Today I’d like to share one of the more fun aspects of my day job – 3D Manipulation. I don’t get to do it often, so when I do it’s a real treat. My most recent challenge was the rendering of virtual cottages into real landscapes – to show prospective customers what their cottages would look like.

The architects team provided me with models that had been produced in Google sketchup.

And I photographed a sample site to composite my house into.

I matched the lighting to the photograph, and rotated the house into place. I then rendered it out with an alpha channel (blank background).

The next step takes lots of attention to detail, but it’s the most challenging part, and the most fun. I added foliage, reflections, shadows and plants by hand. I added cold light filters to the shaded areas and warm light filters to the highlight areas and, in short, did everything I could to make it look real.

And here we go! The client was very happy, and found the results convincing.

There you have it. 3D is not a muscle I get to work very often, but when I do it’s always fun =o)