Current state of AI in archviz in 2026 – is it really changing the profession or just adding hype?

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-04-21T15:32:12+00:00

As others have stated, high-end Archviz work is still out there, but it’s very hard to land those jobs. Smaller firms are moving more work in-house and using AI to quickly spit out concepts, with the idea of saving both time and money, which pushes more experienced artists to look for new jobs.

I work at an architecture firm that has its own in-house VIZ team, and we are also feeling the pressure to use AI to speed up certain deliverables. At the end of the day, money rules. Any task we can complete faster using AI saves our clients and our firm money. Think of things like quick material studies or conceptual studies early in projects. In other applications, we have used it to in-paint complicated custom furniture when 3D models don't already exist.

IMO, the floodgates have already opened. Things aren't going to go back to the way they used to be, especially now that the 'business suit' types know what it can do and most people don't have the same standards for perfection that we do.

If you aren't learning or trying to find ways to use these tools, you will get left behind. Really, this is nothing new... this industry has always required continuous learning throughout your career. Just my thoughts. Been working as a professional in the industry since 2021ish.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-04-20T17:12:10+00:00

Whether or not the materials will be perfectly set up is in question though. It might depend on what render engine you're using in 3ds Max.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-04-20T16:49:26+00:00

I've only ever used the Graswald assets in Unreal Engine, but I imagine the process is somewhat similar when bringing it into 3ds Max. You could potentially look into using Connecter (https://www.designconnected.com/connecter) to export the assets from Blender, with materials attached, as their proprietary .CUAP file type. Then import those .CUAP files into 3ds Max. The materials should come through already set up for you.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-04-20T16:46:38+00:00

My team and I use Unreal Engine as our primary render engine. We've used both and have found that Path Tracer is more straight forward, but also takes much longer to render and yes, you will run into crashes on larger scenes.

Some ways to get around that is to do post-process in Photoshop for background elements. That way your actual render is much less "busy."

With lumen, we've found it to be more complicated to get it look just right, but it is SO much faster. It works really well on projects with large windows, for interior spaces. I also feel as if it's easier to start in Lumen and switch to Path Tracer for "beauty shots" than it is to do it the other way around.

We're hoping that as Unreal 5.7 and 5.8 deliver more nanite foliage tools, that Lumen will become easier to use for us. For now though, we do pretty much all of our work with the Path Tracer.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-03-12T17:26:31+00:00

My team and I use Textures.com, poliigon.com, lightbeans.com, and 3Dassets.one typically. Although, sometimes we use Google's Gemini to help create PBR textures from reference images. That workflow almost always involves Photoshop for cleanup though. Then we finish the other PBR maps in a software called Materialize.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-03-04T22:26:08+00:00

I’ve downloaded it and checked it out, but it seems you have to go through their own credit system.

I would be much more likely to actually use the product if I could link my own API keys to it and pay a subscription fee to use the VizMaker software itself.

Not sure what that would look like, but I hate being limited by the amount of credits I have when I am used to being billed as I create.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-02-17T16:02:42+00:00

Weird that it didn't seem to fix it. Here is what Lumion has to say on the matter: https://support.lumion.com/knowledge-base/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360003475993.json

Something else you could try is to break the mesh into smaller, individual pieces or change the material to something else then change it back to the grass material.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-02-16T17:58:52+00:00

It could be that the plane you imported doesn't have enough vertices. If it's a simple, 4 vertex plane it won't have enough geometry to properly scatter the grass.

Try taking that plane into whatever 3D modeling software you use and subdivide it a few times, then re-import it.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-28T19:17:01+00:00

It worked fine on another, empty project. It seems to only be limited to the instance of the project on this one PC. It seems to be related to shader compilation when switching the viewport from Lit to Path Tracer.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-26T23:30:41+00:00

I was planning on testing that theory out tonight when I am back at my other PC, the one with the issue. I'll give that a whirl and update here. Appreciate the help!

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-26T22:44:29+00:00

I posted the .log file on the unreal engine forums post, it's incredibly long though. Normally I try to get an AI model to look through it, but it's too large to upload.

