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Quick and Pretty Renderings From ArchiCAD

Jared Banks - Jensen Residence with Tim Fuller at SALA ArchitectsThe above rendering is fairly typical of what I show clients these days. It’s not the most complex image, but it’s fast and easy. And you could imagine that with a little more effort scalies, trees, etc. could be easily added. The final rendering is a combination of images from the Sketch Rendering Engine and the Internal Rendering Engine found in ArchiCAD. The images were combined in a 3rd party program like Photoshop or Gimp. I like that the final product mimics some of the qualities of an image from SketchUp. And that’s actually where the original idea came from. I was looking to create images from ArchiCAD that appealed to former coworkers who only liked stuff from SketchUp. I think I succeeded.

Disclaimer: I’m using Gimp in the video and I am still fairly clumsy in the software. It’s a great program, but it is just different enough from Photoshop that I feel like I’m either wearing mittens or have had a few beers. If you’re not familiar with Gimp, check it out. It’s a free alternative to Photoshop. And I believe there’s an Illustrator type program as well created by the same group. I imagine going from Photoshop to Gimp is like going from ArchiCAD to Revit or vice versa. If it can be done in Photoshop, it can probably be done in Gimp. Just remember that it won’t be the exact same steps or locations…

Enjoy the Video!

Want to take the image you created a step further? Check out David’s advice on alternatives to photorealistic renderings. Also to get better materials in ArchiCAD, watch this video on stealing them from SketchUp.

Update 02/23/2015: ArchiCAD 18 offers some new ways to make this technique even better; click here to watch another way to create an awesome multi-layer rendering.

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Comments

  • January 24, 2013
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    Patrick May

    I do a very similar rendering using the sketch engine and the lightworks engine. I usually run a water color filter on the lightworks rendering to avoid any misalignment of hatches and material overlays.
    Another tip is to turn off any enteurage components (trees, cars, people etc.) in the sketch rendering to deemphasize them in the final product.

  • January 24, 2013
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    James Badcock

    I used to use ArchiCAD 3D document (or 3D window internal engine) hidden line with shadows and then the same view with colours but without shadows, and combine these in Illustator – allowing easy editing of the block colours and using the shadow layer to better affect. Great for diagrams where the block colours can be changes to represent different design intents etc.

  • January 24, 2013
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    James Badcock

    I never had much success with copy/paste or DWG into Illustrator. PDF works really well and the diagrams are scaled – so you can then PDF back and place into ArchiCAD layout. Though I always used InDesign – granted I never really did documentation or Architecture with ArchiCAD. Great for conceptual modelling as an Urban Designer.
    We also used the exported PDF line work and shadows as the basic for the Photoshop Masterplans. The combination worked really well.

  • January 25, 2013
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    Simple. I like this mainly because it shows a way to get a very legible, attractive rendering while avoiding the temptation to get photo-realistic.

  • June 1, 2013
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    I’ve always found the included render capabilities in ArchiCad off-putting. Nothing that inspires a client. Proper rendering software has become quite affordable and also easier to deal with. We are currently preparing an add-on for our template based on Maxwell Render. Creating an easy workflow from ArchiCad to Maxwell, the result even easily comes close to what you’d expect from a professional rendering company…minus the big cost.
    And if you’re going for a more conceptual render it gets even easier (all materials white or an overscaled timber so it looks like a real model for example). The benefit is the lighting is extremely good and the cameras react like a real camera would.

  • May 13, 2014
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    qubitstoy

    Nice post, I have been doing this ever since they introduced the sketch render, adjusting the layer values in PhotoShop to introduce just a touch of color behind the sketch image. Why can’t we have this look as an automatic feature? It’s been years. Looking forward to Version 18.

  • November 20, 2016
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    Purzsa

    Hi Jared. how long does it take to do 3d render in Archicad 20? My computer is 17, 16 ram, and the video card is GTX960. Please let me know because I want my rendering very fast.

    Thanks,

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