Seeking Insights Regarding Visualizations

[u/Cat_Cuddler_01]

Hello everyone,
I'm a European grad student in Spatial Planning with a background in Real Estate studies. One of the things that always made me go into Urban Planning were the amazingly realistic visualizations of how, for example, a street or public square will be redesigned.

However, in my university course (in Vienna) we don't really have any modules that teach us how to create such visualizations - we kinda just focus on map making when it comes to visualizations, it seems.

Since I find those visualizations are great to inspire and promote change, and better communicate your ideas and visions, I'd love to learn how to create such visuals, and hope that you guys might be able to share your processes, programs/software, or workflows on how you do that. Any resources and online courses that are helpful in this regard would also be very appreciated :)

For reference as to what I am understanding as 'amazingly realistic visualizations', I included these examples from my hometown.

Thanks in advance!

(And I hope this is the right place to ask this - if not, please let me know and I will delete the post)

[u/Thick_Bad_9408]

You should use images of real people, animals, etc. in your visualizations. The ones you add from your rendering program always look a bit uncanny but maybe if they’re in the background it’s okay.

I also think adding some labels, linework, or hand sketching on top of a realistic-looking render can ground it more in your design intent

[u/ShadoDoragon]

I am from germany and was at an univertity which focuses on planning, sketchig, drawing, layout etc. So not just technical focused plans but very much "how do I present my drafts to others". But still, we had 1 little course just to get the basics in Photoshop shown in 2nd semester bachelor. Since then, the focus in presenting your stuff got more important with each semester. So we... well... learning by doing I guess? There where options to do more courses with 3D-programms like Rhino, but these were absolutely optional and not often. Well, I had experience with Photoshop when i startet studying because I used to draw digital very much, with tablet. But when I compare my visualizations from 1 semester Bachelor, 6 semester bachelor and 4 semester Master, you can clearly see my improvement. And when I compare them to my work related visus (like 8 years later) you can see even more.

To be honest, it's more important to find your own style regarding visuals and stuff like that. Your examples are stunning, but at least here in germany, the trend is moving back to more handdrawn sketchy style. Just because the "realistic" looking ones are nearly never as realistic as they seem to bee. Also, they all look the same style wise. There are contests in germany, where it is not allowed to use realstic visuals at all... Especially with AI being able to create visuals too.

Well, this will not answer your question. But I would recommend you to learn some graphic related skills like using textures and stuff like that in Photoshop or Affinity or other programms. and from there, search for a 3D programm yourself. Use your drafts you are already doing for university and reconstruct them in those programms. Perhaps your university offers courses to some of those programms. As you can see, it's been some time since I was at uni and many things changed since then. At work I use a combination of sketchup, twinmotion and photoshop. Sketchup is easy to learn and there are maaaaany tutorials. You can include .dwg to it too and the warehouse offers nearly everything you could imagine. Twinmotion is able to import sketchup-files and changes it into more... realistic looking... you can change textures, weather... You can add realistic humans and animals... perhaps this is a way for you too? Just to get a feeling what programms are able to do? (your second example could be twinmotion perhaps, some assets are lookig similar)
it is possible to create realistic looking visuals just using photoshop though, but this need practise and an eye for... realistic details. Like sketchup and twinmotion will generate the shadows for you like they would be realistic. Just using PS, you will need to do this yourself. It is possible as I said, I did this myself. But for that you need your won "flow" with PS. I would recommend using a grafictablet for that. At least it's easier for me.

Sorry for this wall of text... But I hope I was able to help you at least a little

[u/Keetseel → u/ShadoDoragon]

Yes! I love hand-drawn graphics. They really can express individual style better than a Photoshop montage.

[u/Reasonable_Loquat874]

In my firm, we use a combination of software to produce 3D visualizations like this.
Start with a background photo.
Model proposed improvements (Rhino or 3DS Max).
Render model (Lumion or similar) and photo match scene. Post process in Photoshop.

We can do sketchy hand drawn looks too - it’s basically the same process but then we run images through a filter to achieve the desired look, or do it without the background image, etc.

AI still has a long ways to go on this stuff. It can produce quick images but they are not accurate and difficult to revise/iterate. AI struggles with details and realistic context. Most clients do not want to pay consultants and get AI slop that they could produce themselves.

[u/munchauzen → u/Reasonable_Loquat874]

If you think AI still has a long ways to go on renderings, you aren't paying attention at all. We ditched Lumion this year and are doing everything with basic 3d models and either ChatGPT or My Architect AI. And these are for majorly visible projects in areas like Park City, Utah and the Boise Micron region. They look completely like Lumion or better and nothing like an AI prompt. We're "there" with AI when it comes to renders.

[u/Tsuga_Canadensis__ → u/munchauzen]

No idea why you're being downvoted. Renderings are the one thing AI is clearly good at. I was at the ASLA conference in NOLA last year and the stuff that they were showing AI was capable of was concerning, not just renderings either.

Fuck AI, but obviously there are better things to hone your skills on that aren't these style renderings.

[u/AlbatrossNo1562]

it's been a while since I did photorealistic visuals. Back in the day I used 3dsMax to model and VRay to render, but it was just for fun. I never did it for professional work because it was too complicated, took too long to do, and I preferred to spend the time to design rather than make perfect pictures. For work, I just use sketchup to model, and take screenshots. That's it. No Photoshop either unless it's a before and after. Saves money and communicates just fine to stakeholders. We will contract it out to viz firms if the client wants better renders, paid by them of course.

[u/Time_Cat_5212]

It's gonna be AI everywhere by the time you graduate.

Nobody's gonna drop $1000-4000 (10-40 hours of staff time) on a 3d rendering for a planning project anymore when you can make 5 of them from a markup in an hour or two.

[u/Punkupine → u/Time_Cat_5212]

As someone who used to do a lot of high quality realistic renderings, unfortunately I have to agree this is where we’re headed.

We used to get contracts just for 3D modeling/rendering of urban projects from both clients and architects that we work with, but now they’re starting to want to do it in-house with AI. I think 3D modeling to show the design accurately is still going to be valuable, but the days of spending 20 hours in photoshop on a single image are probably coming to an end.

[u/Time_Cat_5212 → u/Punkupine]

Totally. Although to be fair, I never loved how much time staff would sink into a perspective rendering.  After a few years of experience it took me maybe 2-4 hours to do a really good one.  Unless this is going on the cover of your ASLA award submittal, 20 is kind of absurd.

3D modeling will still happen where it happens because it's a design tool as much as a viz tool.  And it's still the backbone even for AI viz because, assuming you want it to really look like your site, you're basically matching a wireframe to a set of imagery.