If you missed any of the tutorials you can view them on the links below:

Create a High Rise Building

Create a Realistic Kitchen

I hope you enjoyed the series! Next month’s topic will be announced at the start of next week.

Now when it comes to rendering interiors, the Blender internal engine unfortunately falls a bit short. Global illumination is crucial to achieving realism and that’s something that Blender currently lacks. So for this tutorial, we will be exporting the scene to an external renderer called LuxRender.

If you are new to external renderers, don’t worry! The first 8 minutes is a complete Introduction to External Rendering, which answers the most common questions beginners have.

This 43 minute tutorial will teach you:

• How to install LuxRender and render your first scene
• The benefits of using external renderers over Blender’s internal renderer
• 3 different environment settings and their use
• How to apply materials to multiple objects at once
• How to pause a render
• How to use lightgroups to adjust lighting in real time
• How to enable real world camera settings in LuxRender
• How to add bloom and glare to a finished render

Watch the tutorial

Note: This tutorial is Part 2. Click here to watch Part 1.

Chapter marks

Bored? If you know what you’re doing, feel free to skip ahead!

• 0:28 – Introduction to External Renderers
• 8:33 – How to Install LuxRender
• 10:26  – Rendering your first scene in LuxRender
• 18:07 – Kitchen Tutorial start
• 19:36 – Adding the materials
• 28:44 – Setting up the Lighting and environment
• 36:10 – Adding bloom, glare and playing with LightGroups

>>Download the finished .blend – 16mb<<

Note: The LuxRender script may not be able to locate the floor and bench textures. If so, unpack the textures from the .blend and tell the script to use a directory on your hard drive.

Congratulations on completing the architecture tutorial series! I hope you’ve taken something from it. As usual I’m looking forward to seeing your results

Need some Inspiration?

• 20 Architectural renders that break the mold
• 35 Stunning Interior Renders
• Wicked bachelor pad – The Devoto House (who will be the first to make this in Blender?)
• Slick collection of real life architecture

Further Reading:

• Is freelancing in ArchiViz still worth it?
• Making of Bathroom in House N (3ds Max)
• Making of Bedroom White & Wood (3ds Max)
• Making of Uro House (AutoCAD)
• Making of Kuma, Art Museum of Estonia – Must see! Stunning.

We’ve all heard statements like,

“Most Blender users haven’t even used commercial 3d software before…” or “Most users are teenagers…”

But are they based on fact? No.

To my knowledge there have been no formal surveys or research of any kind regarding the Blender community. This is shame, because how else are we to hear the opinions of a large group of people at once?

That’s why I’ve introduced…

>>The Great Blender Survey<<

This survey will help us understanding the the average age, level of experience, field of expertise and above all the views and opinions of the community at large.

The data from this survey will be reveald on the 1st of November.

I will present this data at this years Blender Conference in Amsterdam, as well as right here on BlenderGuru.com.

The survey will take you less than 4 minutes to complete, and in doing so you will benefit the community as a whole.

Here’s a short video from yours truly

>>Take part in the survey<<

In this tutorial you will learn how to model:

• Bench top
• Cupboard Doors
• Kitchen Sink
• Boiling Pot
• Chopping Board
• Stack of plates
• Modern Mixing Bowl
• Serrated Bread Knife
• A commercial spring water outlet

This 46 minute tutorial is jam packed with modeling tips and techniques that will help you to create an interior of your own.

To play along at home you may wish to save this reference image to your hard drive.

Note: This tutorial uses a recent Blender 2.5 build from Graphicall.org

>>Download the finished .blend – 616kb<<

Stay tuned for next week, as Part 2 shows you how to render this scene in LuxRender!

Everybody has heard such pearls of wisdom as ‘be yourself’ or ‘be different’. But frequently these words fall on deaf ears, and they have every reason to. In a world where bosses and professionals seemingly want you to fit in with the industry and follow the norm, it’s very easy to become jaded and less motivated to break the mold.

In this video I’ll show you why it’s not only a good advice for your personal life, but why being yourself may be the best thing for your career.

What are your thoughts on Keeping it real? Do you find that you are more motivated when creating things you truly believe in? Join the discussion below!

If you enjoyed this post you may also like How to stay motivated during long projects.

Last week I showed you how to model a high rise building and this week we will be applying materials, lighting and compositing to produce a final image that we can send to the (imaginary) client.

In this tutorial you will learn:

• A clever trick to make outdoor lighting more realistic
• Ensure lighting passes through glass
• An easy glowing lighting setup

This tutorial uses Blender 2.5 Alpha 2

Watch the Tutorial

(or Click here to view Part 1 first)

>>DOWNLOAD THE FINISHED .BLEND<<

That concludes the two part tutorial series! Now go forth and create cities

As always I’m keen to see whatever you guys produce from this tutorial, so don’t be shy to drop a link in the comment section below!

[update] Featured Community Pics

Here are the best renders from the Blender Guru community after following this tutorial:

• Weird Architecture by Manu
• Destruction by Matt
• Late Afternoon by Bryan Vivas
• Epic city by Kewl Luser
• Apartment Complex by Scotchtapeworm

Drop a link in the comments below to submit your own!

To kick things off I thought we’d jump straight in the deep end and learn how to create one of the most complex models there is, a high rise apartment block.

Because apartment blocks have multiple floors it’s easy to assume that it requires multiple amounts of work. However that really isn’t the case.

In this tutorial I will show you how to use arrays and mirrors in a way that will considerably cut down your modelling times.

In this tutorial you will learn how to:

• Use multiple arrays and mirrors effectively to cut down on your modelling time
• Create complex designs using basic shapes and loop cuts
• Follow a reference image to create a replica

This tutorial uses Blender 2.5 Alpha 2

Watch the tutorial:

>>Download the finished .blend<<

Here is a link to the reference image I used: Flickr (taken by Irene Kane).

Check back here next week for Part 2!

If you missed any of the tutorials you can view them on the links below:

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