Modern architecture’s progression and evolution are closely related to the latest developments and advancements in software technology – one wouldn’t be possible without the other.

The more software technology advances, the more architectural rendering evolves as a methodology and technique. The art of architectural visualization and rendering has evolved a lot in the last couple of years, so much that it is hard to recognize it.

With new software technologies, solutions, and tools regularly hitting the market, the architecture industry is reaping the fantastic benefits of digitalization. Traditional and manual ways are still present, but they are becoming more obsolete with each passing day.

Modern 3D artists use every advantage modern technology offers to speed up their workflows and provide their clients with the most exhilarating results. Hence the need for the best, most powerful computers and software tools to do all the hard work.

Let’s delve deeper into how using rendering software helps both artists and clients and pick the best architectural rendering tools for 2021.

Why Use Rendering Software

In 2021, things look different in the world of architecture. While the artistic side is still present in every aspect of modern architecture, including rendering, visualization, construction, and engineering, it’s now more about the business side of this story.

Designing and building sustainable, practical, eco-friendly, and livable spaces is now more important than ever before. Such projects demand both business and artistic savvy.

With both rendering and visualization long surpassing their art form, these amazing techniques are now more focused on profit-driven and more practical purposes. That is the main reason why these techniques are now present in the modern business landscape of architecture, design, engineering, and construction.

In its essence, a 3D render is an excellent means of communication. Professional artists harness the power of architectural, photorealistic rendering to convey their ideas to clients in the most comprehensive way, eliminating any mistakes and unnecessary misunderstandings from the equation.

Clients can better understand artistic concepts, even without previous knowledge about rendering, visualization, or architecture. Because of all that, 3D architectural rendering software becomes an extremely useful tool for 3D artists that offers quite a few benefits along the way:

• Stronger and more authoritative online presence – in the world of the internet, every artist needs a strong and authoritative online presence across all available communication channels to succeed. Nothing proves your skills, knowledge, and expertise better than your works that you can promote online.‍
• Attracting the right clients – despite having an artistic side to it, architecture is an industry. Just like any other industry, it requires a business to target the right prospective customers to beat the competitors and create steady revenue sources. Renderings are an excellent way to generate more leads and improve your conversion rates.
• Increasing client satisfaction – since rendering software is constantly evolving, it’s becoming easier to keep your clients satisfied. However, it’s not about keeping them satisfied anymore but exceeding their expectations. That’s why it’s crucial to have the best rendering software.‍
• Ease of communication – photorealistic images have a way of communicating on their own. Nowadays, businesses are revolving around the customer experience, and it all comes down to eliminating any obstacles that may prevent you from communicating your ideas to your clients. Well, 3D models can do all the talking for you.‍
• Improved relevancy and competitiveness – the internet is an overwhelmingly competitive environment. Only the artists with the most powerful digital solutions will manage to grab the attention of the target audience. 3D renders can make you more relevant and competitive compared to your competitors.

How to Find the Right Software for Your Needs

Both visualization and 3D rendering are quick to evolve and expand to the world’s most popular industries. This only results in having a large number of software tools to choose from. It can be quite overwhelming, especially when you don’t know where to start your search.

At Easy Render, we deal with everything related to both rendering and visualization. Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking for the right rendering software.

Think about the kind of visualization you want to achieve

The world of digital art is a vast one, with a wide range of sub-industries stemming from it. Before you choose your rendering software, you need to determine whether you want to get into video game development, product marketing, design, architectural visualization, or something entirely else. The software you’ll be using depends on this decision.

Your process

Your process for creating and refining your digital art shapes your entire workflow. If you’re trying to get into rendering, having a real-time rendering engine like Lumion is your best option as it allows you to modify things as you render.

Your current skills

The type of software you choose greatly depends on your current skills. Some programs are incredibly layered and complex for a newbie to get into. On the other hand, there are programs specifically designed for people with little to no rendering knowledge.

If you’re an experienced artist, you need a complex solution. If you’re completely new to rendering, you’ll need a software tool with an easy learning curve.

Now that we have some basic understanding of how the world of rendering works, let’s move on to our best picks of architectural rendering software for 2021.

Corona Renderer

Corona Renderer is an exceptional and well-known photorealistic 3D renderer that has quickly risen to popularity due to a high level of user-friendliness. Its ease of use is unprecedented.

With a less cluttered UI, Corona is an excellent choice for people who are just getting into the world of rendering. While basically a CPU-based solution, Corona provides an amazingly interactive rendering capability, allowing for a certain level of flexibility regarding photorealism.

Modo

Modo is an excellent rendering solution for texturing and creative 3D modeling. It’s quite a flexible and powerful rendering tool, but its biggest strength is an extensive toolset of textures and 3D models that empowers the user to develop better ideas and explore uncharted territories they never touched before.

Modo skips all the technical hoops and puts the artist directly into the center of rendering action. If you’re about to embark on a creative journey of exploration, Modo may just be the thing you need to ensure success. Modo is perfect for video editing, lighting, interactive visuals, animations, effects, image editing, and more.

