Creating an impactful architecture portfolio with Bertrand Benoit

The path to Vantage

Being a long-time V-Ray user, Bertrand has amassed an extensive collection of V-Ray-specific assets over the years. The process of creating these assets, which include models, textures, and HDRI maps, is time-consuming and requires a high level of quality for Bertrand to eventually sell them. As a result, it becomes a challenging endeavor to switch tools and rebuild everything in a new format. Despite the allure of real-time solutions like game engines, Bertrand hesitated to make the transition due to the mentioned hurdle.

When Vantage came out, Bertrand realized he could move his workflow to real-time and still use his V-Ray library of assets. He could freely move back and forth between V-Ray and Vantage depending on time and quality requirements, typically doing high-quality stills in V-Ray and super fast animations in Vantage.

Vantage workflow strategies

By incorporating these Vantage strategies, you can optimize your workflow, enhance realism, and efficiently create stunning archviz renders and architectural animations that are ready to be featured in your architecture portfolio. Bertrand gives us direct examples of how he applied these strategies to his LA River project.

• Rely on Vantage for heavy scenes: Vantage can handle heavy scenes with numerous assets, making navigation and rendering in real-time smoother compared to other software. Bertrand's decision to rely on Vantage in LA River stemmed from the scene's complexity, as it contained numerous assets that caused slowdowns during pre-processing.
  
  
• Take advantage of real-time rendering: Vantage allows for real-time rendering, eliminating long render times and providing instant feedback on changes made to the scene. While working on LA River, Bertrand recognized that due to the limitations of 3ds Max, navigating the scene in the viewport was a bit sluggish. Transferring the scene to Vantage proved to be the perfect solution to this challenge.
  
  
• Use the volumetric fog feature: Vantage's volumetric fog feature enhances the realism of exterior scenes, giving them a more immersive and visually stunning look, as evident in LA River.
  
  
• Leverage Vantage for quick animations: Vantage's real-time capabilities enable the creation of fast and visually appealing animations, even in scenes with certain limitations like displacement and decals such as in La River.
  
  
• Build complete environments: By constructing the entire scene before choosing shooting angles, you have the freedom to explore and select the best view, simulating the experience of a photographer roaming through the environment, which is exactly the method Bertrand relies on.
  
  
• Test different lighting scenarios: Vantage allows for easy experimentation with lighting setups, empowering you to discover new and visually appealing shots that may not have been initially apparent in the scene. Bertrand shares that he found some really good shots he hadn’t seen before while spending some time walking around the LA River scene and testing different lighting scenarios.