Architectural visualisation, in part, is about creating emotional appeal through artistic impression. The other part though is about portraying the project with as much touch of reality as possible.
Current Scenario:
Despite that, the arch-viz industry in India, most of the times shows the project surrounded by acres filled with greenery and trees as a part of architectural visualisation. While many times this is to make the project stand out from the background and to make the surroundings look pleasant yet unobtrusive, it surely feels odd as well as misleading at times.
If the purpose of the 3d views is to show the customers the project without having to visit the site, then not being able to show the location with clarity can be looked upon as a pretty big setback. There are also many instances where the location of the project is one of the crucial selling point and yet the developers are unable to highlight it well because of the limitations faced because of the software. This ends up in forcing builders to put just photographs of the venue.
So how to avoid such snafus? The answer is to incorporate and optimise the science of ‘photomontage’ and ‘video-montage’ in the field of architectural visualisation. To simply explain both the concepts, see the image and the video shown below.
As shown above, photomontage and video-montage are processes that are used to incorporate 3d models of the buildings, landscapes into an actual photograph or video shoot. This is the next step, a step towards the hyper-real 3d views and walkthroughs.
The Process
Despite the outcome looking very natural, the process itself is very challenging and has a high chance of wrecking the impression completely if not done flawlessly.
In order to reach that perfection having the whole required setup in-house helps and by setup we mean more than just equipment. It is an impeccable amalgamation of 2 teams, film production and 3d visualisation, that reflects in the sublime results. To create the images and the videos of pristine quality, it is very essential that both of these teams sit together to form the concept, to understand the limitations of each other’s technology and to bring out the best that both the technologies have to offer.
The Way Ahead
As of now, very few companies in the market have explored this territory. The growing demand for transparency and accountability (with the advent of legislations like RERA), as well as the increased awareness among customers, has made it clear that the architectural visualisations need to become more realistic. Adding further to this is a fact that most of our policies get adopted from the western policies. That means that in near future we can also expect laws like the need of submitting images of projects with photomontage to Government authorities to show the exact end result of the project after completion. All in all, photo montage and video montage are the clear future of architectural visualisation.
Expert’s Speak :
We at Square One, upon sensing these shifting tides, developed ourselves to bring these techniques to life. With our in-house drone and a team that includes cinematographers as well as experienced 3d animators, we have gained proficiency in showing the projects through bird’s eye view and have made a headway in this new field.
– Directors, Square One
