I don’t create many interior illustrations on this site partly because interiors require well resolved models with lots of detail. I can’t simply rely on Photoshop to fill in information of interiors like I do for exteriors. This usually translates to more time, and since all of the work on this site is done in my free-time, I tend to steer clear of a lot of interior work. However, with the Desert House Project, I felt more resolved and realistic interior images were needed to close out the narrative.

While I didn’t have a lot of time to break down these images, I still wanted to post them here rather then keeping them hidden in the portfolio. I am including images of what the Sketchup model and base renderings looked like so that you can get a sense of how much the 3D model was developed versus how little things were manipulated in Photoshop.

01. Original Abstract Images

The above illustrations were first created a while back to explore some color and texture ideas as well as get a quick sense of the interior volumes. I still plan to put these illustrations into the portfolio, but I also need something a little more real to better explain the final result. The original post for these abstract images can be found Here.

2. Sketchup Model

Upon revisiting the interiors, I started with adding more detail such as window mullions, high poly furniture, and better textures. I already had much of the interior built from when I generated exterior images. However, I added a louver system on the inside ceiling to help relate to the exterior louver system and to also help define some of the larger spaces inside. A fireplace and stair were also added in.

I really don’t like seeing textures repeat aka tiling, so I ended up building two large textures for the wood floors and plaster walls. . Each texture is made up of several smaller textures copied/cloned/overlaid together and setup to be seamless. I also made corresponding bump and reflection maps.

3. V-Ray Base Renderings

The scenes are largely lit by the sun to highlight the fact that even though the project is recessed into the ground, lots of natural light still gets in. For the kitchen view (seen below) I did add some additional interior lights to create some strong focal points in that view. Above, the image on the left is straight out of V-Ray while the image on the right shows some quick level adjustments I did before starting the Photoshop work.

4. Photoshop

I started with the vegetation in Photoshop because I figured this might help inform what I do with the entourage. I focused on strong highlights and shadow with the vegetation to help dramatize these areas and draw attention as these are key features to the design. The entourage was limited to just a few people in each scene. In this case, I placed just one person off to the side and relatively small in the composition to help play up the grandness of the space.

5. Final Adjustments

Finally, I didn’t want to lose out on the vibrancy and strong colors that many of the other images of this project have, so I increased the color saturation of these interiors quite a bit. I especially wanted the warm tones of the plaster and wood to pop, so I increased those areas even more. Also, the detail was intensified by running some Topaz Filters at the very end.

Below are some drafts of the spreads. I still need to obviously add text and annotations, however the spreads are starting to take shape and I can now study how the colors and layouts flow from one spread to the other. There are also a lot of images and spreads for this project that are not included in this post but that will be included in the final portfolio. For the new portfolio, I will be giving each project more pages to express the design so that each spread can have a little more breathing room and less pressure to cram as much information as possible into them.

One of the spreads I put together included some new floor plans of the house. Again, I still need to layer in some text and annotations, but the framework is there. I experimented with lots of different material and color options before settling on a more simplified final image. Floor plans contain a lot of information that viewers are trying to digest quickly. Layering in lots of textures and colors can sometimes overload the plans with too much information and ends up hurting the hierarchy and reading of the diagram. I almost always end up going the more simple route with my floor plans.

I will hopefully have a new project underway by my next post. I have yet to do a project in a mountainous terrain. I think I will give that a go and see what I come up with….

1. V-Ray Base Rendering

For the V-Ray base rendering, I simply applied some colors close to what I was looking for knowing that I would tweak them later in Photoshop.

The Material ID that rendered out of V-Ray was crucial for me to make fast selections. Each color represents a zone that will take on a very specific color in Photoshop. I have talked about Material ID in more depth in this POST.

2. Add Color

Next, I took each zone of color and created a mask of that specific area in Photoshop so that I could dial in the color. In the image above, I adjusted the center pink zone to be lighter and more saturated. I wasn’t trying to be realistic so I wasn’t concerned about washing out the shadows a little bit.

