How to review a 3D render before approving it

At RK Artside the 3D render is the contract: what you approve is what we build. That only works if you review it properly. A pretty render gets approved in two minutes; a well-reviewed render saves months of "I thought this would be different".

This is the checklist I use with my clients. Read it with the render open.

1. Walk the space, do not just look at it

A render is a photo from one point. Ask for the missing views: from the door, from the sofa, from the kitchen toward the living room. If there is only one view, it is a sales image, not a plan of what will be built.

Then do the mental walk-through of a normal day: you come in with groceries, where do they go; you sit down to watch TV, where is the light; you get up at night, where do you walk. Layout mistakes show up there, not in the photo.

2. Measurements, not impressions

Renders lie about scale. A sofa looks comfortable on screen and blocks the walkway in the real room. Ask for the dimensions of the main pieces and of the gaps between them. My rule: 90 cm minimum to pass comfortably, 60 cm between sofa and coffee table, 75 cm behind a dining chair to stand up.

If you have a tape measure and the space exists, mark the sofa and the table on the floor with painter's tape. Five minutes, and any doubt is gone.

3. Light: natural and artificial

The render usually shows the space in perfect light. Ask two things: where natural light comes in and at what time, and exactly what artificial light there is (how many points, what color temperature, whether there is a dimmer). A living room that looks warm in the render, built with cold 6000K white light, is a different living room.

Ask to see the render at night, or at least the fixture list with locations.

4. Materials with a first and last name

"Light wood" is not a material. The render should come with a list: which exact floor, which sofa fabric, which paint color with its code, which finish on the millwork. If you can, ask for physical samples of the three or four largest surfaces: floor, main wall, sofa fabric, countertop.

The render tells you how they combine; the sample tells you how they feel and how they age.

5. What does not appear in the render

Check the list of what the render does not show but the build needs: outlets and where they land (behind the sofa is useless), TV outlets, air conditioning and its drain, curtains and their track, real storage (where the vacuum, the party dishes and the suitcases go). A render with no full closets is an optimistic render.

6. Whatever you want to change, say it now

This is the important part. Anything that bothers you, however small, gets said before approval. Changing a wall color in the render costs an afternoon. Changing it with the paint already bought costs the paint and a week. Changing millwork already made costs the millwork.

A good designer prefers ten comments before approval to one after. In my case, the render gets adjusted as many times as needed; the commitment starts when you say "this is the one".

The questions to bring to the meeting

• Can I see the space from other angles?
• How big are the sofa, the table and the walkway between them?
• What light does this have at night?
• What is the exact material list, and can I touch samples?
• Where do the outlets, the AC and the curtains go?
• If I approve today, what can still change and what cannot?

With those six answers, the render stops being a pretty image and becomes what it is here: the agreement on what you will receive.