When it comes to industrial design, everyone may consider it’s complex and difficult. Yes, and industrial design plays a crucial role in the planning and layout of a distillery complex, which we’ll talk about today. The industrial design of a distillery encompasses the architectural, engineering, and functional aspects required to create an efficient and safe production facility. Today, we’d like to introduce a distillery project in the US and how our commercial project rendering services accelerate the work to public.
In this case study, we’ll start from introducing this institution. Following that, the 3D exterior rendering process are broken down with streamlined details. At last, the final delivery which is the high-res visual images are shown. Now, let’s start from understanding this place.
Shelson Distillery
Shelson Distillery is a 3-story structure featuring 65,000 square feet production area and 30,000 square feet commercial spaces. Just as many other distilleries, this place have expanded its offerings to include regular shopping and dining spaces, as well as guided tours for visitors.
Located in the east of Michigan, this structure includes a distillery factory and shopping and dining space. The factory’s exterior maintains vintage distillery look with bricks and ashlars. For the shopping and dining spaces, it has a large three-story glass box with outward sloped curtain wall and tensile shaped rooftop seating area. Also, the glass box’s ground floor extends to the west with additional dining spaces. Overall, the whole building presents an L-shape.
Commercial Rendering Process for Distillery
Understanding the Design Concept and Purpose
To help our 3D artists understand the design, the architect shared the design concept. This is a necessary procedure because by learning the design that a 3D team is able to get inspiration for the 3D renders.
As a result, we learnt that in the architect’s picture, this distillery’s dining spaces feature classic modern sleek glass façade with keystones on all sides. For the interior, spaces are divided by low wall instead of full height to create open feel to dining. Moreover, the architect thoughtfully provided the selected dining restaurants for further indoor settlement. For example, this space will have fine dining, bar food, cigar bar, and burger places such as FLIP Burger Boutique, Morimoto, and Station 100.
Briefing: Sorting Information
Having rich experience of visualizing plant and factory projects across the world, our 3D artists started the project with the brief immediately. It is important to know what you have at hand for creating renders. Because we always want to optimize the workflow with high efficiency, the acquired information and files are fairly vital before the work starts. That is to say, filling in the gaps is substantial there the missing or required files are found when reviewing the project.
Luckily, we found the files were ready to start.
3D Modeling
In architectural visualization, 3D modeling is the process of creating three-dimensional digital representations of structures and scenes. The CAD files were where we started. Building a 3D model is not just copy the CAD drawings. It requires a combination of technical skills, architecture knowledge, artistic abilities, and attention to details.
When working on the 3D model, our team paid great attention to surrounding context, including landscape and zone plan. Because the distillery is in a place with little people activities, our 3D specialists needed to create accurate landscape, the parking area, a stage, and a rick house. Only when the 3D model is accurate, the following 3D rendering process can be a smooth and efficient.
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- Raw model
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- Refined 3D model
Camera Angle Confirmation
Along with the confirmation of 3D model, the views should be selected as well. Our client had shared their wanted views in advance: three aerial views. They wanted to show this structure from the air with three different views.
If you’re struggling with the views for your project, please check this article here: How to Spotlight the Projects by Different Camera Angles? Hope it gives you some inspiration.
Handle of the Scene
Before moving to rendering, our client needed to decide how to deal with the scene. The scene here refers to the surrounding context, including neighbor buildings and remote scene such as city, mountain or ocean. Check here for four methods of dealing with surrounding context and their merits and downsides.
For aerial views, we usually recommend our clients to get high-res professional drone photos for better results. However, it is totally fine if the designer is not able to provide drone photos. In this project, the architect decided to use a combination of 3D creation and photomontage. To be specific, our CG specialists create a 3D scene around the structure first and get Google Earth screenshots for the remote land and mountains. This is a smart and casual method to get the surrounding context done without drone photos, and the final result is fairly satisfying. However, please note that if you’re looking for extreme accurate and clarity of the surrounding context, drone photos are necessary.
Applying Textures, 3D Rendering, and Post-production
After confirming the views and surrounding context, the next stage was to render them into realistic stunning images. To achieve this, we needed to apply the materials and textures first. This was followed by 3D rendering. After the scene was rendered, the 3D artists refined the scene with Photoshop to optimize the color, lighting and other elements.
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- One of the color drafts
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- Material reference
Client’s Comments throughout the Whole Process
Believe it or not, a perfect 3D render is a balance of the architect’s design and 3D artist’s sense. By saying this, we equally value the architect’s comments on drafts and 3D artist’s suggestions. You may ask, what if there is a conflict? Whose comments will you take?
The truth is, we always prioritize our clients. In case of conflict, our 3D artists will take the client’s design first and share the result. Despite comments, the image speaks for itself. So we let the image say. Actually, in many of these cases, the clients find our suggestions more feasible and smart. This is why our architectural visualization studio is so proud of our veteran 3D artists. Here is a case study that we created two version of renders, one with client’s notes, and one with our understanding of the project. The client was extremely satisfied with our version and we shared for free.
Given all that said, we were lucky enough for not receiving many mark-ups in this project. Our client was satisfied with drafts in each stage, and the final delivery was just after four rounds of drafts.
Final Delivery
As a result, our 3D team created three realistic CG images that showcase this future distillery.
Conclusion
Commercial projects come in various types, and factory and land development is one of the most sophisticated type in both design and planning phases. And commercial rendering is a powerful tool to depict comprehensive view of the structure once it’s completed. The architect used our commercial rendering services for Shelson Distillery and helped communicate the vision and design of the project effectively.
Looking for 3D visuals for your commercial project? Talk to our professional project manager now and get a free quote in 12 hours! With our commercial project rendering services and architectural rendering services, your commercial project will shine among the others.