PERCEIVED CREDITABILITY OF LIGHT IN ARCHITECTURAL RENDERINGS
Renders are now ubiquitous -- not just in the realm of architecture, but in the entire field of product and spatial design. Renders are used to sell everything from apartments to appliances, and we trust these images will portray the true experience of the advertised. Yet, in this digital age, where half of our social participation is mitigated through the camera, what is the real experience? As the final project in our program, my graduate thesis examined the differentiation of architectural lighting renders between different software programs with the same given inputs. Ultimately, I questioned how we judge credibility in renders specifically in regards to lighting.
Specialized lighting software calculates the accuracy of lighting output and distribution, which is meant to give a realistic impression of the interaction of light with a specific environment. Yet these programs create renders that often lack detail in material and form, diminishing their sense of realism. Conversely, rendering programs which prioritize detail leave lighting as a variable control on the user’s end-- similar to photography. This gives the impression that renders which are defined as accurate in terms of objective lighting measurements are generally judged as the least credible visual renders of the space.
Building upon previous research, I defined a Likert scale to evaluate how much a render is trusted to accurately represent the experience of the depicted space. Word pairings were examined from the perspective of lighting in an attempt to create a semantic distinction between the perception of lighting and perception of atmosphere or ambiance. By extrapolating these two concepts and creating a common vocabulary, we can have an intelligent discussion on the role of the accuracy of lighting in computer generated renders.