Photorealism

The closer it gets to realistic images, the bigger the impression is

Star Wars

History of CGI 

In the 70s, 80s, CGI technology had been used in some science fiction movies like Futureworld (1976), Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), The Last Starfighters (1984), The Abyss (1989). The quality of CGI was decent enough to amaze the audience. People were impressed with Computer generated realistic imagery and filmmakers were pushing it hard. Tons of time and budget were invested in this 3D technology.

In the 90s, CG techniques became more popular in the film industry. For example, it was used in very well known movies like Titanic, The mummy, Independence day, Lost in space, Jurassic Park, etc. The realism behind the technology drastically improved in the 90s.


3dsmax 1996


Introduction of 3D softwares in the architecture industry


The Awareness of CG evolution affected the real estate industry as well. 

3D studio max, Sketchup, Blender, Rhino were introduced to the public in late 90s and early 2000s. 

People no longer needed to rely on 2D CAD drawings and hand sketches to visualize their designs. Pre-calculated dimensions showed up on the computer screen in real time with almost no effort, Material samples could be applied in geometries, it was also possible to test shading variations in different lighting environments. Many components were usefully made available by 3D softwares. 


Arch Street Photo

Photography+Architecture

 

Photography is a must-have for architecture professionals to understand buildings and the composition of the scenes. Many architects have plenty of knowledge in building composition, landscape, point of views based on ratio,etc. Studying the beauty shown through the lens of a camera delivers lots of ideas, inspiration, and motivation. Since buildings are huge masses of assembled materials reflecting various light behaviors, capturing one image that includes thousands of details requires highly aesthetic kin eyes. 


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The obsession with photorealistic imagery 

Copycat

As architecture photography embraces building composition, mood, lighting information, shading and colors, many 3d visualizers frequently utilize photos as reference. 

Finding great references brings up great inspirations. Imitation becomes creation.

Observation of details in real life

3D artists are obsessed with realism. Observing surroundings at different times of the day is a usual life habit. The eyes become micro telescopes, allowing the artist to look closely at materials and study them. The amount of details and different interpretations of textures are also significantly important to make something look more realistic in 3D visualization. 

The emergence of monster chips

The more the technology improves, the more 3d artists get obsessed with realistic images. Before, it was not possible to render high resolution images that include 30 million pixels, 10 mill color variations with lighting conversion because of limited CPU, Memory,  and Graphic card power. Nowadays, semi-conducted chip tech engineering is exceedingly advanced since you can now find 64 cores CPU, larger capacity of RAM, fast GPU with even a 1:100 downsized physical volume compared to the 80s, 90s super computers. The advanced chip technology also helped out boosting up the evolution of 3D softwares.

Conversion from 2D to 3D 

Using softwares like 3Ds max and Photoshop is essential. 2D images will eventually have to be converted into 3D images, most of the time 3D artists have to use photoshop in order to create 2D sources. 

If there are any tools that can help make 3D rendering images look more like photos, there will be no hesitation coming from the 3D artist. 


So what happened?

The collaboration of advanced 3D technology, photography, and 3D artist's passion resulted in more photorealistic renderings than actual photos. Sometimes, even 3D artists cannot tell the difference between a photograph and a 3D rendered image.It is now possible to convey a truer reality through softwares. However, there are uncountable limitations for a great picture to be taken, in the sense where there are limited light sources allowed, compact spaces or non-existing subjects to illustrate. Photorealistic 3D renderings can replace those restrictions while acknowledging that photographs are no longer a necessity to portray reality.