Are you traditionally trained in architecture?

Nope, I come from the computer industry, but I am totally self-taught in all my endeavours, so I think that experience is the best way to get into a working position. I begin to work with architects in small projects years ago and after hundreds of projects I can now manage any kind of visualisation work without problems.

How did you start in architectural visualisation then?

Here in Spain there is a very small market for high-end computer graphics like film, games, etc. About 90 per cent of 3D market is centred around architecture and technical visualisation, so I think that this is why I work in this field in about 90 per cent of my projects.

Do you work from objects made in CAD applications?

No, I always model in LightWave. I only get basic lines to use as reference from CAD packages for modelling with the precision needed in architecture. I hate the "technical" way of modelling in CAD packages, I prefer to work in a more "artistic" way in LightWave.

Did you use SkyTracer for the background skies in this project?

I usually use photographic environments that I take myself here in Spain projected into spheres or planes to create backgrounds. I always want maximum realism in my images, and real images are the best way to get it. Even the transition at sunset was made using a video clip in the background.

Is the terrain an aerial image, or is it modelled in LightWave as well?

Terrain is modelled in LightWave importing 3D level curves from three-dimensional cartography of the zone. I used eight aerial photographs to make a large terrain texture map of about 8000x8000 pixels and processed it to get separate colour, specular, reflection and bump maps. All the information is processed in real UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) coordinates to put all the elements of a scene in the same coordinate system to make sure that all the buildings, streets, the digital terrain model, images, etc., fit together without any problems in position or altitude. The final terrain model has about 300,000 polygons. On top of it I used texture layers to draw all the urban elements like streets for distant parts of the scene. In the foreground, all the urban elements are modelled in 3D too.

Do you use multipass rendering for the images, or are they renders straight out of LightWave at such big sizes (up to 3600x2700)?

I am not using any kind of multipass for this project... everything has been rendered in one pass. With 1 GB of RAM you can render three- or four-million polygon scenes at this resolution without problems if you do not use image filters or special buffers that need a lot of memory to process.

What are you working on now?

Recently, I have been doing a lot of work with normal architectural visualisation, but I have a lot of personal projects in my pocket that I'm hoping to develop in 2005. I have an incredibly huge project of 3,000 houses in the south of Spain in pre-production right now, and a lot of small projects that must be done fast, so I am too busy at the moment!

Thanks for sparing the time away from LightWave to talk to us Juan! You can see more of his work at his Web site.