With a wide range of applications, 3D renderings are vital for real estate professionals. They use 3D visuals for presentation, marketing and advertising, virtual staging, and in their portfolios. In this blog, we’d like to share the story behind a residential unit in Cairns, Australia, and its process of 3D real estate rendering.
Zakarie was looking for a photorealistic 3D render as the cover page of an A2 size paper of 594mm×420mm. And the subject is about a 150-residential units in Cairns, Australia. He wanted to guarantee the quality of the image, so he granted for 14 days to finish this single CGI image. During the production process, we’ve raised some suggestions for this project. Please follow us to the story behind making of this residential building.
3D Rendering Process for Real Estate Agents
Step 1. Getting to Know the Scope
3D renderings are often used to market and advertise architecture, and for this project, to be printed on the cover. Thus, Zakarie has a high standard about this 3D rendering.
To sum up, Zakarie was looking for one exterior rendering for this building. Zakarie’s team had selected the camera angle, and they’re “open to adjust the angle a little bit based on your professional experience as well”.
Meanwhile, the brief includes the following information and files:
- The mood set. They had shared some references images from our website as desired mood. This is a clear indicator of what atmosphere is wanted.
- The material board. Although the model includes part of the materials, Zakarie shared the material plan. This is of great help on selecting the accurate materials and textures that saves a lot of time.
- The model. A Rhino model which needed to further fine-tuning. This means our 3D artists don’t need to build the 3D model from scratch. In turn, we can save time by modifying the existing model in most of the cases.
Step 2. 3D Modeling
For most of the architectural visualization projects, our 3D artists need to build the 3D model from the plan or design from scratch. Meanwhile, some designers have the model ready. However, this doesn’t mean that we definitely can use the model straightaway.
Zakarie’s team had prepared a Rhino model. It helped a lot! Therefore, the first thing we did was to input the Rhino model into 3ds Max and sort everything out. This included sorting the lines, walls, materials and textures, and anything inside.
After finishing the model, we’ve shared it with Zakarie and he got back with “Perfect, please move on.” message.

The 3D model.
At the same time, Zakarie had marked some points which he wanted us to process in the next stage. This is a great example how 3D rendering services help you design. Generally speaking, a model will not include all items in the design. Another case is that the architect or design hasn’t completed every details in the design.
In this case, 3D rendering services is the game-changer! Just as the below image Zakarie shared with us, he marked any possible details in the 3D model draft we shared. In this way, he can complete the design with the 3D visualization process.
Step 3. Adding Materials and Textures, Setting Lighting, and Post-Processing
Honestly, these process is not always completed in one stage. For some of the projects, we may separate these process based on the actual circumstances. Because Zakarie had a very clear vision about the atmosphere of the image, how many people and cars to add in, and the landscape plan.
Our 3D artists carefully picked the realistic materials and textures from the 3D rendering library. At the same time, we set the lighting and adjusted the atmosphere based on the reference image Zakarie provided. After all set, our 3D artists added a couple of people and cars to increase liveliness of the scene in Photoshop.
In the comments, Zakarie wanted us to create two options of the glass effects. One is regular, another one comes with a strong sunlight reflection. For this request, we created the corresponding images with different effects. And these are the two images.


Step 4. Final Delivery of 5K High-Res Rendering
The colored draft was approved by Zakarie’s team immediately. They selected the regular version to be their cover page. Thus, we output the high-resolution image as they requested in the first place. And the final image is as blow.
It was a sheer pleasure working with Zakarie and his team. He is easy to work with, and well-prepared. These traits elevate the working process and get the desired results faster and in perfect quality! Zakarie printed this 3D render as the cover page of their brochure for marketing in the real estate market.
Do you like this rendering? If you like it or are thinking about having your real estate development or architectural project shown in a photorealistic way, contact us now! Our professional project manager will get back to you within 24 hours. Or feel free to check our website for more case studies and works.