10 Great Tips to Create Amazing Interior Shots

Posted on 26. Mar, 2010 by DAS Team in Articles, Recent

Hello there! My name is Flavius I’m 20 years old and I am a self-taught artist. I’ve been passionate about 3d since I was 15,when I have actually first started with 3ds max 5 and V-ray 1.09. I have tried almost all areas of 3d,from modeling to particle animation ,and one of my favourite things to do is : making interiors. In this short article I will try to pinpoint the most important things,in my opinion,which you should consider when making an interior.I will write about the two things which are vital when making a CG image ( any kind ) – The technical part and the design (artistic) part.

1 . Research/Reference- Probably one of the most important tips anyone could ever give to any fellow 3d artist. Even if you are modeling a car,making some rain with particles or you are making your future living room, gather as much reference as possible. Try to imagine what kind of style you want for your interior render(classic,modern,minimalist) and then look for photos related to your room ( living room,bedroom,bathroom) . Staring at a white canvas , (or a grey grid in 3d ) and trying to come up with a brilliant design will never work, unless you are,for example Santiago Calatrava. Your general idea of what you want and your reference is your main starting point.
2. The feeling – So,now that you have a lots and lots of photos( interiors with different style of furniture, shapes, colors etc) you must imagine what kind of feeling would you like to convey . Would you like something calm and quiet? or something a bit more vivid and lively? Knowing this is important because later on you will be able to make use of the design elements( texture,color,shape etc ) easier! .

3. Color – Color,color,color! In my opinion , it is by far the most important element in any interior (and noy only). With color,you can really manipulate the feeling of an entire room! For example,you are not going to use red in the bedroom you want to rest and sleep and you are not going to use pale blue in your office .Why? Well, red is asociated with blood(it can actually make your heart beat a bit faster) ,activity,energy, whether blue is with calmess,serenity, ( your pulse can go down a bit if there is blue around you). I can’t specifiy the meaning of each color here,but do read about color theory.We can all feel color,but not all of us can explain why it makes us feel in a certain way.And for anyone designing an interior,this is vital. Do not make overuse of color though. Choose two main colors (or maybe 3,but use the third one sparringly ). Go beyond 4,and you’ll end up with a mess where colors are fightning with each other.
4. Design rules- The design elements ( point,line, plane,direction ,color,texture,pattern, size etc) and design principles (balance,emphasis,rhythm etc). are the fundamental knowledge of any designer. I won’t be explaining each of them ( but you should really learn them) but I will give you an example. Let’s take the “line” and”direction” as our elements. If we paint the walls with vertical lines, that room will appear taller but it’s width will look shorter. If we paint the walls with horizontal lines we’ll bring the ceiling down,but we will increase the width .

5. Take it step by step – After you have a clear picture in your head of what you want (and reference photos all over around you ) you could try to sketch something on paper (if you have good drawing skills) or, if you don’t, start directly in 3d by building everything step by step. What I mean,is, don’t rush by putting lots of furniture and plants and accesories all over but add elements gradually instead.Make the walls/windows/doors then add the main pieces of furniture ( sofa and tv if you are making a living room for example, a bed if you are making a bedroom etc). This would be a good time to choose your camera angle also, especially if you are planning on making only 1 render view.
6. Materials- Having some really good textures can make the difference between a realistic interior render and,well, a crappy one. When you are making a material first,observe it in real world. Let’s take the floor for example. How reflective is it?(change/tweak the output of your reflection map) Are the reflections crisp and clear,or they are blurred?(change/tweak the glossines value accordingly) Is the floor’s reflection dependent of the way you look at it? (if yes,you would use a fallof map in the reflection slot). Make a small scene where you keep the same lightning and you test your materials.

7. Know your renderer – It doesn’t really matter if you use V-ray or Mental Ray, Maxwell etc.Learn it! Don’t just crank up the subdivision values without knowing what it actually does. As in step 6,make small scenes where you can test different values and the different lights the renderer has. Read the help manual. In the end, everything will help you lower render times and keep good quality also.
8. Post processing – S curve ,anyone ? Ambient occlussion? If you are using V-ray , use their frame buffer. You can tweak the curves of your image in 32 bit color space. Usually, most renders turn out a bit washed out,with the mid tones too high. So, you need to boost the highlights a bit and the shadows also. ( S-curve ) One of the things you can do ,is render out as .hdr and import it in Photoshop. You will have a lot of control over the exposure in real time! I won’t go into details about this workflow ( gamma space,etc) but if you are interested into a more detailed tutorial, e-mail me.

9. Pay attention to details. Don’t rush! – Unless you have a deadline,there is no one rushing you. Take your time with the materials and lightning setup. If something looks wrong, make crop renders of that area and try to see what is wrong. Isolate the problem and work on it! Don’t leave your interiors empty,only with the furniture. Put books around, plants,glasses, chocolate , anything that would make the room look inhabitable.This will certainly add a little bit of realism to your scenes.
10. Critics & Comments – This will surely make you go further. Start reading forums and post your work there. I strongly recommand cgarchitect.com . It is the largest community of arch viz people and architects . You can see other people’s work ,get inspired from it ,and also from their mistakes.
Hopefully,some of things I’ve said will be of good use to you. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to visit my web-site ( www.flaviuscristea.com ) and contact/ email me. Best of luck! Flavius

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Tags: architecture, flavius, interior shots, room, tips