Case Study: Lumen Design

Maya's robust features prove perfect for architectural visualization

When Tim Huggard and Ian Potter formed Lumen Design in July 2000, they immediately invested in Maya software. “Maya’s robust toolset offered everything we needed to create high-end 3D graphics and effects for our clients in television and film,” Huggard says.

Since then, the Melbourne, Australia-based facility has changed its focus from digital effects for entertainment to 3D architectural visualization. And it has stayed with Maya. “We already knew we could create high-quality, accurate, photorealistic 3D imagery with Maya,” says Huggard. “These capabilities are extremely important in architectural visualization, too, so we didn’t even think about switching to something else. Maya is the best package for this type of work.”

Lumen Design isn’t alone in its assessment. Indeed, Alias’s Maya is the core application at architectural visualization firms around the globe. It’s also becoming the 3D software of choice being taught to architectural design students.

Ideal for Architecture
What makes Maya perfect for this application? For one, the software is optimized to handle huge scene files. “Maya can handle scenes with thousands of objects, and it doesn’t crash,” comments Marc Lamoureux, president of Alpha Vision, a leading North American provider of 3D architectural visualization. “Plus, we can maintain a high level of interactivity, even while manipulating very large scenes.”

Also important is Maya’s ability to read files created in .DWG, the file format used by Autodesk’s AutoCAD and the de facto standard for the storage of CAD data. “Nearly all our projects start as AutoCAD drawings,” says Lamoureux. “Being able to read .DWG files in Maya is a huge plus.”

In addition, Maya’s rendering features are second to none. Complementing the highly capable Maya Software Renderer is the fully integrated mental ray for Maya, which boasts advanced photorealistic rendering features such as global illumination, caustics, and blurred reflections as well as HDRI support for image-based lighting and rendering. “Lighting a scene for architectural visualization is a lot like lighting a scene in a film. In both cases the work is complex and requires artistry and research,” says Dino Pesic, owner of L’Autre Image, an architectural visualization firm in Paris. “Maya is great because it lets you create accurate visualizations, and it gives you the freedom to be artistic and creative with lighting.”

A host of additional Maya features have also become indispensable to artists creating 3D architectural visualizations. For instance, artists report that the integrated, pressure-sensitive brush tools in Maya Artisan and Maya Paint Effects are perfect for creating photorealistic trees, grass, flowers, and other landscape vegetation. What’s more, users can convert Paint Effects into geometry. “This means if we’re showing an exterior with trees near a window, the reflections of those trees in the window are rendered with the scene,” says Huggard. “We don’t have to composite the reflections in as post effects.”

Maya’s vector renderer, meanwhile, is crucial for artists who need to turn their 3D content into 2D content for clients who prefer the look of a sketch in a project’s early stages, or who want to post the imagery on their website for customers to view.

Furthermore, Maya’s vast selection of polygon tools, along with its precise and versatile NURBS and subdivision surface tools, mean artists are armed with the modeling functionality they need to build whatever complex forms their projects require. When clients request tweaks to the visualizations, artists can take advantage of Maya’s fully editable and animatable construction history to modify their modeled data without rebuilding it. And, with advanced features such as dynamics and particles, artists can simulate the effects of natural forces and natural phenomena, filling their scenes with objects that lend additional realism—everything from a whistling tea kettle in an interior kitchen shot to an elaborate, flowing waterfall in an exterior courtyard shot. “All these features combine to let us efficiently create 3D visualizations that are not only accurate, but also photorealistic”, comments Pesic.

Visualizing Proposed Structures
And both qualities—accuracy and photorealism—are critical in architectural visualization because of how the visualizations are used. Generally, builders and developers hire companies specializing in architectural visualization to create imagery that accurately depicts how their structures will look before they’re built—be they single-family homes, communities comprising hundreds of homes, or multimillion-dollar high-rise condominiums and apartment buildings. In these cases, builders and developers utilize the 3D imagery as a sales tool to help them sell the homes to prospective buyers.

