Atomic Design: Do you have 20/20 vision? Can you tell which of the images above and below are renderings and which are photographs? Our talented designers at ATOMIC create stunning renderings for our clients, giving a visual representation of the final show/stage/event space. Upon completion of the renderings, our skilled Set Construction team breaks down each element of that rendering and makes it reality. This is what we strive for in each job – render to reality. What you see in the pretty rendering comes to life a few months later at the show. Take a look!
12 comments:
My mind is blown. I could not tell the difference in any of the pictures to show if they were actually photographic images or renderings brought to life. It is incredible that with technology and a lot of talent we can break these boundaries, but also a little scary. I sometimes wonder why we strive so much for perfection in so many images. Any kind of magazine or ad now a days has been heavily edited with photoshop, making the model flawless, and the background or product perfect. This is normal for us. Even personal social media images are normally filtered, and if they are not you bet the caption will tell you so. With this Render to Reality, I want to know why we are so obsessed with the perfection of it. I think that we hear so much when we are kids that what makes us look different and the imperfections are what make us unique, and their is such a value to it.
That is really impressive. In the first few renderings, the only difference I noticed were slightly darker, more dramatic shadows in the rendering than in the standard room lighting. The computer renderings also have a cooler light than the warm light in the room with the Hulu signs. In the renderings with LED lighting, where the rest of the room is dark, this difference disappears. The fabric in renderings in the fourth photo set was really astonishing. They had the photos that were going to be used for the displays, and the shadows for linear objects can be predicted. Even though the fabric is linear where it is pulled tightly, it still has a slight curve where it would drape. The rendering really captures the tension, curves, and slight folds of the fabric, which I think of as impossible to predict. In addition, the appearance of the LEDs mixed with shadows on the fabric are amazing.
Being able to show a client exactly what they are going to receive is probably one of the best ways to keep clients and keep clients happy and wanting to share what a great job you did- giving you more clients. The fact that all the pictures look so lifelike is really impressive and makes me wonder how long it took them to render it and if, when they sit down with the client, they can in real time change things around and get just as accurate of a rendering. The answer is probably no because of how detailed the renderings are. They probably spend hours lining up each image and wall up to get the right angle. Looking through the pictures, I think the most impressive is the draped fabric conference because in the rendering it looks like the fabric is growing upwards and is structural, but in real like it is pulled taught and held up at the ceiling. It’s a great illusion that is shown really well in the rendering.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was less article and more interpretation of images. In the first one the first phrase that comes to mind is virtual reality. The repetition and color takes me out of this world and it's quite seamless. The people standing in the room appear to be floating in space which is really cool. It's only when I realized the little images were social media pages, so the title "social galexy" makes complete sense. I adore the color, scale and repetition of the summer sonic festival. The structure is so huge and intricate, but the color choice makes it appear to be light weight. Really inspiring renderings.
I don't have 20/20 vision, but even if I did I'm not sure if it would help me here. The rendering of these images are really incredible. The first thing I though of was all those times I've ordered something online thinking it would look one way and having it look completely different in real life. There are more uses for this technology than just online shopping, but it wouldn't hurt to use it there. Being able to show someone what they will actually be getting is perhaps the only true way to keep everyone on the same page. Additionally, it makes collaborating visions and ideas infinitely easier if everyone can actually see what everyone else is seeing and thinking. This type of project is not one I would ever think to do, but I'm glad someone thought of it. There are so many different ways this kind of image rendering can be used, and hopefully it's only a matter of time before it becomes something that anyone can learn to use.
In short, yes I can tell which ones of those are rendered and which ones are reality. All of those renderings came straight out of a CAD program, and maybe passed through a WYSIWYG program, but were not put into any sort of final touching program, or actual artistic rendering software. I could have made those in Vectorworks. I don’t mean to say that those renderings were not good enough for client facing design meetings, clients would love that stuff, its great for them. But its not CG level, I know that some industrial event firms employ computer graphics companies to do their final rendering and pre-visualization, but this is not one of them. Another thing that made my butt pucker was what they said about their project workflow, you cant just send things to the set construction department as a rendering and have it come back looking like that. I know at least one of those renderings showed a printed graphic with no thickness standing rigidly by itself, give that to a TD and see what comes back.
