DIAGRAM PART I: BASE
HOW TO DIAGRAM: THE CHECKLIST - PART I
An architectural diagram is a great way to explain the main idea behind your projects, to show your design process or explain certain elements of your design. Diagrams showing your building’s program, sustainability aspects or how it responds to surrounding elements are some of the most common diagram types in our profession. This mini tutorial is part 1 of 3 steps to create a diagram.
What is a diagram base?
For this tutorial, we’ll export the base as a rendered image, with lighting but no materials.
There are many ways to export a white base like this. For this tutorial, we will take a look at the following options:
Exporting a white base using Vray material override.
Using Enscape white mode.
Changing your Rhino settings and adjusting the Display Mode.
If you’re using other programs like Revit, ArchiCAD or Vectorworks, the process is very similar. Export a base drawing and make sure you have the shadows on. Including shadows helps the viewer to not only understand your design better, but it adds depth and texture to your diagram.
PS: You don’t necessarily need to export a diagram base as “white mode”. If you want to export your base with materials, go for it!
OPTION 01 | VRAY:
In V-ray, you can export a white rendered base by simply turning on Material Override before rendering the final image.
This will override all materials for the rendering result, without compromising the materials applied to all geometries. This is a great trick to check the overall lighting in your scene.
OPTION 02 | ENSCAPE:
Enscape also has the option of overriding all materials without compromising the materials applied to your project.
Go to Visual settings > Rendering and change the rendering Mode to White.
The nice thing about Enscape is having the ability of analysing the lighting in ‘real-time’, then rendering your image instead of waiting for the image to render in order to see the overall lighting.
Enscape: https://enscape3d.com/
OPTION 03 | RHINO DISPLAY MODE:
For a quick export, you can change the display mode in Rhino to Arctic mode. This will turn all of your materials to a single color of your choice and will give you control of the background color.
Go to Rhino Option > View > Display Mode > Artic.
After adjusting these settings, define the image’s angle and simply ‘Print’ or ‘Export’ your image! This requires no rendering time and adds nice soft lighting to your image base.
Any questions or suggestions? Leave a comment!
Tutorial by Stefani Fachini