3D World

We interview Belle van der Woodsen about her incredible interior design work

Take your set dressing and lighting skills to the next level

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Belle van der Woodsen is a German 3D artist living and working in New York for Binyan Studios. Her career began around three years ago after making the decision not to finish her master’s degree in architectu­re. Working for top architectu­ral visualisat­ion studios such as Recent Spaces and Binyan Studios has enabled her to grow as an artist as well as a designer. As a former architect, she found a new passion for interior design, and her expertise led her to work on internatio­nal projects that are published on Dezeen and Archdaily. Being a role model in the world of archviz for women, she was also featured in

the book Great Talks about Photo Realism II by Bogdan Sasu, where you can learn more about how she approaches her work.

We caught up with Belle van der Woodsen to ask her a few questions, and she also provides a step-by-step guide detailing how she created one of her projects, A Love Letter to Paris.

A I studied architectu­re in Germany and Austria where I also worked as an architect. After five years I realised I was already burned out doing architectu­re, but very randomly I found out that I liked visualisat­ion a lot. I attended a weekend workshop which taught me very basic V-ray and Photoshop techniques. This made me think about turning this into a career, but I didn’t know how back then.

When I found out about SOA in Venice I was really happy and I went there to attend a four-week masterclas­s. I learned everything from scratch. Until I got there I hadn’t even opened 3ds Max before. During those weeks I almost lost my mind and I also had nightmares while learning so much. After the course, I started to slowly build my portfolio and also taught myself Corona Renderer, which I have used ever since. All this effort paid off in the end. From being an unhappy architect to being a very happy version of myself is the greatest achievemen­t for me.

Q Do you have a background in 3D design or are you self-taught? Q How do you keep things fresh?

A I always try to keep myself inspired. This means Instagram, Pinterest and Behance are part of my daily work. Being up to date with the latest design trends is essential for me and my job. It’s very refreshing as well. Sometimes that’s not what the clients are asking for but it ends up in a personal project. I love to do my own architectu­re and interior design. That’s how I can combine the best of both worlds, which means a lot to me. I can finally express myself without getting any client comments that totally destroy the first idea of the image. I appreciate personal work now more than ever. It’s satisfying. I basically never understood why people were doing it until I did it for the very first time. There is a different feeling about it. It’s more than just starting and finishing an image. The pride I feel when I’m in love with the final image – that’s why I do it. A Since the coronaviru­s and working from home I have to admit that my work-life balance has significan­tly improved. That means I’m now able to go for a run before starting work. I have never been a runner and it’s nice that habits can still change. I mainly work from 10am to 6pm. When I finish earlier I just go and work out in the gym which is inside my building. Rather than spending time commuting on a dirty subway, I can use that time for a workout. That’s a good change. I usually work on two new images a week and a couple of comments. The way Binyan is managing their project is fantastic; I can truly focus on being an artist. I don’t have to waste time writing emails to clients like in other studios. For working from home I had to transform my bedroom into an office – this was supposed to be a guest room for friends who wanted to come over… but then the world started changing. Inside my office, I can put down the blinds and shut out all the sunlight. I would prefer to work in a dark cave if I could do so.

Q What’s your day-to-day life like? Q How long have you been creating in 3D and what software do you use?

A My first introducti­on to 3D was in 2010 when I did an internship in an architectu­ral firm. Back then I was already amazed by it. I used Cinema 4D to try to communicat­e my architectu­ral idea in my bachelor’s degree. But unfortunat­ely, this university didn’t appreciate 3D at all and I gave up on it. When I did my masters at the University of Innsbruck I had to catch up quickly with all kinds of 3D because those guys were already killing it. Then I started to use Rhino with Grasshoppe­r to make some fancy parametric buildings. Later on, I used V-ray for rendering and my professors were so happy with it they wanted me to work for them. I guess this was the first time I realised I can have a job that is fun and its outcome makes people happy too.

Nowadays I use 3ds Max with Corona Renderer. I am very keen to try and get my hands on Fstorm when I hopefully have another workstatio­n soon. I used to try to add Megascans, Substance etc to my workflow, but I found out that I don’t really need this for interiors. So I decided to just keep things as simple as possible.

Q Can you walk us through a typical piece from conception to final render?

A It always starts by looking for inspiratio­n. I use Pinterest to collect images. I usually look for different things. Architectu­re, interior design, lighting, landscape design, and furniture. Sometimes I’m very lucky to find one reference which covers all of it. Then I start with modelling the architectu­ral elements. Also, I have to look for furniture and need to figure out if I have to do custom modelling. I’m really bad at that, unfortunat­ely. Finding the right compositio­n is fun. It’s final from the beginning; I will never change it again.

Creating my own interior design starts with finding an outstandin­g piece. That can be furniture, artwork, or a carpet. I compose everything else around it. I don’t follow any rules. I follow my intuition which leads me to great results. I think it’s important to think or create freely. Lighting is also very important from the beginning as it affects all my materials.

I personally don’t like it when images look too white. I always use the sun and sky and a white balance, which is a tiny bit warmer than just white. I also try to use realistic values for lights that you would normally see in reality.

Working with textures and colours is key to my work. I want my images not just to look real, I also want them to have my signature on them. This means creating an overall unique image through colour, contrast, and pattern. A I mainly use a computer which is provided by Binyan for work. This is located in my office which was created out of necessity due to the coronaviru­s. I can’t stand any direct sunlight because I’m very light sensitive. I could see the Statue of Liberty from my office but I have to shut the blinds! As I just moved to New York I don’t own much, so my setup is really quite nonspecula­r.

Q Can you tell us about your current studio setup? Q How often do you work on your personal portfolio?

A I just recently started to do personal projects. As the weather was quite bad in New York and when the coronaviru­s kicked in I started to appreciate it. Then I would spend almost every day at the weekend in front of my machine. I will continue to do so when it’s not warm and sunny. Otherwise, I will go for walks in the park. But during the lockdown, I was able to collect many great references that I want to turn into personal work for sure. Stay tuned.

Q Going forward, is there a dream project you would like to work on?

A Well, when I saw Inception for the very first time it made me want to become an architect. I didn’t know back then there was something like animation or VFX. I guess I’m some kind of hybrid now and I would totally love to work on some architectu­ral or design details for movies. When I went to a conference in Munich there was a guy from Pixar and he said they always need architects. So… we will see where the journey goes from here. It’s great that there is so much opportunit­y for different kinds of work in this job.

Q What other ambitions do you have?

A I definitely want to be a role model in my industry. Not just for women but in general. I would love to tell young architectu­re students that this kind of job exists, and it’s fun. I want to give them insights and inspiratio­n from our industry and help them to be able to communicat­e their ideas through 3D. That idea has been stuck in my head for the past few years and I think now it’s the time to do so. This especially means approachin­g universiti­es in Germany because I know that learning any kind of 3D there is very poor. I want to change that. I want this industry to grow and I hope I can help with that. I also have a dream to one day design and manage my own pub in London in the future. Fingers crossed!

“I WANT TO BE A ROLE MODEL IN MY INDUSTRY, TELLING YOUNG STUDENTS THAT THIS JOB EXISTS, AND IT’S FUN”

“A

Love Letter to Paris or The Parisian Apartment is a project I created especially for the book Great Talks about Photo Realism where I am one of the featured artists. I got inspired by the looks of Parisian apartments and wanted to show off my very own skills.” interior design

01 MODELLING THE APARTMENT

Modelling was done in 3ds Max.

I try to keep things very simple, that’s why this apartment is mainly made of boxes and sweeps. I also used floorgener­ator to create the herringbon­e pattern. Sweeps were used for all the molding in the scene. Instead of using the standard 3ds Max sweep, you could also use Railclone or SINI.

02 SCENE SETUP

After the initial modelling phase, the next step is setting up my camera. This shot is supposed to be a one-point perspectiv­e. I place the camera in the middle of the room, then I set the rest of the scene. In this case, we have a window where you can look out into the environmen­t. As it's not a big window, I only placed a tree and a French-looking building (from 3dsky) outside of the apartment.

03 LIGHTING

My goal was to create a daylight-lit atmosphere with some softer-looking shadows. Therefore my main light source is a Corona Sun. Additional­ly, I use some Corona disk lights for the wall sconce and table lamps. I use Kelvin values for those Corona disk lamps that are also used in reality to achieve a realistic-looking effect. For those disk lights, I also add an IES profile.

04 TEXTURING

Keeping it as simple as possible, I used a simple box or cylindrica­l mapping for texturing. I also make my materials as simple as possible. I try hard to get the materials straight from the beginning. This way it saves me a lot of time and helps in case I want to create an animation later on.

05 CREATING A CARPET WITH ITOO FOREST PACK

I want to push the limit when it comes to realism. That's why I don't use a normal carpet material with displaceme­nt or such. I made my very own carpet source object that I scatter along the carpet. The source object takes the material from the map and it creates a really nice-looking carpet. Very good for any detail shots in particular.

07 POST-PRODUCTION IN PHOTOSHOP

This is my last and final step. I keep this very simple as well. I use my main render, then add the reflection pass in screen mode 20%, and on top of that is a slight curve to create a vignette effect.

08 ADDITIONAL CAMERA VIEWS – CREATING A VIGNETTE

I love creating vignettes out of my shots. Therefore I use a narrower camera and DOF. It creates a nice feel to the image and shows lots of details. •

06 RENDERING

I add some of my render channels and hit the render button.

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 ??  ?? Belle van der Woodsen hopes that, through her work, she can inspire young students to enter into the industry
Belle van der Woodsen hopes that, through her work, she can inspire young students to enter into the industry
 ??  ?? Left & right: Work by architectu­ral and design agency Recent Spaces for Ecomansion­s. See more at
recentspac­es.com/ ancona
Left & right: Work by architectu­ral and design agency Recent Spaces for Ecomansion­s. See more at recentspac­es.com/ ancona
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 ??  ?? Right: Lighting plays a particular­ly important role in interior design
Below: Work by Recent Spaces for Thornsett (recentspac­es.com/ hackney-gardens)
Right: Lighting plays a particular­ly important role in interior design Below: Work by Recent Spaces for Thornsett (recentspac­es.com/ hackney-gardens)
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