Adding 2d cut out plants and trees to architectural visualisations

In this tutorial we will discuss simple techniques to quickly add 2d plants, trees and vegetation to an architectural visualisation post render in photoshop to give the visual a sense of realism. We will use masking techniques to cut out the plants and trees and a number of layer styles to blend them into the render.

1

This is the base image I am going to be working with. I rendered the image in 3DS Studio Max where I did some work on the textures; however I find it quicker to apply textures in Photoshop if I know I am only taking one rendered image from the 3d model. I have added a few textures, lights and a couple of people. I normally don’t like see-through people, however I needed to show the view down the walkway and without people it felt very empty.

2

I searched the web for an image of grass that I liked that would be my base level of vegetation. My first stops for finding images like this are cgtextures.com or flickr but as we build a larger texture library on Kropped I hope more of you will try Kroppedfirst for textures and resources.

3

I applied a layer mask to the layer then, using a black brush, started erasing the grass that did not fit in the pool.

4

Next I used a stock image of reeds to give height to my natural pool vegetation. Again I masked out unwanted areas of the texture. (for a detailed explanation on masking read the ‘Adding people to architectural visualisations’ tutorial on Kropped). I applied these adjustment states to just this texture so that it matched the colours in the scene better.

5

I repeated step 4 with the same stock image of reeds to populate the rest of the pool with higher reeds.

6

Using the same images I filled the pool in the distance with reeds too.

7

Having used the same image of reeds for all areas of vegetation I felt that it needed breaking-up a bit with a different sort of plant. I chose this hedge as it had some nice green textures.

8

Again, mask out the unwanted areas of the image

9

Looking at the image I felt it looked very flat and a bit dark. So I used a bit of an unorthodox technique, instead of carefully going over areas that needed brightening up and depth added I simple used this stock image of a concert where the lights were very bright and the colour a slight orange hint to overlay over the whole image. If I was doing an accurate image for a client I might not use this technique but this was a day or two before a final crit and I needed every minute.

10

I masked out areas of the image that were already bright to leave this.

11

I set the layer to Overlay and 51% opacity

12

I then repeated this step with the same image in different locations on the render, each time setting it to overlay and adjusting the opacity. Because I used a mask instead of erasing, if I felt I had removed too much of the ‘light’ I could simple swap black to white and unmask areas. I hope that this tutorial was useful to you, I appreciate this technique is a bit trial and error, you just have to go with what you feel works for the image.

Posted in: ARCHITECTUAL VISUALISATIONS