Writing a brief for an upcoming 3D rendering project?

To give architects and clients a good understanding of the future design, the brief must be well-structured and written. It must describe many points, including the project’s purpose, style, colours, hues, setting, and even the mood of the visualization.

Here, you’ll get writing tips to create an effective 3D rendering brief and cover everything. Let’s take it one step at a time and go through these sections:

• Project purpose
• Target audience
• 3D rendering type
• Visualization concept
• The desired finishes
• Single-idea visualizations
• Details to make renderings realistic
• Timeframes.

At the end of the guide, you’ll find a template for your 3D rendering brief, containing all these sections. You can copy the template and add project details to speed up your work.

Sounds good? Let’s start with the basics.

What is a 3D Rendering Brief?

A 3D rendering brief is a document where clients give instructions and ideas on a 3D rendering project for a contractor.

An effective brief summarizes the project in detail and provides all relevant information that the contractor needs to complete it. Every 3D rendering company requests this document before starting a project to understand the client’s needs and goals.

Must-have information in the brief is project goals, target audience, and personal recommendations from the client.

5 Reasons Why a 3D Rendering Brief is Important

3D rendering brief is like an initial blueprint for a project used by every stakeholder. It organizes all aspects of the future design project and becomes a guide for the contractor.

Writing a clear, on-point, and useful brief:

1. Helps the designer understand the results you’re looking for
2. Aligns the client’s and designer’s project expectations
3. Makes project management easier
4. Minimizes potential miscommunications
5. Helps the designer understand the target audience.

Next, let’s see how to explain your ideas to 3D rendering specialists with clear and useful writing.

How to Write a Spotless 3D Rendering Brief: X Tips

Follow these tips to write an accurate 3D rendering brief for your next project.

1. Identify the Purpose of the Project

“This 3D rendering is meant to showcase our next project.”

This is a common purpose that interior designers or architects use for 3D rendering briefs. While concise, it doesn’t really say anything valuable to the designer. We need to write a purpose that goes beyond the obvious.

Treat this sentence like the summary of the entire project. To ensure that it offers a good introduction, try using this formula:

The purpose of this project is to... “Showcase [what] for [who] to [a desired outcome].”

Structuring the purpose this way answers three relevant questions:

• What type of real estate you’re trying to show?
• Who is the target viewer?
• What is the effect you’re trying to achieve?

Last thing: be sure to keep the project’s purpose within two sentences. One sentence is typically enough, but you can add the second if necessary.

2. Describe the Target Viewer

Who are you creating this 3D rendering brief for? New couples looking for a condo? An entrepreneur looking for a house away from the city?

Knowing the target viewer’s goals helps the designer to understand what kind of rendering they’d prefer to see. That’s why our next task in our brief is to make the profile of the ideal viewer.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who is the [ideal] target viewer of this 3D rendering?
• What are their goals for that property/interior design?
• Are there any problems they’re trying to solve with your architectural solutions?
• Were there any specific requests or recommendations they gave you to create the design that you’re visualizing?

In case of a promotional 3D rendering, share the main points from your company’s customer persona in this section.

The persona contains information about the customer’s:

• Occupation and annual income
• Values and goals that influence their purchases and decisions
• Current housing situation
• Their interests, including favourite social media and brands.

Share this information with a 3D rendering artist to help them understand how to make something that will check all boxes and “wow” the right kind of viewer.

3. Choose 3D Rendering Types

Depending on the goals of your presentation, you can choose among several types of 3D renderings. Keep in mind that you can add multiple times to your brief.

Exterior

This rendering shows a building from the outside. It’s perfect for real estate agents and architects who want to showcase a new project. External rendering can also feature detailed surroundings like streets, fences, trees, vehicles, and people.

Interior

The vantage point in interior rendering is inside a building. Use them to showcase the design of rooms, apartments, or homes. Realistic 3D renderings are effective for providing an immersive experience because they show furniture, colours, light, shadows, and other details.

Aerial

Displays a building from a bird-eye view to visualize how it fits into the neighbourhood. The entire or most of the building’s structure is visible, along with the landscape features.

Floor plan

Showing clients the layout of the floor helps to understand the orientation and size of the place. You can make suggestions on how to plan furniture and other objects on the plan, or discuss these details with them.

Animation

To give clients a strong sense of the property’s features, designers use animation software to animate the visuals. Such a visual would carry the client through the place while focusing on the most important features. For clients, it’s a perfect opportunity to see how living inside the property would be like.

4. Describe the Concept

“Eye-level views of the entire apartment with various design elements and colours. The viewer should see the unit in different designs.”

“The concept” is basically the description of your 3D rendering. It describes how the final images would look in detail. This section is important because it shows how each 3D rendering image helps to achieve the project’s goals.

Ultimately, the concept should make these points clear:

• The style of images
• Camera angles and viewpoints
• Presence of people, vehicles, or other objects/elements
• Weather and environmental conditions.