Above, the image shows what the illustration looked like once I had all of the colors adjusted in each zone.

3. Texture

I added a simple plaster texture to all of the walls to break up some of the smoothness of the color gradients. I wanted to do this in Photoshop so that I could dial in how strong the texture was. It is important to note that I still distorted the perspective of the plaster texture to match the wall angles. If it sounds like a lot of work, it isn’t because I was able to use the color zone masks used in the previous step to speed this process up.

4. Color Adjust and Noise

At this point, I began adjusting the overall image. I first lightened the images and increased the saturation. I also added just a hint of noise. I describe how to add noise in step six of this POST.

5. HDR

Finally, I added a slight HDR effect that amplifies the contrast and textures. I used Topaz to generate the HDR effect.

Final Images

1. Setting Up Base Files

1A. The first thing I want to do is setup the base rendering. When I open the V-Ray RGB rendering, I convert it to a smart object. I do this by right-clicking on the layer and choosing “Convert to Smart Object”. This ensures that I will not cause destruction to the layer if I adjust the tone or levels. It also will allows me to replace the rendering with an updated rendering later if I need to. I also wrote a post a while ago about the advantages of smart objects HERE.

1B. Next, I want to remove the background. To do this, I choose “Select>Load Selection” which will bring up a “Load Selection” dialogue box.

1C. Choose the “Alpha 1” in the Channel drop down menu and then choose “OK”.

1D. When the Alpha is loaded, it will give a selection of the background. Once this selection is active, create a new group in the Layers Palette and then choose “Add Layer Mask”. When I drag my V-Ray RGB rendering layer inside of the group, the sky will be removed. Any other render elements that I drag into this group will also have the sky removed such as the Reflection, Refraction, and Raw Light elements. This avoids the need to create new masks for each element.

2. Adding the Sky

2A. I start the sky by first creating a new group under the “Base Files” group called “SKY”. Within this group, I create a new layer called “Sky Soften”. Using the “Brush Tool” with a soft tip and medium opacity, I slowly paint in a gradient from light to dark blue. The goal of this is to set the main color tones of the sky.

2B. Next I drag in my sky texture and place it above the “Sky Soften” layer.

2C. The sky texture is too strong so I lower the opacity of the layer to 34% so that the detail is subtle and not grabbing too much attention.

3. Background Mountains

3A. Using Google Earth, I was able to go to “Street View” at the location of the Desert House and save out a few screenshots. I then cut out the mountains to place into the illustration.

3B. Once the mountains are cutout, I can drag them into the illustration. I darkened and colorized them to give them a slight blue tone. I also made sure the “Mountain” group was below my “Base Files” group to take advantage of the alpha mask.

4. Ground

4A. To start editing the ground, I first need to create a selection of the ground. I did this by dragging in the “Material ID” V-Ray element (discussed in part 1) and placing it at the top of the Layers Palette. Next, choose “Select>Color Range” to bring up the “Color Range” dialogue box. Pick the color of the ground, in this case, the brown color. This will highlight the ground in the “Color Range” dialogue box. Adjust the “Fuzziness” slider to refine the selection as needed. Then click “OK” to load the selection. With the ground selection active, create a new group called “GROUND” and choose “Add Layer Mask” at the bottom of the Layers Palette. I now have a container to add in many textures without needing to create new masks for each texture.

4B. In the “GROUND” group, create a new layer called “Shadow”. In this layer, I use the “Brush Tool” with black paint, a soft tip, and medium opacity to darken the ground which better matches the lighting of the scene.

4C. Next, drag in some ground textures. I am using about five different images to make up the foreground, mid-ground, and background textures.

4D. Once all of the textures are in place, I set the “Blend Mode” of the entire “GROUND” group to “Overlay”. This sets the textures into the image and picks up the shadows and colors of the ground.

