Architectural Post Production with Photoshop using Render Elements

Render Elements are means to break out renders into their component parts such as reflections, shadows, mattes, etc. This provides finite control in the final image using compositing or image editing applications when re-assembling the final image from its component elements. Render elements are also at times known as render passes. They are generated at the rendering stage based on the ones you select before rendering. Majority of the render elements possess parameters that can be set to customize the render element or its use in compositing the software at a later stage. These parameters are described on each render element’s individual page, along with common uses and any notes on their generation and usage.

V-Ray supports the built-in 3ds Max Render elements user interface. However, V-Ray offers its own render elements and doesn’t support the standard render elements implemented in 3ds Max. Thus standard 3ds Max render elements will not work with V-Ray, and vice-versa.

Examples Render Elements

Generally, render elements are added to each other so as to reproduce the final result, however, there are a few exceptions:

• The Raw GI and Raw lighting elements should be multiplied by the Diffuse element before they are added to the final image
• The Shadow element is not, firmly speaking, a part of the image; however, it can be added to the Raw Lighting element for adjusting the intensity of the shadow. Just adding the two elements produces lighting as though no shadows were computed. Also, note that multiplying the Raw GI element by the diffuse element will give the Global Illumination element; multiplying the Raw lighting element by the Diffuse element provides the lighting element. This provides the user more freedom for adjusting the scene lighting.

HDR

For some time now, HDR in computer graphics has become quite popular. In fact, it’s quite simple to understand the principle. In all such terms, only the first three letters HDR matter. They mean High Dynamic Range. The HDR image is the image with the high dynamic range of colours, where the brightness of one pixel might differ a lot from another .In other words, the brightness level of the most lit areas of the image might vary significantly from the darkest area of the same image.

HDRI in 3D Rendering

At first glance, the technique of getting the HDRIs from renderer might seem alike to those used in photography. So it would look that we need to render a few regular visuals from the same camera with different exposure and then merge them to a single HDR image. We can do it this way, but the benefit of working with modern rendering engines is that it’s not burdened by photo technology drawbacks. The renderer does its calculations in high dynamic range, i.e. initially it’s HDR and then the render engine lets you save the results directly to HRDI format.

Today, several AEC companies providing CorelDraw or Sketchup Training also provide trainings on 3dx Max technology as it’s mostly used in delivering high end images. They do use render elements, a special feature in 3dx Max within Vray Rendering. This lets exporting various elements of a scene which can further be imported into Photoshop for effective post production work.