Pillar · Exteriors
3D exterior rendering
Exteriors are where lighting decisions show up first. Sun angle, sky turbidity, ground albedo, and camera height do more for a building shot than any material tweak. These guides cover the setups and post moves that hold up in a client review.
Tutorial · 14 min
Corona render settings for exteriors: the only setup you need in 2026
Denoising, tone mapping, and the three settings that quietly ruin most exterior skies. A battle tested Corona 12 setup, pulled from six years of production work.
Lighting · 11 min
Golden hour lighting in V-Ray: sun, sky, and believable long shadows
Why your dusk renders keep coming out orange instead of warm, and the two node change in V-Ray 7 that fixes it in about ninety seconds.
Breakdown · 18 min
Hillside villa, clay to final: a full render breakdown with pass by pass notes
AO, Z depth, cryptomatte, and the twenty minutes of Photoshop that did half the work on this 3ds Max hillside exterior.
Workflow · 15 min
Blender and Cycles for arch viz: a forest pavilion, start to finish
Cycles X, geometry nodes for foliage, and the render settings that closed the gap with Corona on this small brutalist project.
Breakdown · 11 min
Rendering pool water that looks wet: caustics, mesh, and refraction
The three settings that make pool water read as water and the two more that push it into cinematic. A dusk infinity pool breakdown for V-Ray and Corona.
Lighting · 11 min
Rendering snow exteriors: alpine cabins without the greeting card feel
Snow displacement, subsurface scattering on ice, and the fireplace glow that anchors the frame. A winter exterior breakdown in Corona.
Lighting · 11 min
Night exterior renders: illuminated facades without the flare crutch
IES profiles, deep blue sky exposure, and the interior reveal that carries a night facade. A working guide for commercial night shots.
Interiors · 10 min
Bedroom renders at dusk: the two light source composition
Sky in one temperature, bedside lamps in another, and nothing else. A quiet dusk bedroom study in V-Ray with a full lighting breakdown.
Workflow · 12 min
How much does a 3D architectural rendering cost in 2026: an honest price guide
Real 2026 pricing for exterior stills, interiors, animations, and packages, with the pricing logic that actually holds up on paid client work.
Lighting · 9 min
Getting fog right in exterior renders (without killing your image)
Fog is the fastest way to make an exterior feel like a real place. It's also the fastest way to make it look muddy. Here's how I actually use it on paid work.
Workflow · 8 min
The Photoshop steps I actually do on every exterior render
Not a comprehensive tutorial. Just the seven or eight things I do in Photoshop to every exterior before it goes to a client, in the order I do them.
Workflow · 8 min
Modelling landscape topography that doesn't look like a wedding cake
Most rendered sites look like the building is sitting on a stack of layer cakes. Here's how I actually handle hillside grades so the image reads as real terrain.