4E. Finally, I want some of the glow of the interior to wash across the ground. To do this, create a new group called “LIGHT” inside of the “GROUND” group. Inside the “LIGHT” group, create a new layer. Then select the “Brush Tool” with a light orange paint, a soft brush tip, and low opacity and start painting in the warm colors. Finally, set the “Blend Mode” to “Overlay” to blend the warmth into the ground.

5. Roof Textures

5A. For the roof textures, the process is the same as the ground textures. I create a group called “ROOF” with a mask applied. In it, I add textures and set the “Blend Mode” of the group to “Overlay”.

6. Interior Light

6A. For the interior lights, I again create a new group and call it “INTERIOR LIGHTS”.  I place this group into my “Base Files” group so that I can take advantage of the Alpha selection. Inside the “INTERIOR LIGHT” group, create another group called “CANOPY GLOW” with a mask of the area highlighted in green.

6B. Within the “CANOPY GLOW” group, create another new layer called “Warm Glow”. Then select the “Brush Tool” with a light orange paint, a soft tip, and low opacity. From there, slowly add in the light orange paint. Finally, set the “Blend Mode” to “Overlay” to blend the warmth into the image.

6C. There is also glass on the back side that will be adding warmth to some of the roof. Create a new group with a mask revealing just this section.

6D. Again, use a soft brush with a light orange paint, soft tip, and low opacity to paint in warmth in this area. Finally, set the “Blend Mode” to “Overlay”.

7. Fog

7A. Some fog is added to give just a hint of depth to the image. I usually do this in a group called “EFFECTS”. To add in fog, create a new layer, select the “Brush Tool” with a light blue paint, a soft tip, and very low opacity. Slowly paint in the haze focusing most of it near the horizon. I have several fog layers to better manage the density of the fog and to better control opacity in different areas.

7B. This image shows just the fog layer on a black background. You can see it is very subtle and focuses mainly near the horizon.

8. People

8A. Normally I like to place people behind the fog layers. However, in this case the “PEOPLE” group is placed on top of the “EFFECTS” group for more control with their toning. To get started, I first drag in one of the cutout people and convert the layer to a “Smart Object”.

8B. Next, the person needs to be darkened to match the scene. Choose “Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation”. In the “Hue/Saturation” dialogue box, move the “Lightness” slider left to darken the person. Then choose “OK” to close out of the box.

8C. Next, again choose “Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation”. This time, check the “Colorize” box in the lower right, then slide the “Hue” slider to a blue tone that matches the sky and atmosphere.  Finally, slide the “Lightness” slider to the right to lighten the cutout and account for some of the haze in the image.

8D. To help ground the person, a shadow can be added. Create a new layer, then choose the “Brush Tool” with black paint, a soft tip, and medium opacity. Then paint a spot in the middle of the canvas.

8E. Choose “Edit>Transform>Scale” to thin the shadow and scale to match the person. The opacity may need to be lowered as well.

8F. Finally, repeat these steps for the rest of the entourage.

9. That “Instagram” Look

9A. I ended up posting this image on my Instagram page with a little extra color tweak. To create this extra bit of color, first create a copy-merge of all of the layers. This is done by creating a new layer, then typing “ctrl+alt+shift+E”. Then convert it to a smart object by right-clicking on the layer and choosing “Convert to Smart Object”.

9B. Next, choose “Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation” to bring up the dialogue box. Then increase both the Saturation and Lightness.

9C. Now, set the “Blend Mode” to “Overlay” . This should significantly enhance the colors of the image. I lowered the opacity to tone down the strength just a little bit.

9D. Next, create a new layer and fill the new layer with a blue paint using the “Paint Bucket Tool”.

9E. Set the “Blend Mode” of the blue color layer to “Color Dodge” and then lower the opacity to about 20%.

9F. Finally, with the “Brush Tool” set at a low opacity, create a new layer, select a black paint, and darken both the bottom and top to create a vignette effect.