Cedreo

Cedreo is an excellent rendering tool if you’re working on home improvement, remodeling, and building projects. It’s the only software for 3D home design that allows you to render an entire house in no time.

This software makes creating 2D, and 3D floor plans a walk in the park. However, its ability to render incredibly immersive and photorealistic interior and exterior 3D designs make it an ideal solution for interior and exterior and home designers, architects, remodelers, and home builders. If you need to create a 3D render of a house for sale, Cedreo should be your number one option.

Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D isn’t that widespread in the architectural rendering industry. However, it’s a powerful and fast rendering software solution for creating remarkable animations and outstanding light effects. It’s also amazingly fast, easy to use, and get into.

The software provides a myriad of features and tools to help artists create mind-bending renderings. With an intuitive user interface, useful help system, and effective procedural workflows, Cinema 4D is an excellent solution for getting ahead of the competition curve.

Revit

Autodesk Revit is quite a popular software in the rendering community. Aside from a powerful rendering engine, Revit packs various top models, textures, and powerful tools to experiment with.

More importantly, Revit provides you with a huge community and excellent customer support that allows you to upgrade your knowledge and skills and take your expertise to the next level. The software comes with BIM functionalities too. Revit is a perfect choice for interior design projects.

Enscape

If you’re looking for real-time 3D rendering software capable of supporting your architectural visualization efforts, Enscape is the right tool for you. What makes Enscape stand out from the rest is that this software doesn’t require you to export from BIM software and rework data for presentations as movies or still images.

It’s even more impressive that you can easily export project files from ArchiCAD, Rhino, SketchUp, and Revit as standalone files that you can use to provide your clients with easily shareable walkthroughs. The program also provides exceptional support for the designing process.

Lumion

Lumion is an outstanding architecture rendering software that allows you to quickly and effectively turn plain 3D models into photorealistic images and immersive videos. Lumion provides an increased usability level and a user-friendly interface that makes using this software tool extremely easy.

Lumion is also a pretty capable program that packs a few powerful features. You can use it to provide real-time VR experiences for your clients by creating 360 panoramas that clients can tap into via VR goggles. Lumion also provides an extensive library of effects and materials and is highly compatible with top 3D modeling software tools.

The Wild

The Wild is much more than just a rendering software – it’s a fully remote collaboration platform that gathers 3D artists from all over the world and allows them to experiment with different VR and AR features.

It enables architects, designers, and BIM teams to save time, resources, and effort while creating the most immersive digital art. This multipurpose platform’s biggest strength is that it allows both 3D professionals and clients to experience their ideas in a shared virtual environment.

Shapespark

While the next software on our list may not be suitable for every use case and it isn’t your average render, it is quite special due to the many innovative and unique features it offers. Shapespark is a real-time renderer that requires a browser to run.

Instead of rendering a 3D model in the software itself, this program renders your models in the browser of your computer. This browser-based feature allows you to use Shapespark to create interactive renders, where clients can freely walk around the virtual space created in a 3D environment.

ArchiCAD

ArchiCAD is the best software solution for engineers and architects working on projects together. It provides a shared model for enhanced collaboration and improved integrated design workflow that allows engineers and architects to expedite entire projects.

The software’s powerful suite of built-in features and ease of use make ArchiCAD one of the most intuitive and efficient BIM software around. Since it comes with a wide range of top features, it’s an excellent photorealistic rendering software solution.

IRender nXt

IRender nXt is an excellent solution for improving your client presentations. It’s perfect for exterior rendering, improving interior lighting, creating photorealistic images, moving your projects to the cloud, and more.

Since this is software for interior rendering, it provides an exceptionally wide range of realistic reflections and highlights to improve realism in your rendering works. If you need to create animations and 360-degree panoramas, this render is the right choice.

Blender

Blender is a one-of-a-kind rendering powerhouse that you can use for free. However, don’t let this fool you into believing that Blender isn’t capable of delivering mind-bending results.

Despite being open-source, Blender is incredibly powerful and packs an entire assortment of top features and rendering tools. It also comes with a huge online community that allows you to learn more about animation, rendering, motion tracking, video editing, etc.

SketchUp

The last software on our list is probably the most important and popular 3D modeling and design tool in the architectural rendering community. It allows you to render anything, from plain and simple objects to smart homes and energy-efficient buildings.

Being both intuitive and robust, SketchUp is an excellent choice for both professionals and newbies. It packs a fantastic suite of features and is a preferred tool of use across many industries, including visualization, engineering, interior, and exterior design, architecture, woodworking, and more.

Conclusion

Even with this list bringing you the hottest software from the rendering sphere, you should know that architectural rendering and visualization are constantly on the move. These are the hottest programs now, but they won’t be in a year or so.

If you want to stay on top of your rendering game, you need to stay ahead of the times and trends that shape your line of work. Having the latest software is sometimes all it takes to get ahead of the competition curve.