These renderings are very nice and definitely something that would be great to have when presenting designs to clients. Over the summer the architecture firm I was working for was starting to implement a similar process for their projects and making renderings and then further editing them to make them more lifelike and realistic instead of using just 3D models when presenting to clients. They found that it was a definite improvement and helped people better visualize what a potential project would look like. That being said I agree with Chris that what they said about their project workflow seems suspect. I can’t imagine building any of those set up based off the rendering alone, and if that’s all I was given I highly doubt the end result would make their clients happy. Maybe they meant they give their set contraction team the renderings and the drawings used to make them. But if they meant what they said then I have no idea how they get things done.
as a visual learner, i liked this article because it was fun to look at, trying to differ between photos like looking through an i-spy book. this being said, i do not have 20/20 vision, and i do not have much experience looking at rendered images, however i could differ between most of the pictures, and can understand why it would be hard to substitute those renderings for the actual thing. also as someone who has done a fair amount of set construction (for a freshman), If someone gave me a 2D printout of something, and told me to build it i would be pretty peeved, I think they were pretty wrong when talking about workflow, because from my limited experience, i think it would lead to a pretty poor shop<>design team relationship, as well as possible unfortunate miscommunications leading to incorrect construction.
How cool! I think these renderings provide interesting insight on human psychology, and what we consider art. In the 1850’s the realism movement came about in the art world, which was this big push to paint things exactly how they were, without exaggerated details and without leaving anything out. Eventually we moved away from that, venturing to impressionism and abstract art and art that represented moods and themes rather than art that attempted to depict reality. I think this is art history coming full circle, and because the tools we use to create art has completely changed there has been a resurgence in the desire to depict an unmistakable reality. This as a lot of practical uses, for like event planners that are trying to pitch risky ideas ant the bosses doesn’t know how it would look. Basically anyone really who want’s to know what something will look like before doing it will be able too reap the benefits of excellent renderings.
It’s very cool how incredibly similar these renderings are to the real thing. The only drastic difference between them for a few of the examples is the lighting/ angle of the photograph. I think it’s really important for fabrication companies to receive renderings accurate to what the company wants the final product to look like, especially in scenery pieces like this which include wood work, metal work, lighting, printing, media, etc. When so many different departments work on one project, it’s crucial that they are all working from a cohesive rendering. This past summer at my internship we painted a rainbow unicorn for t-mobil for nyc pride, but had a bit of a difficult time since the computer renderings showing the unicorn from different angles showed the rainbow stripes at different locations depending on which way it was oriented. After we shipped it out the assistant paint charge told me that the company was very happy with the final product, and so surprised that it looked so much like the rendering. Even though they were happy with what they got, since all that mattered was to have all of the rainbow colors present, it was definitely frustrating trying to replicate exactly what they gave us. I think this is still one of the main problems with computer renderings, since you can just copy and paste into it without necessarily thinking about the consistency between angles.
Technology has certainly improved with the ability to do complex renders like these being put in the hands of students and designers everywhere. That being said, these renderings didn’t really impress me. They missed out on a lot of architectural elements in several of them which, while they are technically not part of the design this company is presenting feels lazy and attempts to ignore what is already in the space, something which I think could come back to haunt an experience. The camera angles also we’re a little mehh in some of the images, particularly the big tree color thing. It’s a totally different perspective to see it from 30’ in the air and I think the rendering would be a far more effective tool if it showed the piece from human height like the photograph does. That all being said I was particularly impressed with the rendering of the photograph tunnel, transparent objects tend to be very difficult and this scene is full of them. I’m curious what kind of software they used to accomplish this.
Rendering is cool. Technology is cool! We totally live in the future. I think there is so much potential for 3D CAD environments to push theatre workflows beyond the Model Box. There is so much flexibility and power to continue to iterate ideas quickly and without physical hassle. It is not hard for me to envision a workflow that skips the Model Box entirely, and simply involves workshopping ideas with the director and emailing them PDF 3d renderings. And then, that same set of geometry could be plated and sent to the scene shop, similar to what Atomic does. No more frictional cost of making and playing with scaled scenery in a model box and then having to go back and draft it on the computer, among other problems with physical models. This is exactly like the leap from hand drafting to CAD drafting, except taking that idea the rest of the way to its logical conclusion.
Adding on top of that is that I know Atomic Design is a Vectorworks shop, and I have fairly high confidence that these renders were produced with the Vectorworks Renderworks toolset, which is software I'm very comfortable with. I think Atomic does some very cool work and is certainly up there on my list of places I would be happy working at.
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