Final Image

I have never done such a comprehensive tutorial on my site like this before. I tried to cover every aspect of the making of this image. However, if I forgot something or didn’t explain it well, leave a comment or send me a message and I will do my best to correct/add to this post as needed.

Some quick notes: I am using a slightly older version of Sketchup (2015) and V-Ray 2 for this tutorial. The settings I am describing are somewhat universal and translate similarly in newer and older versions of both Sketchup and V-Ray. For example, we are using the latest versions of both Sketchup and V-Ray (3) in our office at Design Distill and these settings remain largely the same though the interface is different. The important thing to take away from this tutorial is not the specific settings but the larger ideas of workflow and where to spend and not spend your time. Like I said, I am providing what I think are the most critical ideas that led to the creation of the this image and am not trying to get lost in the weeds of render settings.

1. Sketchup Grouping

Since this project scale is small, the way that I organized the 3D Sketchup model is a little different than some of my other models. I grouped it by system so that the ground and terracing was one group, the glass and interior walls was another, then the wood screen, the steel structure, and finally the roof system. Within these groups are another several levels of groups and components. However, the five main groups allow me to get to each system quickly and really helps me to keep everything neat and clean and also very editable. I created a time lapse a while ago showing me constructing one of my models here.

2. Textures

Since the view is so far out, the textures are not as important as say a view from inside or really close up. I really only have about four textures that I am using; two woods, a metal, and a glass. I built the wood textures by editing some textures that I found on textures.com. I don’t like textures that show tiling, so I tend to build larger textures from smaller ones that don’t repeat as often. I also toned them and removed the harsh dark joints. The wood tones were important because these would read from far away and would significantly affect the “warmth” of the image as I drop in lights.

3. Night Settings

Now that the modeling and texturing is complete, I need to start setting up the lighting of the scene. Typically, I really push the coloring and lighting of the illustration in Photoshop, therefore, I am just trying to get something close in 3D without spending too much time. I am more focused on setting up things that are difficult to adjust in Photoshop such as shadow direction and softness as well as artificial lighting. This scene is lit by an HDRI sky which means I use the image to generate the light instead of using the V-Ray sun and sky. This can give the scene softer shadows and provide more control over specific lighting scenarios. In this case, the scene is close to night with the sun below the horizon and lots of blues throughout. To do this, I turned off V-Ray sun and instead uploaded the HDRI image. The sky was downloaded from Vizpeople and is at a high resolution.

To set all of this up, I opened my V-Ray option editor and expanded the “Environment” tab. Under GI (Skylight), I chose the icon with the letter “M” on it. In the V-Ray Texture Editor dialogue box, I set the left dropdown to “TexBitmap” and then uploaded the HDRI sky next to “File”. Finally, I set the UVW Type to “UVWGenEnvironment”, and set the Mapping Type to “Spherical”. To rotate the sky thus rotating the direction of the light, I edited the Horizontal rotation to “280”. Repeat this for the letter “M” next to Reflection/refraction (background) in the “Environment” tab.

4. Lights

The wood louvers on the exterior facade are an important part of the design concept. I wanted a lot of light inside bouncing around to play up the screen effect, therefore, I dropped in a bunch of V-Ray spot lights. Since the view is far away from the building, the lights were dropped in a little more casually and were placed based on the view angle.

When you drop in a spotlight, you can then right click on it and choose “V-Ray for Sketchup>Edit Light”. This brings up the V-Ray Light Editor where you can adjust some of the settings. I usually set the color to something warm such as light orange. The intensity number is really based on the camera exposure settings as well as the environmental lighting.  However, in this case, I set the Intensity to “150” and set the Units to “Radiant Power (W)”.  For the Cone Angle, I set it to “1.3” which will widen it slightly and then set the Penumbra Angle to “0.75” which will soften the edge a bit. Finally, I set the Decay to “Inverse Square” which will cause the light to fade much quicker as it moves further from the light source.