By relying on interior and exterior 3D visualizations of their structures, builders and developers don’t incur the cost of building and furnishing model homes. Also, they can begin their sales cycle months before land is cleared and foundations are poured. “This saves developers a bundle, and it’s very effective,” comments Jonathan Brosseau, Alpha Vision co-owner. “Recently we modeled a community in California for Shea Homes, a large, active adult communities developer. Prior to building any model homes, and using only our 3D visualizations, they pre-sold 150 homes in just 10 months.”

Similarly, 3D architectural visualizations are often used to depict how an existing structure will look once it has been rehabbed. In such cases, which occur frequently with older urban buildings being modernized for use as office space, for instance, real-estate investment firms use the visualizations to sell or rent the space ahead of time.

In addition to sales tools, 3D architectural visualizations are used to create shadow analyses, so developers can secure approval of structures from city councils, and to raise investment money from potential financiers.

Regardless of how they’re used, however, 3D architectural visualizations created are becoming increasingly popular. And Maya’s high-end features are proving crucial in terms of solving technical and design challenges in all kinds of projects.

Take Lumen Design, for instance, which recently used Maya to create interior and exterior visualizations of a proposed, $150 million 35-story apartment complex in Melbourne for a large real estate development and investment company, so it could begin selling units before the structure was built. According to Huggard, Maya’s rendering features were especially handy for this project.

As he explains, the artists were hired to create visualizations of 13 different, fully furnished apartments, along with common areas including the foyer, pool area, spa, and gym. Although they originally had one month to complete the work, the developer kept changing the design, so the project stretched into six months. As such, ensuring efficient rendering was imperative.

To handle the challenge, the artists relied on Maya’s Render Diagnostics, which helped them determine how best to optimize their models and textures for more efficient rendering. “Using the Render Diagnostics information, we cut rendering times from 40 minutes to about four minutes per frame,” Huggard enthuses. The artists also utilized Maya’s Material Editor to create brushed stainless steel for kitchen appliances and semi-opaque glass in sliding doors; Maya Particles to create bubbles in hot tubs and water flowing down a sculpture in the foyer; and Paint Effects to create patio plants blowing in the breeze. “All these subtle nuances added extra realism to the scene”, Huggard notes.

Many of these features are also used extensively by the artists at Alpha Vision, which has been relying on Maya to create photorealistic visualizations for such developers as Del Webb, Lennar Homes, WCI Communities, and Related Group of Florida since the software became available in the mid-‘90s. “Buying a home is an emotional decision. Our Maya visualizations are photorealistic and detailed, enabling buyers to grasp the look and feel of a proposed structure. This can’t be achieved with simple floor plans”, says Brosseau.

A case in point is the 3D visualizations Alpha Vision created for Related Group to depict a proposed multimillion-dollar high rise in Florida’s South Beach section, designed by Philippe Starck. For this project the artists created the lobby entrance, bar, and restaurant, plus exterior amenities including the pool, gym, and view of the beach while precisely following the designer’s specifications.

After importing AutoCAD files of the proposed structure into Maya and while maintaining the CAD files as a Maya layer, the artists used Maya’s enhanced snapping tools to “snap” to the underlying CAD file. “We used the CAD file as a reference and built the model in 3D from that file,” says Brosseau. “It’s an efficient way to model.”

For this project the artists relied on the Interactive Photorealistic Renderer (IPR) in Maya and rendered everything in layers. “We could fine-tune lights and textures without re-rendering after each manipulation,” Brosseau says. “We did day and night scenes. Maya’s IPR helped us get a realistic feel regardless of the time of day.”

Additional beneficial tools included Maya Particles, which they used to create water fountains; procedural textures, for creating water in the pool; and Maya’s shaders, for tweaking scanned fabric textures that were applied to furniture, walls, and floors. The artists also used Lifestyle Virtual Reality, a technology Alpha Vision developed in 1998, to add people to the scenes. “To create the technology, we shot people moving in front of bluescreen,” Brosseau explains. “For this project we imported some people and their camera moves into Maya, where we finessed the camera moves and perspectives to make it look like the people were part of the scene.”

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