Sketch to render AI tutorial for a SketchUp villa by SketchUpArchStudio

SketchUpArchStudio makes SketchUp and rendering tutorials for students and practicing architects. In this video he exports a simple villa model from SketchUp as an image and renders it with Rendair's sketch tool, going through each setting slowly. It is a beginner-friendly look at the controls behind a render, with his own advice on where to set them and a frank note on how the model itself affects the result.

What you'll see

1. A quick tour of the create tools available at the time, including text, elevation, sketch, 3D base and image to render, plus a variation tool.
2. Choosing an output style, such as realistic, artistic sketch, architectural drawing, illustration, collage, watercolor or marker.
3. Sketch to Render with a JPG exported from SketchUp.
4. Setting image strength to decide how closely the result follows the input.
5. Building a prompt with the keyword picker: style, view type, environment, building type, materials, weather and lighting.
6. Setting creativity low and adding a negative prompt to avoid bad shapes, cropping and sketch artifacts.
7. Generating, then saving results into folders.
8. A second run with his own written prompt for a white concrete villa in a forest, lower image strength and higher creativity.

Takeaways

• He found the sketch tool more accurate than the other AI renderers he had tried.
• He recommends keeping creativity around 30 to 40 percent, as higher values add exaggerated or oversaturated details.
• With more creativity the AI added a window that is not in his model, a clear sign of how much freedom it was given.
• He notes that some results depend on the modeling, since extra elements covering the facade can confuse the AI.
• He sees tools like this as a fast way to explore concepts without a powerful graphics card or a heavy render engine.

Try it yourself

Export a view from your model and run it through Sketch to Render, keeping creativity moderate. For a straight model screenshot, 3D Model to Render is the closer match today.

Recorded with an earlier version of Rendair, so some screens and app names look different today.