Blender Architecture Masterclass

Design effectively and efficiently

Learn how to use Blender for architectural design in this course that's suitable for complete beginners.  The output of the course will be an office building with a ground floor art gallery podium.

During the course, you will learn how to model the project in a completely non-destructive workflows. Why is this important? In the early stages of the design process, designs usually go through multiple iterations. Understanding workflows that allow you to be highly creative and maintain proceduralism will allow to be a more effective and better designer. 

At a glance: Complete Architecture masterclass structured around creating an office building with an art gallery podium
Type: Video Course, 4+ hours long, 12 Chapters, including live (or previously live recorded) sessions
Topics: architecture modelling basics, non-destructive procedural modelling, asset-based workflows, Geometry Nodes, material basics, rendering, post processing, modeling interiors
Software: Blender, Affinity Photo (or Photoshop, or other raster editor).
Experience: complete beginners and for users with experience using Blender, wishing to improve architecture skills
Includes: Blender files for each course module, Affinity Designer and Darktable rendering files.
Your instructor: Dimitar Pouchnikov, AIA, professional architect in London with over 10 years experience working on international projects, Full Bio below

Check out all available courses here https://academy.uhstudio.com.

Hi and thanks for checking out the Blender Architecture Masterclass. I am a registered architect in the US and a Blender user for over 14 years. As a Project Architect, Blender is an essential tool for my design process that I use in a professional capacity regularly. Over the years, I have found the optimal workflows that make architectural design exciting, fun, productive and fast. I am excited to share this knowledge with you in this Masterclass that's suitable for completely new beginners to Blender and also for existing Blender users that want to explore architectural workflows.

By enrolling, you will learn how to use Blender for Architectural Design in the most effective manner. The output of the course will be an office building with a ground floor art gallery podium. During the process of building up, you will learn how to model this project and how to present it by rendering both with Eevee and Cycles.

By the end of this course, you will be able to translate your ideas into beautiful and presentable architectural concepts. You will also be able to:

• understand how to use architectural scale effectively
• understand how to set up Blender for optimal use for architectural design
• know which included and external free addons are most beneficial for the architectural workflow
• understand modelling basics
• model procedurally with modifiers
• understand the basics of working with geometry nodes for architectural design
• learn how to sketch within blender
• get familiar with the best resources for models and rendering assets and how to place them in the scene
• assign materials and understand how to map textures properly
• render in Eevee and Cycles and know when to use which rendering Engine
• create flythrough animations
• Learn how to post process renderings in Blender, Affinity Photo, and Darktable

Who is this course for:

Architects, designers, and anyone else who would like to learn how to use Blender for architectural design. The course content would be highly beneficial for professionals and students who wish to be able to translate design ideas into 3d concept as quickly as possible.

The course is also useful for 3d artists who wish to understand how to think like an architect when doing environmental and architectural design artworks.

Experience Level:

Beginner to intermediate. No prior experience with Blender is necessary.

The content is structured to allow complete beginners to get started with Blender quickly. It is also useful for those who may have prior experience with Blender and want to improve on using Blender for Architectural Design.

Check out the intermediate course Blender for Architectural Design Modelling
Check out all available courses.

Accessibility

The masterclass includes subtitles in English and has been translated into 18 additional languages: Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese Mandarin, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Masterclass Overview

You will learn the complete process of designing and presenting an architectural concept with Blender through creating a setting up, sketching and creating a massing, and presenting with post-processed renderings.

The course is broken up into multiple chapters. The first chapter focuses on quick getting started guide, mode detailed UI walkthrough, and mesh modelling basics.

The next chapters deal with modelling the context and the building project. This is the core of the masterclass, where you will learn how to set up non-destructive workflows for creating multiple building elements, so that you can easily adjust your building with a few parameter adjustments. You will also learn how to create a contextual setting that create a site for the building. We will work through creating the context, sketching a massing and creating an eye-catching podium, create a non-destructive modular building, learn how to use geometry nodes, add assets from free resources directly within Blender.

In the last series of chapters, you will learn how to create presentable images with both Eevee and Cycles. Through the process, you will learn about the important rendering, material, and environment settings to create presentable images.

You will also learn how to set up camera views, camera fly-throughs, and post processing with Blender, Affinity Photo, and Darktable (open source Lightroom alternative)

Masterclass structure - 12 chapters

1 Getting Started and project setup

This chapter includes a quick getting started guide, UI overview, and a primer on mesh editing. You will also learn about essential free addons that are useful for architectural design, and further resources that can assist you with the design and presentation process.

2 Modelling the context and adding materials

In this chapter, you will create a context consisting of a road, curb, pavement, and grass/plot area. You will learn how to model the context by editing the base mesh with the help modifiers. The modifier-based non-destructive approach allows the expansion of the site to grow easily depending on the project's and the illustration needs. You will also learn the fastest way of adding and editing materials. The material types covered are image-based and you will also learn how to create a basic procedural material for the curb.

3 Modelling the project

With a foundational understanding of Blender and the context, the next step is getting into the core of the course: creating a concept building. This is the jelly in the sandwich, without which, well we have to pieces of bread with no taste ;) You will learn to how to create the massing with the help of sketching directly in Blender.

Sketching on top of 3d models is absolutely essential for progressing concept ideas faster. And the ability to create quick sketches in the same software used for 3d modeling signficiantly speeds up the design process.

Throughout the process, as many modelling steps as possible are done non-destructively with modifiers. This is essential for speeding up the process of architectural design, as concepts constantly evolve, and instead of remodelling, the modifier-based approach allows continuous refinements without complex setups.