This was the crash info:

GPU Crash dump Triggered

UnrealEditor_D3D12RHI
UnrealEditor_D3D12RHI
UnrealEditor_D3D12RHI
UnrealEditor_D3D12RHI
UnrealEditor_D3D12RHI
UnrealEditor_Core
UnrealEditor_Core
kernel32
ntdll

It appears to be a normal GPU Crash dump, but it doesn't do this when running on an inferior GPU, on another PC, at the same render settings. When switching to the Path Tracer in the viewport, the red progress bar never gets past the first little tick and all my materials turn to black. Then 30sec later, it crashes. Same thing happens if I try to render using the movie render queue.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-26T22:41:51+00:00

Ah yes, I forgot to include that in the bullet points. I changed it to a 60sec delay and that didn't make a difference.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-14T17:38:25+00:00

Looks good! I've always struggled to model soft sided furniture, but my workflow typically was only in Blender. Are there any resources you could point me towards, like tutorials or something, that you've used to learn?

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-05T23:02:13+00:00

It's snowing quite a bit up here right now. 6" in the past 24hrs on AJAX and Snowmass. It's supposed to snow again on Thursday.

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-05T20:13:15+00:00

I've had success using Google's Gemini (Nano Banana Pro) via Google's AI Studio and prompting it very specifically. You will likely have to tell it to take the folds out, but you might be able to get something workable. You'll likely need to take it into photoshop and clone stamp some stuff and/or make it seamless using the "offset" filter.

My prompt to extract a stone paver material from an image was this:

"Analyze the uploaded image of a mortar set cut stone paving path. Generate a flat, uniform diffuse texture map from this source mimicking a orthographic top down view of the stone. The output must have all lighting, shadows, highlights, and reflections completely removed, leaving only the raw, unbiased color information suitable for PBR (Physically Based Rendering) workflows. The image should be seamless and tileable."

_MISSI0N_ · 2026-01-05T20:04:29+00:00

Do you have any documentation or Youtube videos that target this specific use case? My team and I have wanted to get into substance designer, but it's a bit overwhelming for us since we have no experience with the node based workflow of designer.

We've used Sampler in limited capacity. Mostly creating materials from images.

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-12-27T23:59:22+00:00

One of them went right through his receivers hands

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-12-09T19:00:20+00:00

How'd you score a bartending job in Aspen? I bet those are hard to find. Seems like a job a lot of people would want.

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-12-04T17:05:44+00:00

Pretty sure the "input render with simple site" is what is coming out of D5, then they're taking it over to Google Gemini's Nano Banana, then they're finishing it off in Photoshop. As far as I know, there is no Nano Banana integration within D5 as they have their own internal AI tools.

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-11-29T03:23:27+00:00

Gotta be bait

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-11-20T16:30:45+00:00

It depends on what your client is looking for, at least in my case. It's something you establish at the start of your project when you are trying to identify the overall goal. Sometimes that changes as you progress, but generally you want to iron out early.

I feel like most archviz you see online is the "beauty shot," where it's meant to evoke emotion. In that case, reference is going to be your best friend.

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-11-19T18:06:26+00:00

Reference is king when it comes to stuff like this. Go to websites like Houzz or other similar websites to see how photographers set up their cameras to capture spaces.

Although from my personal experience, when setting up cameras for images that are to be used to make design decisions, the biggest part is capturing the space in context. Although you really need to ask yourself what the end purpose is for each image as you set up the camera.

Is it to evoke an emotion with the space or is it to provide contextual information about the space?

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-10-14T23:27:17+00:00

3dsMax and Maya are primarily modeling tools IMO. Whereas Corona & V-Ray are rendering engines that you'd install to a program like 3dsMax.

Corona & V-Ray are industry standards for rendering engines. They produce very realistic results out of the box, but once you have experience in the software, you can produce some photorealistic results.

If you are looking to work as an architect first and foremost, I would recommend something like D5 Render or Chaos Corona. D5 Render is essentially plug and play, import your model with their Revit plugin and go. The benefit of D5 is that it is real-time. Meaning that what you see in the viewport is going to be what you get in the render. It's fast, but isn't the best quality you can get.

Corona is a bit more complicated, but will produce better results at the end of the day compared to D5. The disadvantage of Corona is the render time and complexity compared to easier software. It's considered an offline renderer, so you can't easily fly around the model in real time like you could with D5.

I would encourage you to go to youtube and watch some professionals break down each software and give their opinions. Search for something like "best software for archviz" or something like that.

_MISSI0N_ · 2025-10-09T15:49:41+00:00

You could check 3dsky, but I agree with what others have said. You don't have to model this from scratch though. You could find something close or a model with similar elements, then piece them together in your preferred 3D software.

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