Pillar · Breakdowns
Render breakdowns
Full pass-by-pass breakdowns of finished projects. Clay, beauty, cryptomatte, Z depth, and the post moves that pulled the render together. The kind of write-up you wish came with every hero image on ArtStation.
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.
Breakdown · 12 min
Overcast urban renders in V-Ray: why grey skies sell better than sunshine
Competition boards keep losing to sunlit hero shots that do not reflect the actual site climate. A defence of overcast urban visualization, with the V-Ray dome setup I use for it.
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.
Breakdown · 10 min
Board formed concrete that stops the render from looking like foam
Tie holes, formwork staining, and why your concrete keeps reading as EPS. A shader breakdown from an actual project brief.