Tutorial: The WORNCALL Technique Thanks to marcday

00. INTRO
This is a technique to enrich basic at sketchup renders to a warm and soft cuddly image with a tinge of realism. There are four basic stages to this technique. 01. Multiple exports of the same view within sketchup. 02. Layering these exports in photoshop. 03. Specular painting. 04. Depth of eld blur. While the following tutorial may appear to be a simple step-by-step recipe for you to follow it is in fact only a single path taken through a beautiful wide forest of possibilities. Your humble guide has never automated this process, even though he is a photoshop expert who could easily record his actions for all of the above steps (even the specular painting) and then simply press play when required, due to the simple reason that each view is dierent and will always need to be tackled in its own way sometimes the high pass overlays just look silly for example. Instead, this tutorial will explain the purpose behind each of the layers so that the reader can understand what is being intimated and then apply these processes in a exible manner. Rather. Note: this is a technique for interiors exteriors look silly if you do this little lot to them.
after

before

01. Multiple sketchup exports

First, make sure your model, materials, and lighting are correct, and that you have your view of choice safely dened as a page (SAVE!) to interrupt the exporting process (especially on a mac) often leads to the need to completely re-export the images this is because we want each of the layers to overlap perfectly. Do not worry about applying a texture to white stucco type walls as we shall bring these to joyous life through the miracle that is specular painting. Export all of the images at a reasonably large size your guide personally recommends 4000 to 5000 pixels so that the lines layer outputs nice thin lines. To continue you will NEED the Display Templates ruby script which can be easily found on the internet.

Note: Windows in SketchUp-Model must be empty holes - no glass inside.

01A. Base Image

Export a normal shaded view without lines as below. Dont have the dark too dark well be adding plenty of our own.

01B. Camera Shade

This can be found in the following menu: view/display templates/multipass/ camera shade. The usual sketchup image (01A. Base Image) is a at looking world of clearly delineated light and shade to overcome this we will be overlaying several dierent images to bring richness and complexity camera shade (or sun shade if it gives you a better feeling for what you want) gives dierent light levels to dierent surfaces, and gives fantastic graded shading over curved surfaces which the Base Image will lack.

01C. Depth of Field

This can be found in the following menu: view/display templates/multipass/ depth map. Your guide often outputs two of these one unaltered (as used below), and one with the fog level changed (use the separate fog plugin) this second depth map can be used for making an additional overlay shading layer for greater depth (pun unintentional) in the image.

01D. Shadows
This can be found in the following menu: view/display templates/multipass/ shadows. This will be used below to u the edges of the sunlight and to add contrast. Be careful to be on the right page when you select this as it takes the time of day from that page or dont be careful and create weird eects your guide has often removed bits of wall and roof to get an unrealistic shadow layer just because it looks good.

01E. Alpha
This can be found in the following menu: view/display templates/multipass/alpha. Often when we apply the overlays a grey glow will emanate from around the windows we can use the alpha to reinstate a white window or a blue colour or a sky image. We will also use this to subtly apply a bloom eect around the windows.

01F. Lines
Export the normal view with just the lines no shadows, no textures, no nunk.

01G. Texture
This can be found in the following menu: view/display templates/multipass/ texture. This layer doesnt get directly placed into the nal image instead we will use this to create selections based on colour. It can be seen from the image below that your guide has temporarily replaced the white walls with a concrete image this is so we can select mottled areas of wall and then paint them to generate a specular eect. We also use this separate texture image as it has no lighting so we can paint the specular in the correct areas unhindered by the light cast in the scene.

02. Photoshop Layering

This section is to add to the complexity of the shading and hopefully give some feeling of global illumination (ie. some clever program has spent time chucking photons around your model to light it realisitically). Again, your guide wishes to express his desire that the following is only a starting guide please feel free to muck about and do what the hell you like, when you like. Also, while the below looks convoluted it is in fact all very easy and virtually automatic, and should take about 5 minutes. Please, earn the respect of your fellow workmates and loved ones by saving every once and a while if youre on a dodgy machine save the les with numbers on the end and change the number each time you save to avoid corruption errors note: this may be a hangup of your guide) Open all the images, copy and paste the images onto the Base Image, naming them correctly as you go (only for now youll soon not need to), so that the layer palette looks like this: Depth (copy4 or copy 2 of alternative depthmap) optional Depth (copy3) Texture Lines Alpha Shadows Camera shade (copy2) Depth (copy2 - or alternative depthmap) Depth (copy1) Camera shade (copy1) Base image (Handy Tip theres no need to PASTE them in the right order just paste them multiple times then move them about in the layer palette to get the correct order afterwards simple, non?) We leave the Base image completely unaltered hide all the other layers, unhiding and working on each layer one at a time from bottom to top so we can see the eect of what weve done. Dont worry too much about it looking really weird (if it does) until the end for now the cummulative eect of the layers should be generally subtle but sometimes your layers might look kooky we can always add an adjustment layer to bring the levels, brightness, contrast, saturation etc into line.