Once the basic massing is complete, it's time create our core and shell concept by converting that massing to a beautiful architectural design. Here you will learn how to create a completely procedural podium by learning how to generate the architectural elements.

You will be learning how to create the wrap-around podium roof first and then how to create a parametric curtain wall that adjusts itself based to the boundaries of the wrap-around element. 

Once the podium is complete, we will explore ways of generating the procedural tower with the help of modifiers. This type of workflow will continue to showcase examples of highly useful and time-saving non-destructive workflows that allow to test multiple massings of different sizes with ease!

Imagine having to test how well a tower sits in its context and being able to try multiple versions with different number of floors with the minimal amount of effort. You will also learn how to keep top and bottom elements so the floors automatically adjust themselves.

Luckily, this process is highly intuitive and straightforward, so you wouldn't need to endlessly learn numerous settings to achieve this.

4 Modelling refinements

Once the base core, shell, and facade massing is done, it is time to start adding further details that will assist in exploring and portraying the architectural concept.

Continuing with the explorations of procedural workflows, you will learn how to create interior walls that automatically add weight and trim to the designated ceiling.

You will also learn how to work with some of the most popular asset repositories in Blender that have direct integrations. You will be able populate your models with architectural assets that help add sense of scale and proportions to your models. An absolute essential that instantly improves architectural massings with the minimal amount of effort. 

5 Rendering basics

With the core modelling complete, it is time to delve into presentation. The best concept in the world may not be appreciated if it isn't presented well.

In this chapter, you will learn how to set up camera views and expand on the knowledge already built on generating materials from Chapter 2 (Modelling the context). Working with cameras allows you to save views that can be referenced later. Aspect ratios, clip distances, and camera field of views shall be covered in this chapter.

6 Rendering with Eevee

Here you will learn all the necessary settings to render well with Eevee, Blender's real-time rendering engine. Eevee is highly useful for concept sketches, screen grabs and animations. 

You will learn how to set up Eevee including material tweaks and rendering settings so you can get optimal settings and output in real time. 

Additionally, due to its speed, Eevee is excellent for creating fly-throughs that show the model in more detail. You will learn how to create basic fly through including animation

7 Rendering with Cycles

In a similar fashion as with Eevee, you will learn the important settings to create great renderings with Cycles, Blender's ray-tracing engine. You will also learn how to insert 2d backdrops and how to modify them to increase the scene’s depth without adding too much additional geometry that would require the more rendering time

8 Geometry nodes

Geometry Nodes are Blender's answer to Grasshopper and Houdini for procedural modelling. The toolset is new, exciting, still greatly evolving, and presents excellent new modelling opportunities for architectural design.

In this chapter, you will learn the fundamentals of using Geometry Nodes through a few exercises. This first is adding shrubs. Nature elements can slow your system down notoriously and even crash it. You will learn how to control your viewport and rendering settings when creating instances that look realistic and don't kill your computer.

Next we will look at more advanced, but fundamental use of geometry nodes by creating a brick wall that deforms based on an attractor.

This module's Geometry nodes examples have been updated to work with the latest geometry nodes system in Blender. By the end of this module, you should have a good grasp on how to work with Geometry Nodes for architectural design. 

9. Further rendering refinements

Creating renderings that illustrate the project typically requires many tweaks, adjustments, and further refinements. In this chapter, we continue to refine the materials, rendering settings, and the environment. In particular, you will learn different ways of adjusting glass materials to make them fit well with the project and the scene.

10. Rendering and post processing with Blender

Once all the refinements are complete, the scene is ready for a final render with Cycles and you will learn how to post-process the rendered image with Blender’s compositor. You will also learn why and when it may be useful to use Blender's compositor for post-processing.

11. Post Processing with Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is currently the best budget friendly alternative to Photoshop, as it provides robust photo editing capabilities with more adjustment layers than Photoshop provides.

Here we will go through the process of post processing the raw image in Photo, taking into account the all useful settings that can help push the fidelity of the rendered image.

The fundamentals you will learn here are applicable with any other photo editing app, including the good old (but expensive) Photoshop.

12 Post Processing with Darktable

Darktable is an open source alternative to Adobe Lightroom. It provides many settings that are highly useful for post processing rendered images.

Darktable's completely non-destructive workflows fit nicely with the procedural techniques being explored in the rest of the course, and as an open-source software, it allows you to get straight in and significantly improve your images.

Darktable has a complete history tool, which makes it great for comparing different snapshots and editions of your rendered images. 

What's included

- 13 chapters of videos with more than 4 hours of training

- Blender files of the final result for each chapter

- Affinity Photo file is also included

About the Author

Dimitar is a US licensed architect working as a project architect at HOK in London. He also heads his independent practice UH Studio and educational wing UH Studio Design Academy, including https://youtube.com/uhstudio . Dimitar works on variety of projects - mixed use, residential, cultural, entertainment, on distinct projects throughout the world. Keen to push the boundaries of design and technology, Dimitar embraces learning and teaching less common software within the the design and architecture community in order to empower more designers.

Dimitar Presenting at Blender Conference 2023

Dimitar has been using Blender since 2007. As an open source 3d design tool, it is an essential part of Dimitar's toolset and he is on a mission to make Blender's abilities widely known through the architecture world. He teaches architects and students how to use Blender through physical workshops and through a variety of educational channels. Dimitar also teaches Design Studio to architecture students in collaboration with Dezact.

You can find out more about Dimitar on uhstudio.com/profile#dimitar

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