Image courtesy of Sun Arts Production
Mastering Life Like
Architectural Visualization
3ds Max provides a very fast
modeling solution and an
intuitive interface saving a lot
of time in building and render-
ing 3D elements. Because we
mainly create architectural
animation, 3ds Max is an ideal
tool and it helps to enhance our
performance.
Sun Hung
General Manager
Sun Arts Production
Sun Arts Production is the first design company in Taiwan to use computer animation
in real estate marketing. Since the successful launch of its first animation project in
1991 for the Yung Han Taoyuan City Life Building, Sun Arts Production has established a
leadership position in professional computer animation and perspective production for
architectural applications, leading to a widespread use of animation for the marketing of
real estate in Taiwan.
True-to-life visual presentation
Sun Arts Production is well-known in the industry for its mastery in creating life-like
visual presentations. The company uses award-winning Autodesk 3ds Max animation soft-
ware to create and render photo-real virtual environments. Autodesk Combustion is used
to composite people into scenes. Using this combination of tools brings a human element
to the computer-generated surroundings. The addition of green landscaping and real
people provide the final touches that complete the look, bringing Sun Arts Productions
visual presentations to life.
Technical breakthrough, increased efficiency
Sun Arts Production initially used Softimage to create their visualizations, but found that
the software program was less than ideal for producing their signature style of architec-
tural animation.
The company came across 3ds Max, and found it to be more user-friendly and feature-rich
than other 3D software applications. The widespread use of 3ds Max and its popularity in
Taiwan led to Sun Arts Productions decision to switch to 3ds Max and it has not looked
back since, said Sun Hung, the companys General Manager.

3ds Max provides a very fast modeling solution and an intuitive inter-
face saving a lot of time in building and rendering 3D elements. Because
we mainly create architectural animation, 3ds Max is an ideal tool and it
helps to enhance our performance, said Sun Hung. Besides, we have a
large number of local 3ds Max users, so training expenses are reduced
and there is no need to worry about educating new hires.
Sun Arts Production is recognized for merging real people into 3D set-
tings with Combustion. Prior to using Combustion, hours upon hours
were spent laboriously removing background plates and elements. Since
implementing Combustion into its workflow, merging real-life people
into 3D settings has never been easier.
The team at Sun Arts Production has also been able to combine the func-
tions of 3ds Max and ZBuffer by taking advantage of their great compat-
ibility. Isolating people from blue screen backgrounds has never been
simpler than it has been with Combustion, where blue screen footage of
people is extracted and placed into 3D settings in a flash.. 3ds Max and
Combustion are the best combination of tools for merging people into
3D settings, said Sun Hung.
3ds Maxs radiosity feature is also a very powerful tool that helps to
shorten rendering times and simplifies the creation of complex light-
ing effects. 3ds Max has helped Sun Arts Production speed production
turnaround times by 10%.
At present, we are using only a quarter of all the functions of 3ds Max,
and its amazing to see that though were only scratching the surface,
the visual effects that we create are already marvelous. Great software
indeed! said Little Kuo, Sun Arts executive producer.
Right tool, expectations met
Creating top-notch work boils down to good time management. Because
architectural animation requires high-resolution, high-polygon count
models, animators and graphic designers often encounter one major
problem a shortage of time. Making sure that time is efficiently al-
Autodesk, Combustion and 3ds Max are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and other countries. mental images is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH &
Co. KG licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. 2006 Autodesk Inc. All rights reserved.
Image courtesy of Sun Arts Production
located to complete a job requires years of experience. Allocating time
to projects in order to meet production deadlines has become Sun Arts
Productions mission. To this end, 3ds Max and Combustion are a great
help in scheduling project timelines, Sun Hung said.
Ever since introducing computer animation into real estate marketing,
Sun Arts Production has made a name for itself in the industry and many
projects have followed suit. Thanks to 3ds Max and Combustion, we
have been able to streamline workflows on even the most challenging
projects, said Sun Hung.
Right tool, performance enhanced
Sun Arts Production recently completed several high profile projects
including Ta An Mansion, Taipei Mansion, Genki Villa, Royal Wing Bali
Island, and a few other best-selling estates. The architectural plans and
the visual presentations for all of these projects were created using 3ds
Max and Combustion.
Although 3ds Max comes with a robust feature set appealing to artists in
industries ranging from game development to film and more, the team
at Sun Arts primarily taps into the applications strong set of design
visualization tools.
As far as architecture is concerned, rendering effects, environmental
effects and architectural animation have been the more commonly used
applications for the company.
For now, Sun Arts Production uses 3ds Max for building 3D models, cre-
ating architectural animation and rendering, however Sun Hung hopes
that its team will be able to dig deeper into 3ds Max in the future, per-
haps for producing an animated feature film. That is possible because
there are still so many levels of 3ds Max that we have yet to uncover. We
are so heavily invested in 3ds Max software and talent that it would be a
shame not to take full advantage of these resources by pushing our skill
set beyond architectural visualization, he said.