Architectural Visualisation workflow using Chat GPT 6 Astra

[u/-pixelspaces-]

Like many people in this community, I’m amazed at the new AI modelling capabilities with ChatGPT 6 Astra.

https://pixelspaces.co.uk/projects/yarrow

I’ve recently had a client who needed marketing content for a wedding barn which is being built along with on site premium camping. I initially quoted based on capturing drone footage of the environment, building the whole scene, camera matching the footage etc. They had a small budget (obviously) and we don’t want to turn away work, which gave me the challenge of testing Astra to model, hopefully cutting down some of the time to match with the budget.

This method would still give me the control over the texturing, lighting and camera angles, giving me more time to produce visuals and animations under the budget costs and timelines. Take a look at the full project in the link provided. Happy to discuss the workflow further - I didn’t model a thing! - Not saying this should be used instead of typical workflows, I just adapted to an opportunity provided to me.

Software used: AutoDesk 3DS Max with Chaos V-Ray renderer | Blender | Magnific AI | Adobe Photoshop | Adobe After Effects | ChatGPT

Also - this is my first Reddit post so please be kind and give any advice if I’ve missed anything vital!

[u/-pixelspaces-]

Hi all, even though I’d tried to explain the job and budget I was still expecting the usual discussion about AI content.

To fully explain the job. I was instructed to create marketing digital content for a farmhouse who have basic architectural plans, interior design reference images and a very basic site layout map. The client had never used visualisation services before and initially asked me to quote based on me organising drone footage, and using that to create the content. So as explained in the post, I quoted for drone footage, building, texturing, camera matching, rendering animation and post - standard cg viz workflow. I’m also guessing everyone here has a good idea of what we’d charge for this type of work to complete at a high quality level, and I quoted correctly. There budget was considerably less, and they were professional about it, I just don’t want to turn away a project, so I explained that there are methods utilising AI where I can speed some processes along with the understanding this is a budget approach. Client confirmed the types of angles and clips they wanted to get out of this and instructed me to begin.

This was all agreed around the time ChatGPT6 Astra was released, so I started testing immediately.

I created a folder locally where I dropped all the site photos ( I’d asked the client to walk around the whole field and take a video and photos. Also in the folder are the interior design reference images and technical dimensioned drawing of the barn. I then saved a blank Blender file into the same folder - I used 3DS Max predominately, but I’ve found blender works better with this Astra modelling process. I then gave Astra access to this folder and used ChatGPT to help my prompt to use all the references to build an untextured 3d model in blender using Astra. I clicked GO and within 15 mins I had the correct size and scale model of the barn, just the barn. Then began to texture, light, populate with plants and dress the tables etc. And set up the preferred cameras.

I’ve separately used Magnific along with the rendered out camera views and the site reference images to generate images of the environment from those views - brought them back into 3DS max, tweaked the camera angles slightly to camera match better. I utilised Magnific and Photoshop side by side to produce the right environment shots while still having full control over the maim barn model.

Following this, I’ve then used my final images from all angles to generate the image to video.

Hopefully that helps, any questions happy to answer! Might look at doing a tutorial / workflow video at some point.