3D Rendering

One of the most asked questions that is not related to constructing designs and objects is; how do I get the best quality images when rendering?

The rendering process itself is very straightforward in both ARCON and GRAND DESIGNS 3D, however to get the best results can take a little time, the right settings and a small amount of know-how.

This tutorial is intended to provide you with the know-how and correct settings to get the best from your renders, but unfortunately we can't help with the time!

What is Rendering?

Before we commence with the tutorial, it is probably a good idea to define what we mean by 'rendering'.

In our terms ,rendering is the process of generating a an image from a 3d model. The model itself is a description of three dimensional objects containing geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information. The rendering engine within the software then takes this information and uses it to calculate the scene into a photo realistic image by adding shading, shadows, lighting, reflections etc.

Therefore in order to achieve an image that does our designs justice, we need to think about the factors that will go into creating the best possible final image and how we amend them for each individual purpose.

I will attempt to take you through the various settings that you can change in order to get the best results and offer some tips and tricks along the way.

One simple tip to start with is to understand that the more time you spend setting your scene, the better the final image will be.

This tutorial assumes the following:

1. You have finalised your project and created a structure with which you are happy
2. You have textured your buildings/surfaces as required
3. You have placed all of the 3d objects in your scene that you need
4. You have NOT made use of the materials or lighting objects (these will therefore be covered in this tutorial).

Now we have our starting point, here is a list of the topics and tools that we will cover in this tutorial:

1. The Save View tool
2. The Day/Night/Variable Time of Day tools
3. The Light Calculation tool
4. The Start Raytrace tool

Additionally we will cover the use of lamps and lighting object and the materials catalogue.........and this is where will will start.

Lighting your scene

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of getting the look and feel right for your final images. Within Arcon there are two potential light sources, sunlight and artificial light (created by using lamps).

We will cover changing the effects of the sun in another topic (see...) as here we are more concerned with controlling light sources to get the realism we are looking for.

When you browse through the object catalogue you will find multiple light and lamp objects. Some of these objects are little more than decoration, however the others have been created to actually contain variable light properties. When selected these objects will display the following dialogue box:



Using the settings in this dialogue allows us to control the lighting to get the effect we want to see in the final image.

There are three elements to the lighting that will have the most impact, all of which are in the 'Light Source' section of the tab:

1. Influence
2. Intensity
3. Colour

Influence can be thought of in terms of size of the beam. The larger the influence is set, the further from the light object the effects of the light will be. So for example a light in the centre of the room with a large influence will light more of the room than one with a small influence setting.

Intensity is probably best equated to brightness. The more intense the light, the stronger the effect will be, within the area of influence.

Colour seems self explanatory, and defines the colour of the light at it's source. This can be quite a crucial decision because the colour can effect the whole mood and feel of the scene. Also choosing the wrong colour or too strong a colour can wash out the effects of the textures and colours on other objects in the room.

A bit of trial and error will help you find the right light settings for your particular scene. To keep an eye and keep control of the lighting we generally recommend using the 'Night Time' setting. This allows the lights you have placed to be the predominent factor in how the scene is lit rather than the sunlight settings, this gives you more control to get the effect you require.

The SAVE VIEW tool

The Save View button does exactly what it says and allows us to save an image of the view we currently have on screen. The options for save view will greatly effect the quality of the final image and the time it takes to render. The basic rule of thumb is the higher the quality you want, the longer it will take.

For example on an average laptop, a standard 640x480 image with medium settings may take no more than a minute or so to render. Change this to 1400x1050 at high settings for example and it may take a couple of hours to complete. So there is a trade off between time and quality.

I would generally recommend that if you want a large image at top quality settings, start the render when you can leave you pc alone for a couple of hours (i.e. in the evening, overnight). I also usually recommend not alt-tabbing into any other applications and making sure the screensaver if turned off as the last thing you want is for another application to cause a problem after you're at 95% complete having waited 2 hours!

For the best quality image I would gnerally recommend the following settings:

Colour Palette should be set to 'True Colour'
Oversampling set at 16 times
Edge Fileter/Raytrace both ticked on
Dimensions will depend upon your intended final use. For a webpage for example you will need a much smaller image size than if you want an A3 printout. This is probably the biggest single setting that impacts the time taken to produce the picture so try to use the smallest setting that will still give you the required quality for the intended use.

If you do need to use a very large file size but want to reduce the time taken, try turning the Oversamplingsetting down a little.

Then I would usually save as BMP as this can always be compressed later to a jpg if you need a samller file size for emailing etc.