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Rhino Render Tips

Hasselhoff

Long time no see. Typically I model in Rhino, render with VRay. Our office got a request to produce a fund raising rendering in short order. We only have about 40 hours to model and render the whole project. I'd been working on a SketchUp model for a while, but it's old, needs a lot of work, and would probably take as long to fix as it would to rebuild more cleanly in Rhino. The issue is, we don't have VRay in the office.

Has anyone had success with Rhino's built in rendering engine? It doesn't have to be photo real, just sharp and clean, to get the idea across. Any tips? Here is a rendering of an older model (it's not complete). Spent about 2-3 hours adding materials and some lighting. Is this about what I can expect?

 
Jul 25, 10 1:00 pm
Hasselhoff

Sorry, uploaded the wrong image.


Jul 25, 10 1:02 pm  · 
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The Job Captain

do you have flamingo? imho, both the built-in rhino rendering engine and flamingo are good for industrial design (i.e. car paints, plastic, rubber, and just rendering the basic colors themselves). especially flamingo can produce excellent renderings this way. but both suck for architecture. aside from maybe some of the glasses and metals, i'd try to steer clear from putting any brick, wood, or concrete in your models. i would say the above result is the best you'd get. keep the materials as basic as possible. even just rendering everything in the default white looks best for architectural renders in rhino to me. you can add materials in photoshop later. won't get you a photo-realistic rendering, but can look very cool, better than the above result. i believe brazil is mcneal's photorealistic rendering engine for rhino.

Jul 25, 10 1:27 pm  · 
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Hasselhoff

OK. No. At work all we have is Rhino. No Flamingo, no VRay, no Brazil. The building that I will actually be rendering is mostly white, this was just a test (not the same building). My PM wanted me to mess around and tell him Monday if I will go with Rhino or modify the SketchUp model.

Jul 25, 10 1:37 pm  · 
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FOG Lite

So why can't you get a demo version of vray for SU or Rhino? Or take the model home and do it on your own vray license? (I've also installed my own vray license on multiple machines, wink wink)

All that said, it seems like they have kept working on the rendering engine in the beta versions of Rhino V5, bump, displacement, HDRI, etc. Do you have access to that? I know its learning a whole new thing all over, but it might have better results.

Jul 25, 10 2:26 pm  · 
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Hasselhoff

Oooh, not a bad thought on the VRay demo... I had it on my machine at work. But, we just got a new 'general use' work station, so I could put it on there. That's a thought, forgot about that option. And it's a pretty simple model (materials wise, Montessori school...so all white, bit of wood). Although, my PM wants me to, if i use Rhino, be able to tell others how to use the built in Rhino renderer, for quick office renders, cause it is fast. I don't think the office would pay for VRay or the time as we just don't regularly produce renderings. This is a special case where the client wants a fund raising image, but doesn't have a ton to spend.

Jul 25, 10 2:41 pm  · 
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phld21

I've never been very good at rendering, so I always use rhino's make 2D feature to produce a lot of perspectives. Sometimes I put textures, light and shadow in photoshop, sometimes I merge the line drawings with photos. You can create a pretty nice experiential effect by combining rhino, photoshop and illustrator. Treat it more like a drawing and less like a render.

Because you are only rendering parts of the image, you can just quickly use rhino render, but combine it with other photos and line drawings for a finished effect.

Is anyone in your office experienced at this sort of thing?

Jul 25, 10 8:11 pm  · 
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phld21

Here's an image I did just to give you an idea. You can also rely more on line drawings and then sketch or paint over them. A lot of my friends do that, and it still gives an idea of the experience.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391021@N04/4828979062/

Good Luck with the project.

Jul 25, 10 8:36 pm  · 
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dia

hoff,

I agree with plhd21. I render directly from Rhino, and combine it with the make2d command from the same perspective and then create multiple layers in photoshop and make adjustments around unsharpen, curves, desaturation etc, etc.

This leads to an image with a certain aesthetic that is not a 'photorealistic' render, but evocative all the same.

In other words, I dont muck around too much in rhino with lighting and material maps. You could even take that image above as is and make it pretty nice with some photoshop wizardry.

Jul 25, 10 10:51 pm  · 
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dia

And I havent used max since about 2004. Rhino all the way!

Jul 25, 10 10:53 pm  · 
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Hasselhoff

Yeah. This was a 'proof of concept.' My PM just asked me to see what I could get in a few hours over the weekend. I have no doubt that more time will be spent Photoshopping than Rhino Rendering. It was just something so we can make a choice of Rhino or Sketchup.

Jul 25, 10 10:55 pm  · 
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FOG Lite

That was nice of your PM to give you something to do on the weekend....

Jul 25, 10 10:58 pm  · 
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Hasselhoff

Haha not so bad. I left at 4 on Friday, and it was so hot this weekend I didn't mind sitting at home. Just watched TV and tooled around. IT was nothing really.

Jul 25, 10 11:04 pm  · 
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FOG Lite

Then you shoudl go into the office and take advantage of the AC.

Jul 25, 10 11:05 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

Full Size

Because I had two hours today!

Jul 29, 10 5:24 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

Can I be architectural staff member nao?

Jul 29, 10 5:25 pm  · 
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noneother3

Unicorn Ghost how did u do that....is this more photoshop or did u use VRAY

Aug 3, 10 2:16 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

Vray... rendered to HDR.

I've found that 32bit rendering seems to work faster for me and it tends to require less photoshopping!

Aug 3, 10 2:33 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

Also, you get that nice hazy atmospheric effect when you adjust the brightness/contrast in 32-bit mode.

Aug 3, 10 2:34 pm  · 
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