How to describe each of these points?

Let’s take weather conditions as an example. It’s important to decide if the building should be shown in its real environment or another background. For a 3D rendering designer, this information is useful - for example, they need to define the sources of natural light.

Try to use bullet points for every list in the brief. It’ll help to make the text easier to understand and organize the document neatly. If you feel like you need professional assistance with completing the brief, reach out to a custom essay writtings service. Just provide the team with details to be included, and you'll get a well-written brief right on time.

Pro-tip: choose a unique font for your brief. A custom-made font is an easy way to stand out and make the brief more memorable.

5. Identify the Desired Finishes

Take a look at this rendering.

Looks so real, right?

The realistic look is something that designers plan carefully.

Your brief should have a section about that. There, you’ll help the designers understand how to make the rendering look exactly as it will in reality.

This means writing a paper for the brief and giving references for the materials used to construct the building. If you know the colours of the future object, add them, too. The designer will use the references to pick the right hues and colours. Eventually, they’ll be able to create surfaces with a special feel and look.

Another thing you should consider for a realistic rendering is photos of objects created with the target materials or colours. They’re the best reference for 3D rendering designers to create something that looks real.

6. Focus on a Single Idea

Many 3D rendering images try to get in as much information as possible. This means they have visualizations of entire houses, apartment buildings, etc., along with surroundings - something like this image.

That’s a wonderful start.

But there’s something you can do to impress your clients even more. A good idea to impress the client is to cover a view of a specific element.

For example, why not make an image of a spacious balcony with comfortable chairs instead of pulling the camera far away to get the entire house in one image?

Or maybe visualize the kitchen like this?

You can talk about how enjoyable cooking in that huge kitchen would be, how about that? Or maybe inspire your clients to imagine having a dinner party.

Talking about these ideas is a great way to establish an emotional connection. This way, you’ll make it easier for yourself to impress clients and get the conversation going.

Want more ideas?

A rendering of the balcony is another good example. You can tell the client about its dimensions and some ideas on how to spend time there. Think wonderful evenings with a book and a glass of wine or a party.

7. Add Small Details

One reason why 3D rendering is popular is its ability to generate images with lots of details. For you, as a real estate agent or developer, those details might be key to connecting with your clients on an emotional level.

Let’s suppose you need to visualize an office space. A typical 3D visualization might look a lot like this one.

Good, right?

But it can be better.

Why not add one of these to the image somewhere?

A cup of a steaming cappuccino will give the visualization a better look!

Besides, having such details could help you get the client’s imagination going. They might see themselves working in that office, waiting for a meeting while sipping the delicious drink and talking with colleagues.

Consider sharing these visualizations on social media as a part of your content marketing campaign. It’s an excellent way to impress potential clients and showcase your designs to large crowds.

8. Specify Deadlines

Last but not least, deadlines.

If your architectural project is time-bound, consider adding time limits to your brief. This way, you’ll help 3D rendering designers to organize their work to deliver the visualizations by the specified date.

Be sure to make realistic deadlines. Depending on the rendering type, creating a single visualization can take anywhere between a couple of hours to a few days. So if you need something urgently, let the designers know right away.

9. Don’t Forget Additional Materials

Are there any extra materials that can help the 3D rendering designer to do a great job? These might be some existing rendering, videos, drawings, animations, objects, photos, or other files related to the project.

Additional materials can both help the designer and inspire them to create a great rendering. So be sure to provide them if possible. If there’s a lot of materials to give, make sure to ask the designer which ones they’d find most useful.

3D Rendering Brief Template

This template combines all the above sections. Feel free to use it to create amazing 3D rendering briefs for your projects.

1. Project Purpose. “Showcase [what] for [who] to [a desired outcome].”

2. Target Audience. A young couple searching for a good starter home.

3. Rendering Type. Exterior, interior, floor plan.

4. Concept. “Eye-level views of the house with various design elements and colours. The viewer should see the unit in different designs.”

5. Desired Finishes. Material references: Material A [exterior object A] and Material B [exterior object B]. Colour references: Exterior object A - colour and Exterior object B - colour.

6. Single Idea Images. Image A description. Image B description.

7. Details. Detail idea description. Detail idea description

8. Deadlines. Exterior visualization: December 12, 2020. Interior visualization: December 14, 2020. Floor plan visualization: December 14, 2020.

9. Additional Materials. Additional content description I [find attached]. Additional content description II [find attached]

Final Thoughts

Describing a final design of an apartment or a house isn’t enough for most people to visualize them properly. That’s where 3D rendering designers come in, allowing people to see real estate before construction even starts.

A clear and well-structured 3D rendering brief is a part of real estate projects. To sell something no one can see, you need designers to be accurate and realistic. Writing a brief will help you get there and impress clients with outstanding visuals.