Can Enscape match a color on say exterior paint or texture on output?
Clients want to match a color or texture in renderings.
Im new here, has anyone had experience with this?
I know the Sketchup Material editor can match a color with the RGB but will it change in the output after changing the atmosphere settings?
Thank you, Billy
I get that a lot, I usually ask something like the following:
“Which exactly ‘this colour’ would you like 1,2,3,4 or 5?”
You’ll never get it exactly right, your best bet is to find an example of the colour IN USE and match it perceptually. Most good paint/fabric manufacturers will have not only the swatch but a photo of it in use.
See this page as an example, see how different the solid colour looks compared to it in use in the staircase photo https://www.farrow-ball.com/paint/cord
Thanks Paul but I wasn’t asking about matching a specific color was asking about putting a color on the model and rendering in that color using RGB
That’s what I answered, there is only 1 wall colour in that photo but it appears different depending on the lighting conditions.
You can specify an exact rgb colour for a material and it will render differently if it’s in bright daylight, in shadow or even next to another material. By all means start with the exact rgb values but you’ll find that to create the ‘intent’ of the colour/material you’ll have to adjust the values once you see it in the render.
Spot on. It’s a hard one to explain to clients why color matching is difficult. But I’m sure they’ve all had the same experience of picking a color at the store and thinking different of it when it’s home either as a swatch or on their walls after the fact…
Benjamin Moore has a nice presentation with their colors on their site that shows different times of day and the impact on the color rendering:
https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/473/weekend-getaway
As for the OP’s question:
I usually use a Painted Normal and Reflection map as the base paint material. Then I go about getting the RBG values of the paint sample. The manufacturer provides this data usually on their website. If not, I’ll grab a screenshot of the paint color from the website and put it in Photoshop and use the paint picker to grab the RBG values. Enter in those RBG values on the material editor in SketchUp and adjust as necessary (usually requires a little fine tuning to get closer- usually some (de/saturation). This part is difficult, because your screen will be differently calibrated to nearly anyone else viewing it. This is where you once again point to Paul’s image and explain how light impacts color. Most mobile devices or consumer screens will be heavy on the saturation and vibrance “pop”, so keep that in mind as well.
Alternatively. you can also adjust the color of the material in the Enscape Material editor instead of SketchUp. In which case, if there is an Albedo material in that slot, I’ll fade it to 0% and adjust the color (not the tint). Then change the RBG and HSV as needed. The issue with this method is that you get one color shown in SketchUp and another in the render windows, which can get confusing- depending how you like to work visually.
All of this to say…color will always be different when:
Viewing the render - due to artificial light and environmental lighting.
Viewing the color in basic SketchUp- without rendered lighting.
Viewing the images on different types/brands of screens/monitors.
Viewing actual color swatches in different real-world lighting scenarios.
@Tim_3 Wow, the Benjamin Moore site is great, not only in content but design too, I’ve bookmarked it as I’ll use it for getting colour paring/combinations in the future.
I used the Benjamin Moore site when decided how to paint our house and ended up buying their colors. I was really surprised when the colors turned up 99% the same as I saw on their site.
One other very important thing is the screen in which you are viewing the colors. If your screen is not calibrated correctly, then the colors you see will be different than the ones captured in the renderings because your screen will introduce a bias and alter them. You can verify this by viewing something on your desktop/laptop and then the same thing on a mobile phone; the colors will have slight differences.
That’s why designer-specific monitors exist because they come pre-calibrated to specific standards and you can be sure that color representation is correct based on those standards.
I have one of these: https://www.datacolor.com/spyder/products/spyder-x-pro/
I can calibrate my 2 different makes, sizes, age and resolution monitors to be as near as identical and accurate as possible.
Yeah calibration tools have become pretty affordable too!
You can spend all the time and money you want on matching colors perfectly - software, monitor profiles, calibration hardware, high end pro monitors, etc etc…but in the end you still will be at the mercy of the lowest common denominator- the end user. My preference is to lean my color grading towards what my phone looks like and error towards that vs my nicer monitors. Or I’ll use my secondary work monitor, which is more of an everyday/common LED model and probably more like what most people have.
Printing photography, for example, you can quickly lose control of the desired quality if sent out to a shop for print - even down to the paper type used. It’s an endless game of cat and mouse.
I digress, but this is all to say that at least you should have a setup in place so you know it is correct on your end first. The rest is really out of your control.
This is exactly what I described above with lighting (sun, in this case) impacting color. You’ve also got a different white balance in both render engine examples. Picking a HEX or RBG won’t get you 1:1 representation.
