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The visualisation work of Touch3D has been essential to the success of a number of Brown & Brown projects – and you'll find much of their imagery around our website and on our social media channels. No matter how often we see their work, the 'wow' factor remains – and that's a testament to their skill and attention to fine detail.
Grant Watson: We help bring our clients’ ideas to life through creating high quality, photo-realistic computer generated images of projects before they exist. For the majority of our visuals this means working alongside architects, individuals, and interior designers to create images that will give a real representation of how their designs will look, using detailed textures, materials and geographical lighting.
These sort of images are often used to show the design of a new building, gain planning permission, or display work on websites, social media and general marketing materials.
We also create animations that can show, for example, how a new building could look alongside an existing environment, master planning, virtual layouts or walk-through animations. Being based in Aberdeen means, from time to time, we also work alongside oil and gas companies to create animations that show processes such as offshore drilling/abandonment, or explain how products and processes will work.
GW: Since Touch3D was established in 2002, one of the most dramatic changes that I’ve noticed has been the huge increase in processing power/speed and the different software available taking advantage of that.
Most 3D artists are - by nature - detail hungry, so any new development in power is quickly eaten up as it gives us the ability to produce work in greater detail and create more realistic images.
GW: As much as possible! The whole process is a lot more clear and streamlined if we’re given all of the information from the start.
For some projects we have 2D and/or 3D CAD drawings, finish samples such as material pallets and so on. However, we have created photo-realistic visuals from some very rough, very small pencil sketches on back of a torn out piece of notebook paper.
It really depends on the client, the type of project, timescales and the required outputs.
GW: It depends on the client. For architects designing a one-off house, it gives them (and their client, of course) a realistic representation of how their completed house will look. It can show how it will be situated in the existing landscape, the materials used, and how natural light will be distributed inside and out.
Having a photo-realistic representation of a project can also highlight changes an architect might want to make if they notice something isn’t looking quite right – before they make an expensive or impractical mistake when it comes to the actual building.
Also, for architects working on public buildings or in an area where it will have an impact on the wider community, having images or animations to show how the proposed building will impact an area can be hugely beneficial to gain public support, confidence and planning permission.
We also sometimes work alongside architects and marketing teams who are working on bigger housing developments – meaning they can show prospective buyers images and animations of the different house types before they are built. This is something that has become quite beneficial for housebuilders in the current market.
Creating visuals of stylish, beautifully designed homes is actually the sort of project I get the most out of.
A home is such an important part of someone’s life and when individuals work with architects to create their perfect home, it’s quite special to be a part of that and produce visuals that make them excited about the place they will soon be proud to call home.
