6 Tips on How to Make Your Interior Renders More Realistic

In one way or another, art always imitates life. Sometimes, the representation is vague and symbolic. Other times, art achieves an uncanny resemblance to our reality. Whatever the case, the goal is the same – to show, through something sublime, the beauty and complexity of the human world.

Halfway between painting and photography stands 3D rendering, a hyper-modern, computer-based emulation that turns ideas into life-like imagery – a new benchmark for realism in design.

If you’re deep in the world of interior design, you’ve undoubtedly seen many of these. However, if you’ve just started perfecting interior renders of your own, we’ve got just what you need. These tips are all trade secrets, the best practices guaranteed to make your interior renders stand out.

Here’s how to catch the illusion of reality in 3D renders.

Make everything cohesive

If they are any good, the interior artists who render their own designs have a unique style that can be recognized at a glance. However, being original in what you do requires a lot of work. From time to time, all great artists experience some kind of creative block, which makes them lose their touch.

When this happens, some artists resort to repeating old patterns.

Now, cohesiveness is crucial when you’re rendering interior designs. Every element (and many moving parts constitute interior design) must make perfect sense. Everything should have a reason for being there if you want to create a meaningful, articulate composition. In other words, it must be well thought out.

Faced with a creative block, many designers give advantage to cohesion over originality. Though this is not necessarily bad, it’s not very innovative either. Take the time to work on your ideas and push yourself through new boundaries. Visualize bolder colors, unique accents, and new styles.

Things will slowly fall in place when you have the right intention and a clear concept.

Have a story in mind

What if the elements you’ve visualized are too cobbled together? A great designer can put random pieces of furniture in a shocking order, pair anachronic details, and create vibrating color combinations. What’s seemingly messy can quickly turn into eclectic, only if you have a good story in mind.

Storytelling is a fantastic way to overcome your creative block and achieve cohesion.

It’s also a powerful aid for making interior design renders feel realistic.

When you make up a real story and spend some time devising characters, it’s less likely you’ll lose direction while designing. What is this space? Who’s using it, and for what? It’s even easier if you’re working on a commissioned project since you already have all the specifics.

Sometimes, the empty canvas is all you’ve got. When there are no instructions to guide your design, it’s helpful to imagine your own details. Think about these first – the little things we use to make an empty space feel more personal and intimate, like the iconic Rosebud in Citizen Kane.

Add something random

One of the best-kept secrets about realistic rendering is that accidental details make interior designs more convincing. They can be anything from quirky accents that don’t match the rest of the space to random elements that look as if they were misplaced, lost, or forgotten.

These random things make the story more believable.

Perfection exists only on paper. A finished interior design can only come close to an ideal of perfection but can never achieve it, let alone maintain it. Interior design is made for people, making perfect sense for interior renders to showcase the randomness of spaces inhabited by humans.

Interior renders with no details and random moments never look realistic. It’s only empty surfaces and computer-generated perfection. Even minimalist designs need a breath of real life – a quirky painting on the wall, a mirror with an irregular shape, or a book left carelessly open on the coffee table.

Think about the proportions

Proportions make objects real. When an object lacks a dimension, it looks cartoonish or alien. Either way, odd proportions, shapes, and sizes – unless they are intentional and decorative – have no place in interior renders. Everything must be measured with care and compared to real-life proportions.

In interior design, proportions can refer to shape, texture, and even color.

Once you get the scale right, everything else is a matter of mutual balance. Every element should be scaled properly to mirror its real-life counterpart and fit in with other elements within a render. This balance of elements within a render must be applied to everything the eye can see.

Take colors, for example. The colors can seem off-balance and disproportionate if you don’t stick to the same palette and tone. Out of context, some colors can feel surreal and campy. Of course, there’s a place for exaggeration in 3D renders, but not if you’re trying to achieve interior design realism.

Work on lighting and shadows

If you want to make your renders more realistic, lighting is another essential element that you need to master. Whether artificial or natural, lighting plays an integral part in interior design – you can translate it beautifully to render as long as it’s in balance with other design elements.

Rendering artists recognize a few different types:

● Artificial functional lighting;

● Lighting that sets the mood;

● Lighting that makes a statement;

● Natural environmental lighting.

To pick the right one for your realistic design, you must first choose the time of day and season. Once more, this is the storytelling department’s task. Go for the option that makes the most sense for the design you’re trying to show and the ambiance you’re trying to create with it.

For example, a Mediterranean villa should have a bright blue sky visible through the windows. That calls for neutral natural lighting that resembles a golden hour in photography. On the other hand, the interior of a romantic restaurant should be candle-lit with dimmed, atmospheric light.

Find suitable 3D models

Every type of interior design represents a specific challenge for rendering artists. Unlike exteriors, rendering interior projects involves a lot of intricate elements, most of them with custom colors and textures. In many cases, their complexity requires drawing these elements from scratch.

However, this scope of work would hardly be efficient for anyone.

The best alternative is provided by an increasing number of 3D libraries available online. They allow you to get entire sets of interior design elements for reasonable prices. Purchasing out-of-the-box 3D models and customizing them later will deliver the same fantastic result and save you a lot of time.

Conclusion

Having a gorgeous interior design render to show could really advance your chances of getting picked up for a project. Authenticity plays a decisive role when visualizing and depicting closed spaces. You’re expected to show your idea as if it was already real, nothing less, nothing more.

Hopefully, these rendering tricks will serve you well.