The Gallery Thread with No Images...

[Ross Macintosh]

I found the rendering that was formerly below interesting because it was the first time I collaborated with others to produce a drawing in Xara. Bruce is the senior technologist in our architectural firm. He hand drew a perspective sketch for the proposed building over a site photo. We scanned in both his sketch and the photo. Both are part of the final rendering.

Karen is our senior CAD operator. She has watched me create graphics in Xara but hadn't used it much herself. For this one she did about 90% of the rendering in Xara X. To facilitate her success I guided her through about 5%, giving her tips and techniques. It is IMHO indicative of the intuitive quality of Xara's interface that Karen - a Xara novice - was able to be productive. For the final touches (the last 5%) I did myself.

I'm pleased with the results although if we had more time we could have spent it on improving the "glass". It would have been better with the addition of reflections. Overall, we were attempting to have a somewhat painterly effect. I think we were successful. It greatly helped in keeping the photographic background/foreground elements from detracting from the proposed building.

For our busy architectural practice, the kind of collaboration we used here will probably become more common.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on January 10, 2001 at 09:54 AM.]

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on January 11, 2001 at 09:37 AM.]

[Ross Macintosh]

I found the rendering that was formerly below interesting because it was the first time I collaborated with others to produce a drawing in Xara. Bruce is the senior technologist in our architectural firm. He hand drew a perspective sketch for the proposed building over a site photo. We scanned in both his sketch and the photo. Both are part of the final rendering.

Karen is our senior CAD operator. She has watched me create graphics in Xara but hadn't used it much herself. For this one she did about 90% of the rendering in Xara X. To facilitate her success I guided her through about 5%, giving her tips and techniques. It is IMHO indicative of the intuitive quality of Xara's interface that Karen - a Xara novice - was able to be productive. For the final touches (the last 5%) I did myself.

I'm pleased with the results although if we had more time we could have spent it on improving the "glass". It would have been better with the addition of reflections. Overall, we were attempting to have a somewhat painterly effect. I think we were successful. It greatly helped in keeping the photographic background/foreground elements from detracting from the proposed building.

For our busy architectural practice, the kind of collaboration we used here will probably become more common.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on January 10, 2001 at 09:54 AM.]

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on January 11, 2001 at 09:37 AM.]

[doobs]

great work ross...did you draw the cars in xara too? i lke the overall pastel like effect and how everything blends together.

[Ross Macintosh]

I'd sincerly like to see more people create architectural renderings in Xara. In the hope that I might facilitate others trying their hands at it I'll describe how the one that used to be above was constructed. If you aren't interested in such things please click your back button now because this is going to take a few minutes of your time.

In reading the following, if you wonder why we didn't use a simplier technique - please follow up by posting what that simplier technique is. I'm in business and am always interested in tips that can help do things better or more easily.

Here goes...

The cars, most of the street, and the buildings on either side of the proposed building were in the site photograph used. That photo was scanned in and imported. We also scanned in and imported into a layer above the photo, a hand-drawn pencil perspective that had been created as a tracing paper overlay over the photo. To eliminate the scanned pencil drawing's white background we applied a truly great Xara trick - select the bitmap, then select the transparency tool which is set for "stained glass" with the slider set at 0% transparent - like magic the background disappears allowing the bitmap behind to be seen. The pencil lines became an overlay on the photo background. It was easy to adjust the two so the lines corresponded with the photo.

The photo's parts that conflicted with the bank's pencil lines were then cut out. That was done using the shape editor tool after making the imported bitmap an editable shape. There was for instance a car parked directly in front of the bank - it had to go! The space that was the proposed building and the nasty overcast sky were cut out too. All through this cutting-out process we could see the overlayed pencil lines that we could trim to.

In cutting out the conflicts we were left with areas (like were the removed car was) where an appropriate background was missing. To fill in these missing areas as seamlessly as possible we exported the whole shabang (both layers visible) as a large tiff that we could edit in PaintShopPro. Its clone brush (is that what it is called? - same as a rubberstamp brush in some other bitmap editors) was used to extend adjacent pixels over to the edge of what would become the new bank. Remember - even in PaintShopPro we could see the pencil lines as the photo and lines had been exported together. Upon filling in missing areas that couldn't be easily added in Xara, we exported a large jpeg from PaintShopPro.

