I’m interested in your opinions about placing humans in your architecture renders because it’s a permanent battle between me and my employer. Every single project we’re arguing. In my opinion, I always end up hurting my final rendering because I have to fill it with dozens of people who all do different things, the given reason being that “the place looks much more alive” if it’s full of people. I strongly disagree. To me, it creates a surreal crowd, it’s almost if everything that happens in this place over a whole year happens all at once in one specific moment. I think less is more, and I think interior renderings of small spaces don’t need humans at all, ever. Another argument that I hear very often is that people in renderings convey “mood” and “emotion” - I also disagree, because I think the architecture and my choice of camera angle is supposed to deliver feelings. If the place looks dead without people, that won’t change by adding dozens of friendly neighbours and kids playing. It’s just kind of misleading. I think it doesn’t matter how crowded the particular place would be in reality, like a school or something, since I want to show the architecture and the area, not the people who might end up there.
What’s your take on this topic?
Second question: do you use 3d-modeled humans or do you add 2d-cutouts in post editing?(IF you use them) How do you decide? At the moment, I’m doing kind of both. I figured that 3D-humans can’t be too close to the camera or in focus because they look uncanny. They’re better for making crowds in the background or for single pedestrians. And they’re great for faking reflections. But if they’re in focus or very visible, I’d rather use photographic cutouts.
Mainly it’s down to the client’s wishes. I normally ask if they want them added or not.
Personally I’d suggest that it’s purely down to how appropriate they look, and even then I would use them sparingly; as
a natural addition to add a specific focal point or narrative suggestion, rather than just for the sake of them existing.
Although I used to use cutouts of photos, they were always a hassle to get to look right and so nowadays I would only ever use
excellently modelled or scanned rigged versions, with whatever adjustments needed to enhance them, like some proper hair for instance, as
scanned/modeled hair just looks awful, mainly.
I did do a stadium recently however, so ignored all of the above, as I’m not Weta, and used copies of randoms…horses for courses 
You will rarely see people in professional real estate or architectural photography. I used to always put people in my renderings but now I almost never include people. I only put people in if it’s a public place like a hotel lobby or downtown street scene.
I am with fixeighted regarding using 3D people. Render People are good but…agree the hair is an issue.
Thanks. I looked at a few renderings that we did in the past and a lot of them feature 30+ different humans, that’s definitely too much, even for a well populated area. Horrendous crowds.
I agree with you guys that downtown squares or hotel lobbies absolutely need people (I did a hotel lobby a few months ago and the customer liked it very well), and if you want to showcase a specific aspect of architecture, you can always add a detail rendering or a zoom-in. Also, naturally we listen to the customer.
I think the point with the professional architectural photography is very valid, because I want my renderings to be based on reality. I have now used forest pack to scatter 3d-people from chaos-cosmos in one of our interior-renders and I will use that for initiating a discussion about how we handle this topic in the future.
This following render is the hotel lobby that I was talking about. Notice how I mixed cutout people with 3D-models and made the mistake to put a 3D-model right in front of the camera. That guy just looks like a mannequin, very problematic. But I had to do it because I just couldn’t find a cutout person with the right angle.
Here is an older hotel lobby render using all 3d people from renderpeople.com.
Well my employer would comment on that: Why is nobody sitting on the couch in the front? This looks so empty, the foreground is uninviting, there’s nothing going on in the front. What would your answer be?
He’s right that there is nothing interesting in the foreground but it doesn’t need people, it just needs
objects to break up the empty space I think.
You could also switch the left sofa with 2 of the chairs on mid left to open it up more.
Sounds like your boss wants to be in the people business more than displaying the architectures design business. The architecture should be the focal point, right? Sounds like he’s bad at his job.
there was an interior designer specifying furniture and furniture placement. agree it looks a bit empty in the foreground.
The business is fine. I’m not challenging my employer at all here, I just think there’s room for improvement concerning our visualizations and I’m collecting data and different views for future statements.