02A. Camera shade (copy1)

This gives a subtle darkening to certain edges. Select and unhide this layer. Apply: lter/other/high pass (radius 60) Layer: overlay 20

02B. Depth (copy1)

Adds subtle colour (warm sunlight here) and shading. Select and unhide this layer. Invert (ie. ctrl I or apple I) Brightness/contrast 50/20 Hue/Saturation: colourise 45/25/20 Layer: overlay 30

02C. Depth (copy2)

Stronger colour, depth, and contrast. Select and unhide this layer. Invert Brightness/contrast -80/0 (note the minus) Hue/Saturation: colourise 45/25/20 Layer: overlay 40 (Handy tip: make multiple versions of these layers and apply dierent colours and brightness/contrasts to them to add even more richness to your shading)

02D. Camera shade (copy2)

More light and shade around edges play with colours and levels. Select and unhide this layer. Apply: lter/other/high pass (radius 40) Invert Layer: overlay 30

02E. Shadows

More depth and contrast. Select and unhide this layer. Brightness/contrast to get virtually black/white image. Gaussian blur 10 Layer: overlay 15

02F. Alpha

Adds window bloom. Select and unhide this layer. Select by colour range select black with lowish fuzziness Delete selection. layer eect/colour overlay/white blur 10 Layer: unchanged

02G. Lines

Adds the lines. Select and unhide this layer. Layer: multiply 50 (or whatever)

03. Specular Painting

Please save! This is the fun bit that really lifts the image. Onlookers will think you have a near godlike appreciation for how light acts if you just paint the specular light where you feel it will be sounds obvious, and it should be when youre painting, but heres some simple tips: your guide tends to think of the specular light in two phases theres the general bounced light that should be added very very subtly, and then theres the proper specular light the stu that comes in vertical lines from the light sources so while we already have the light and shade in the scene from stage 2 (ie. The light and shade on the Base Image) well also get the light that is reected by the shiny surfaces usually being the oor and ceiling. While Ive been a bit lazy in this example and only added the shine phase we should really add the specular light in the above TWO phases for this rst make four new empty layers above the Lines layer like so: specShine2 specShine1 specGen2 specGen1 The specGen layers are for painting the general specular light to simple add richness to the scene, whilst the specShine layers are for the more directly reected light. Unhide the Texture layer and Select by Colour Range on a colour in the ceiling and walls (if you have them as the same concrete texture like I have here otherwise you could select a colour from the ceiling then shift add a colour from the wall as well). Get a big phat paint brush make the hardness non-existant and the opacity 100% as well be deleting a lot of it and changing the layer opacity (this is the easiest way honest). Set the paint to white (you have to do this each

time you do a select by colour range as it changes the foreground colour to what youve just selected ie. If you paint and it looks like its having no eect youre probably just paiting the same colour over whats there!!!). Make sure youre on the specGen1 layer. Paint away in big swathes paint the whole thing in if you like or even just ll it. I hide the selection (ctrl H or apple H) to make the painting easier. Now we put our thinking caps on and get the eraser (rubber) out no hardness and opacity of about 15% - pick a size that feels right and just erase where you think you should (ie. Where the light from the sources just couldnt get to behind objects, in corners, or just where the light would be too lazy to get to) but dont worry about shadows from columns we delete them later. Now take the layer opacity right down if it all looks too white and at change the layer to overlay instead of normal, or soft light which is like overlay but doesnt mess the contrast about as much. Do the same again for the oor. Now we tackle the exciting and direct specShine. Do the usual Select by Colour Range for the ceiling (specShine1) then the oor (specShine2). Your guide looks at where the light comes in from the windows and doorways and paints a kind of fuzzy reection of it into the selection. Keeping the selection active, add a motion blur 90 degrees, about 500pixels (when image size is 5000 pixels wide). Now we can get the eraser and delete the specular from where it shouldnt be except the columns. Look at where objects block the specular (eg. Columns) and select a rectangle that is as wide as the object and the entire height of the image (or as big as you think it should be). Edit the selection in the quick mask mode it should go red except for the selected rectangles. Gausian blur of 10-20 or whatever looks nice. Exit quick mask mode and delete that selection from each of the four specular layers. Ta-daaaaaaa!

specular levels attened - with black layer behind (for illustrative purposes only).

Note: select from colour range : Select > Color Range

Specular applied:
For extra whizziness you can put a bevel eects layer on each of the specular layers - but its better to do it on separate layers for each wall, oor etc so that you can change the angle of light (dont use the global light) for each surface appropriately - this, when the image is nally shrunk down, is an incredibly subtle eect - but one that adds immensely if you ask me!

04. Depth of eld

Please save! Now an easy fun bit. Merge all of your layers except the nal two (or one) depth maps to make a new Base Image. Select All of the Base Image copy paste into (ctrl shift V). This gives your image a layer mask. Gaussian blur the image quite a lot. Now select a depth map. Invert it. Copy. Select the Base Image and in the channel palette select and make active the new alpha channel paste the copied depth map in here because we inverted the depthmap only the distant parts of the image are made visible. It will look completely over the top blurred so fade the layer opacity down to add just a subtle blur (lots of people seem to dislike obvious depth of eld) on top of the underlying Base Image. Repeat the above with the last univerted depthmap to add foreground blur if you like. Now you can play with adjustment layers, shrink the image, and save it.

Bonus:
Heres a grab of the photoshop layers: its the same old stu as shown here except I put a at blue layer in at the bottom (multiply) and then painted over the top. The rain: black lled layer. add noise. play with minimum/maximum, gaussian blur, and brightness contrast to get random dots. big motion blur at desired rainlike angle. layer: screen