That jpeg was imported into the xara drawing where it replaced the original photograph on the backmost layer. We were now seeing the pencil line layer overlayed on the background photo/pencil-line composite that had been edited with the bitmap editor.

We knew we wanted the more pastel-like softness that would seem less photographic and be more compatible with what was to be our xara-rendered building. In xara that was easily achieved by simply applying a fractal-plasma transparency to the background jpeg. That, combined with the fact that there were hand drawn pencil lines overlaying it all, really softened the crispness of the photograph. We could see at this point we were really getting somewere. We had only to then xara-ize the proposed building...

Having the background fairly complete and visible helped by establishing the tonal values we were after. On new layers between the background and the pencil layer we "infilled" areas requiring colour one shape at a time in a straightforward manner. This is what took the most time.

It was very handy having the pencil lines overlaying everything. For instance we could be quite quick (ie sloppy) and not worry too much about alignment because the pencil lines covered minor gaps between our shapes. Those lines also added almost instant character to areas that we filled with colour - an example is the brick pier at the nearest part of the bank: a shape with colour was added and the pencil layer contributed the brick coursing lines without the need to draw them in Xara. Easy.

Shadow layers along with highlights were added to give it life. They are generally simple shapes filled with either black or white and given linear or elliptical transparency. Typically they are built up from multiple shapes, each with their own transparency. I find Xara makes this very intuitive given its ability to apply transparencies interactively.

Trying to finish up the rendering, a sky layer was added. It was made by creating a shape that extended where it needed to be - ie I simply click-clicked my way around the sky space using the shape editor tool and then filled the closed shape with a linear fill (blue to white). That shape was cloned and given a fuchsia fill to which an elliptical transparency was applied. Creating such a simple sky is a step forward for me - I usually fuss with them too much and build them up from mutiple transparent shapes.

Looking at the rendering I felt it needed a reflection in the wet street. This was done by exporting the entire image as a jpeg and then importing it back in. Once flipped it was converted to an editable shape and trimmed to be the bank area. At that point I applied a temporary flat transparency to it so I could see the rendering behind. A mould was added to allow the upsidedown bitmap to be manipulated to suit the overall street scene's perspective. When I had it good enough (took two minutes of interactively fiddling in Xara) I applied an elliptical transparency to soften its edges and in effect feather it into the scene.

Adding our logo (previously created in Xara) and our company name and it was done. The image will be used in promotional materials prepared by the bank. They are going to print it onto a sign for the construction site. I might just have to drive over there and have a look!

Sorry for being so long-winded! Once I got started describing how it was "built" I couldn't stop.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on January 10, 2001 at 09:50 AM.]

[amoore]

I'm not likely to be doing architectural renderings anytime soon [Gary just choked on his coffee [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ], but I got a lot out of your description. Thanks for sharing the details.

Allison

[Luciano]

That's really an interesting rendering, with the nice feeling of a hand made drawing.
I don't like many 3d rendering programs which generate images which look unreally sharp.

Really a good work

Luciano

[bputnam]

Nice drawing! If you add a blonde woman walking on the sidewalk, it will look like an Edward Hopper.

Bryan

[Ross Macintosh]

Brian your suggestion of adding a blonde conflicts with the crass objectives of my client. If there was a blonde in the pic, everyone (or almost everyone) would look at her and not the building!

Actually, sometimes there is a place in architectural renderings for blondes. Sometimes the building is so ugly you need a distraction!

Sometimes that intent is too obvious when a sexy woman is added to the rendering. In those instances we like to add lots of vegetation. Remember, doctors bury their mistakes, architects plant ivy!

Seriously, I once did a nice xara rendering of a prison (one that has consumed most of my life for the last couple of years) and in that rendering, the driveway had a nice sportscar. You know everyone had wisecracks about who's sportscar it was and nobody noticed the beautiful prison I had designed. That bummed me out from including expensive sportscars - or beautiful women - in my renderings.

Regards, Ross

P.S. One of these days I'll post the prison and you'll see what I mean.

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on January 09, 2001 at 08:26 PM.]

[Egg Bramhill]

This image has been removed at Egg's request

[This message was edited by Ed Portas on January 11, 2001 at 03:22 AM.]

[This message was edited by Ed Portas on January 11, 2001 at 03:23 AM.]

[doobs]

cute looking crumpet egg!