5. Other Option Editor Settings

Under the “Camera” tab of the V-Ray option editor, two settings were adjusted. For daytime shots, I don’t adjust much with the camera and leave most of the defaults. However, for night shots, it’s good to lower the shutter speed and f-number. This is helpful so that when you are dropping in V-Ray lights, you don’t have to substantially increase their strength.

Under the “VFB Channels” tab in the “V-Ray Options Editor” I turned on a few more channels. For this illustration, I highlighted RGB Color, Alpha, Material ID, Raw Light, Raw Total Light, Reflection, and Refraction.

Finally, under the “Output” tab, I setup the resolution and ratio of the image. I checked the “Override Viewport” box, then set the Width to “6000” px and set the Height to “5000” px. This gave a ratio of 1.2 which is the ratio that I wanted, so I chose the “L” button to lock it. I am going with a 1.2 ratio because it matches the ratio of my next portfolio I am producing. Otherwise, I typically use 1.77 which is the more common 16:9 aspect ratio.

Under Render Output, I checked the “Save Output” box and browsed to a location to save the files when they are finished rendering. This is also where I setup the file type to be saved which I set to .tif.

6. Setting Up the View in Sketchup

Finally, there are a few things that need to happen in Sketchup before hitting render. I need to setup the camera at eye height which I use the “Position Camera”. When selected, I can click anywhere on the ground in the model and Sketchup will place the camera at that point at eye height. This ensures that I am not accidentally setting the camera at an awkward height of 3ft or 10ft.

Next, I set the view to Two-Point Perspective by going to “Camera>Two-Point Perspective”. This ensures that all of my verticals are corrected.

Finally, I chose “View>Animation>Add Scene” to save the view in Sketchup.

7. Render

Finally, I can hit “Render” and let V-Ray generate the high-res image along with the extra channels. It took V-Ray less than an hour to complete the job on my desktop. The final output gives me a solid base to work from in Photoshop and gives me everything I need to make proper selections, add textures, and tone the image.

I will spend part 2 of this tutorial in Photoshop bringing the rendering to life by breaking down each step and describing how I added the sky, ground textures, color, atmosphere, and entourage. Stay tuned.

1. Camera Distance

As I mentioned above, one of the goals of these images was to reveal the vastness of the surrounding site. I did this two ways. First, I pulled back the camera so that the architecture only made up a small portion of the image. Going through school, I was always afraid to make my design so small in the image because there was always a sense that I needed to show as much detail as possible in the architecture. Making the building so small within the image meant a lot of the detail was getting lost. However, now I realize that this move is in many ways advantageous. Since the detail is abstracted, it forces the viewer to focus on other elements such as the profile of the architecture or in this case, the landscape around it. I also played up the vastness of the site by letting the sky and ground textures do a lot of talking in the images by using some dramatic cloud formations and strong directional elements like the tire ruts in the ground.

2. Composition

I kept things pretty simple and safe with the composition. Again, I wanted to play up the landscape, so I kept the horizon at the lower 1/3 of the images so that the sky would take up more real estate. I eye-balled a lot of these camera setups, so there are several near-misses in terms of where geometry and focal points are landing on the 1/3 marks of the image (corner of the the building in view 02 and placement of the woman in view 01).

3. Color

With the location being in the desert, it is easy for the scenes to get somewhat monotonous, so I gave each scene a primary color to start with. In each case, I used dust and dirt in the air to reinforce the arid climate atmosphere with the night scene getting a little more clear and cold feeling. As I mentioned above, there wasn’t a lot of time needed in Photoshop adding in texture and detail which meant I was able to spend more time experimenting with color.

4. Final Images

I had a lot of fun making these images. I would say all of these images hit my sweat spot in terms of balance between time spent modeling, Photoshopping in detail and texture, and experimenting with color and atmosphere. In terms of difficulty, these were actually quite easy. I am thinking one of these may be a good candidate to break down further into more detailed explanations of each step of the process. Stay tuned.