Blog

1. Welcome Karim Moussa. Please let us know your educational and professional background.

Thanks Diego for this opportunity, it's a pleasure. I studied architecture (Bachelor degree) in Fine Arts Architecture Departments, Cairo. I started my career working in Dubai in several international architecture firms as a designer and visual artist. After six years, I decided to move to Norway to work with the famous Norwegian studio MIR. This amazing experience gave me energy to move back to Cairo and set up on my own.

2. How and why you come with the idea of working in Architectural visualization?

I always felt a deep passion for architectural visualization and graphic representations. This love started during the university after seeing some of my friends doing renders for their projects. I was totally impressed by those images!

3. What was your learning process like? Did you use tutorials?

Well, a friend of mine who was good at rendering taught me some basics. Learning from others was the starting point that pushed me to keep practicing day after day as a daily routine that I still maintain. At the present time, in contrast with the past, there is a huge amount of tutorials available out there to make things easier.

4. What are the most important characteristics to become a recognized artist according to you?

I believe in the importance of Art Direction to supervise and unify the vision of the variety of concepts captured in our work. This can make your visualizations stand-out!

5. Do you have any tips for someone who might be interested in starting archviz?

Yeah! I'm convinced the most important tip could be:
Make your passion drive your hard work and dedication to master this profession, otherwise it will be daunting.
Combine artist vision with technical excellence!

6. In most of the architectural photography we can find in magazines and books, spaces are always empty. Do you think adding human figures is important for your images? Why?

Well it is very important for most of the clients and Real estate developers show their projects filled with 3d people to avoid the feeling of "lonely places". Using 3d people is fundamental for a better representation of the spaces and project. In architectural photography clients are less concerned about this requirement as the building has already been built and showing it uninhabited is not a problem anymore.

7. How does a high quality asset, like a 3d people, impact the visualization?

Ohhh, it makes a huge difference having high quality 3d people assets like those in AXYZ store. It simplifies our work a lot compared with the effort needed when using 2d cutouts. Furthermore, on some lighting situations or high camera angles, 3d people are a much better choice as editing in post-production is almost unnecessary.

8. In which images did 3d people take a fundamental role? Please share some.

I use 3d people quite a lot on my commissioned work and I tend to combine them with 2d ones when needed. One project where 3d people were mandatory and 2d was not an option was the Taekwondo Stadium project. The crowd was all made with AXYZ 3d people as they gave me great quality and the possibility to create multiple texture variations for clothing along with multiple poses, fundamental to achieve the complexity needed for a realistic crowd.

9. Please tell us something about “Taekwondo - Stadium - Fighters” project.

This personal project was pure passion. I wanted to represent sparring and fighting moments closely to the fighters to make the viewer feel the "momentum" and speed of this amazing martial art techniques.

10. Archviz used to be very static. Do you see more architects producing dynamic archviz projects?

Yeah, there is more and more demand for dynamic projects these days. Thanks to the quick evolution of software and hardware development, today is more feasible to offer this kind of services.

11. How useful has our products and specially anima® be to create 3d people crowds for your projects?

They have been extremely useful. I love the quality and control anima® 3d people software offers. It is extremely easy to use and powerful when you need tons of moving 3d people in your scenes.

12. What other tools would you consider indispensable for your work?

V-Ray and iTOO forest pack.

13. What major trends do you see in archviz?

I'm serious with this: One of the major trends is the fact that artists are copying each other. Most of the images they produce look the same. We are in a "lack of creativity" period...

14. Are there any future projects you can tell us about?

I have several ambitious projects planned. Unfortunately most of them are under NDA and many are still not confirmed… sorry.

These images have been done using anima® PRO and metropoly® rigged 3d people models: