I will say at this point, having the plans in a PDF form to refer to was almost essential. Here is a picture of what I was using for visual reference rather
than having to look at the cad drawing all the time
This is just one page of a supplied PDF which contained all the site drawings. I ts just much easier to look at than the DWG file.
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I began in the top viewport using the line tool and just traced all the walls in 2d. Once everything was traced over, I extruded it to the desired height. I then added an edit poly modifier and
used the Slice Plane
This will slice all my geometry at a given height and again to the bottom edge of the windows. I then would delete all facing polygons between door and window openings and use the
Bridge tool to connect the polygons, thus closing the gaps.
Step 4: 3ds max progress shots
Here are the progress stills. I wont go into much detail on modelling as this is intended as a general arch viz tutorial, but the modelling wasnt anything special. J ust some box modelling.
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I ts worth noting at this stage that myself and the client had established a favoured view from which to render the property. As such I only modelled the bare essentials on the opposite side,
focusing on the detail we would see.
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The only other thing worth mentioning about modelling is that I did use the ProBoolean tool to cut various tricky shapes mainly around the roof. It would otherwise be very difficult and
could take a lot longer for absolutely no discernable difference on the final image. Time is money.
Once caveat about this though, was that when it came down to unwrapping the UVW mapping for the roof, there were a few messy bits of geometry that I had to clean up.
Step 5: Photoshop
Here is our location photograph:
This is a pretty grim prospect for photoshopping in a building. I t has to go right in the middle of all those trees which means a fair bit of cutting and copying and digital gardening!
Here is the render
I cropped the photo down a little. To get the building just where I wanted, I had to look at the site plans. I still wasnt 100% sure so I had the architect on the phone and shared my screen
over skype. Better to get it done in one go than keep emailing shots.
Oh yeah, Vray. Nothing fancy here at all. I used a Vray sun and a HDRI with a fairly sunny/cloudy image. I made sure and set the environment and reflection override to the HDR image
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while the background was set to this picture. I also used Reinhard as the color mapping and unchecked affect background so the jpeg wouldnt get blown out (or be too dim, I forget
now).
Above you can see the method I used for creating foliage in front of the house. I got some tree masks from my personal stock collection and lassod off a few branches/bunches of leafyness,
then did a copy and paste from a green/leafy area and just moved it into place.
A little colour correction, some balance, photoshop magic and hey prestofinal image
Click the above for larger image.
I hope you learned much from this tutorial. Do come back for more!
Edit: Ive created my own web site showcasing all my 3d architectural visualisation renderings. Go check it out!
Also, follow me on twitter for updates: #SIWonderland
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This entry was posted in 3D Tutorials and tagged 3d, arch viz, architectural visualisation, architecture, deganwy, exterior, freelance, house, North Wales, proptery, visualisation. Bookmark the permalink.
10 Responses to 3D Tutorial: Architectural Visualisation in 3ds max from Autocad drawings
Gintaras J onika says:
September 29, 2012 at 9:58 am
Hi!
I really love your tutorials, like how you make architecture stuff.
I want to ask you a question if you would be able to share your secret of lightning:)
For example in this project, when you start rendering your object, what kind of settings are you using for rendering? How many lights? What type of light? Would that be possible to
have a little peak into your scene settings?:)
I like that crispy and bright look, also the textures looks great. Because for me to render this quality image with vray takes ages.
Reply
stayinwo says:
September 29, 2012 at 11:31 am
Well, for this particular scene the lighting was really simple just a vray sun and I dont think I even used a HDRI image for the environment light. Obviously Id use the
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vray sky for the environment when it prompts you. The crisp look isnt always realistic though, the light should be somewhat diffuse and this can be achieved by increasing
the size of the sun until the shadows blur.
With that set up, a render with the following irradiance map set to medium (primary bounce), light cache set to about 750 (secondary bounce), DMC set to 1/4 as long
as the textures are pretty simple and theres no displacement, should only take a few minutes or even less. But note, for test renders the settings should be something like
IRR set to low/very low, light cache set to 250 and noise set to 0.02 (rather than the default 0.01), render size set to about 800px wide. That should take seconds for a
simple scene.
Let me know if this helps!
Reply
Gintaras Jonika says:
October 1, 2012 at 10:37 am
Thanks for Replying,
More or less what i use:) just probably my sun is stronger and i dont know why but when i need very clear and sharp shadows i cant get them, they become
blurry.
Thanks for tips anyway !
Reply
MEER MOHAMED RAZACK says:
J anuary 22, 2013 at 2:26 pm
Cool tutorial ! man,
but still i need modelling detail from elevation set-up at max,
and im looking forward for your reply.
Reply
stayinwo says:
J anuary 22, 2013 at 11:40 pm
well, thats kind of a different story if you mean poly modelling techniques? I start with the ground floor walls, brought into max as dwg. Then snap to vertex and create a
shape. Then extrude it to the first floor height. Then its time to hack that to pieces using poly modelling.
Reply
Praveen Sharma says:
February 5, 2013 at 11:17 am
Thanks sir. Very nice tutorial. I really get advantage by this.please share some tower modeling tutorial and please tell me what thing we should keep in mind while modeling
anything through cad drawing.when fllor plan is different and elevation is slightly different.
Reply
stayinwo says:
Thanks I myself have never done a tower, but I did see a great tutorial on cgarchitect.com that was done by a lady (never hear of women in arch viz). Generally though,
I would say that you can improvise and make it up more than you think you can in arch viz. As long as it looks right in the render.
Reply
M. Kamran Haleem says:
Thats great work. I appreciate it because its very helpful. Many people like me know about 3ds max and AutoCAD but they have no idea that how to communicate b/w them so this
tutorial is really helpful. Thanks
Reply
tinyurl.com says:
April 14, 2013 at 3:11 am
What precisely really encouraged you to publish 3D Tutorial:
Architectural Visualisation in 3ds max from Autocad drawings | Stay in Wonderland?
I seriously appreciated the post! Thanks for the post ,Saul
Reply
stayinwo says:
April 14, 2013 at 10:49 am
Thanks Saul. I just spent a ton of time trying to figure this stuff out and there wasnt too much out there, so I thought Id share my learnings.
10 of 12 5/19/2014 10:23 AM
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