Sketchup-Ur-Space

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray & Photoshop

Mark Lester Ocampo

Hi everyone, I’m Mark Lester Ocampo and a Designer / 3D Visualizer based here in Bahrain. Today via Sketchup-Ur-Space I’ll explain how I created my kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray & Photoshop.

Modeling

Modeling process starts with Sketchup, with the nature of my current work, I try to cut as much time as possible in the modeling process so I decide it would be best to start the basic shapes in Sketchup since I noticed that I’m faster using it than 3dsMax.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

It is a good practice to ALWAYS conform to real-world sizes; in this case I used the metric system of measurement.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Once I finished modeling the basic shapes, I’ll export it to 3ds file then import inside 3dsMax. But we need to define first the scale of our model inside 3dsMax, I used millimeters.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

At this point, once we imported the 3ds file inside 3dsMax then we will start modeling the kitchen doors.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Below is the door profile:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

With these references, I was able to model the profile from scratch, I used sweep modifier to follow along a line and make the whole door:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Texturing

The kitchen door’s texture were done manually by me, I managed to get an actual sample from the supplier and scanned it. It’s a big piece and will not fit my scanner so I decided to scan by areas and will join it in Photoshop.

In Photoshop, open all the scanned images then go to File > Automate >Photomerge

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Here’s my setting for the wood texture:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Note: I put a bump and reflection map by isolating the red channel of the diffuse map in Photoshop and made it a new file as seen on the second material editor.

Lighting

For the lighting, I used VraySun+Sky for the external lighting and added some VrayPlanelIghts in every opening I see with Skylight Portal set to ON. My settings are shown below:

Vray Sun:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Vray Plane Lights placed in every window

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Additional Lights

In addition to the Vray Sun, I added another Vray plane light pointing at the window opening which in my opinion can help simulate a studio lighting ambiance to my scene; it’s positioned with the same axis as the Vray Sun.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

I have another Vray Plane Light near the ceiling at the far end corner of the scene which acts like a studio softbox.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Another one is positioned at the hallway to counter-balance some dark areas of the scene.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Camera Setting

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Rendering

I use gamma 2.2 and Bruteforce when rendering, it’s very slow but so far reliable.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Below you can see my Render Elements, notice that I used two different Ambient Occlusion passes linked by two separate VrayExtraTex. The first one makes sure that I get the AO on the smaller details while the second ensures that I get the AO for the overall scene.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Post-Production

I made some minor adjustments in curves and levels to make the contrast “pop”.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Below you can see how I masked the reflection+filter / refraction+filter passes and how I used the two AO passes. After that, I duplicated another copy andapplied Auto tone and Auto contrast with 50% opacity then merged it.

I Used VrayRenderID to isolate each parts of this scene with “Color Range” tool and copying the selected area to another layer and individually sets different adjustments as shown below:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

You may have noticed before that I did not put any background in 3dsMax because I did it in post-production, in order to isolate the window opening, I used alpha channel and tweaked my glass material to appear with the alpha render element.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Next is to create a “Bloom” effect, this will simulate the light leaking out of the window due to the sun’s light streak. Duplicate a copy and desaturate it, go to curves and make something similar to this adjustment:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set Radius to 22 pixels. Change the layer to “screen” with 20% opacity.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

To add a subtle sharpness to your image, Duplicate another layer then go to Filter > Other > High Pass and set radius to 0.7 pixels, change layer to soft light.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Next we will simulate Chromatic Aberration, I used a plugin “PTLens” to do this, it’s easy to use and it comes with a lot of simulated lenses to choose. you can download the trial version here: http://www.epaperpress.com/ptlens/download.html

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

I did some minor adjustments again this time with Color Balance:

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Finally, I used another plugin “Color Efex Pro” to simulate a “cross processed” look same of what you see with old film cameras.

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

We’re done! See the difference between the RAW render and the final output:

Before

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

After

Kitchen rendering with Sketchup, 3dsMax+Vray and Photoshop

Thank you. I hope you’ll find my tutorial helpful and a great addition to your workflow. Good luck and happy rendering!