Blender Tutorial: Make A Modern Hallway (Architecture)

So today we're going to be looking at architecture in Blender. It's been actually quite a while since I've covered like architectural rendering in Blender but today we are going to completely from scratch model a scene based on an image and we're going to add some basic textures. Everything that we're going to be using is free. There'll be a link in the description below as we're going along so you can download all the resources, not a problem and hopefully you guys enjoy. So I'll quickly show you the blend file and as you can see here It's very simple even though it looks like a lot of modeling. All we're really modeling is just one of these things here and one of these panels here and we're just going to use some array modifier or an array modifier to distribute it along the y-axis. On top of that all of the materials we're going to be using are pre-made, we're going to download them for free and so it's quite an easy tutorial to follow along. This is relatively beginner friendly if you know the basics of Blender you should be fine so keep watching and if you want to share anything the social media stuff is below and also you can check me out on Skillshare. I have a link in the description a lot of people don't know about it allows you to sign up for a month For free, and that way you can try out Skillshare, you can watch some of my more advanced Blender things. I have a lot of really cool character stuff on there, all in the description below. So check it out if you haven't, and let's jump into the tutorial. I hope you guys enjoy. So first of all, you're gonna want a reference image. This is the one we're gonna be loosely basing our... architectural design on. It's a free image you can get on Pexels. I'm going to put a link to it in the description below. You can go ahead and download that. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to open up Blender, which I've already done, and I'm going to get somewhere on my computer and I'm just going to download that image from Pexels. It doesn't matter. If you just have one monitor, you can just go between your closed Blender, look at a picture, go back into Blender. In my case, I have dual monitors, so I'm going to put my image on one side. As long as you have this image you can look at from time to time, it's really going to help you out a bit. So what we're going to do is we're going to select everything in our scene and we're going to press delete just to get rid of it. And we're going to go into our front orthographic view. We're going to go shift A, we're going to go to mesh options and we're going to go up and just get the plane. Okay, so we have the plane. We're gonna tab into edit mode, and with this plane active, we're gonna go R, X, 90, and we're gonna press enter. So now we've rotated it on the X by 90 degrees. And what we're gonna do, we're gonna go into our front orthographic view. We're gonna go S to scale this down about this much. We're gonna go G, Z, and move it up. And then let's grab these two top verts, and we're gonna go G, Z, we're going to move them up, and let's move them to about here. We're going to go E to extrude and Z, extrude up again. Let's go about this much. Then we're going to select these two verts over here, and we're going to go E to extrude, and we're going to extrude down to here. We're going to rotate it a bit and go S to scale. And what we're trying to do here is roughly make the shape that we see on our image. Now I'm looking at my reference image and I'm not trying to copy it 100%, it's just more of a rough guide. So I'm gonna go something like this, and I select this one, maybe move it over here a little bit more and then go E to extrude it again. Take it down to about here, S to scale. And let's come over here, Control R to add in a loop. Just left click once and slide it up. Let's slide it to about here and let's select these two verts here. Let's go E to extrude and extrude out this edge over here and go R to rotate, S to scale, and then let's move it up a little bit. So you can see here we're trying to roughly make the profile of our roof. For you, it might just turn out a little bit different, but the main idea here is just to get something that looks like this. We're now going to go to our modifiers. We're going to give this a subdivision surface modifier. And now we can go Ctrl R over here, add in a loop, left click once, slide it down to tighten that up. I'm going to do the same thing over here. Add another one, Ctrl R, left click, and just move it down a little bit more. And then let's come over here to the levels in the viewport and just bump it up to three and in the render as well, like that. And now we're going to come over here, Ctrl R, left click, let's slide in a loop over here. Ctrl R, left click, let's do one over here. Ctrl-R, left-click, let's slide one over here, and Ctrl-R, left-click over here, let's slide one over here, like so. And what I might do is just select these guys, and the nice thing about this method is it's very easy to edit anytime we want to. So I'm going to go with something like that for now, I'm going to tab back out, and I'm going to go now and give this a solidify modifier, and give it some thickness, like so. About that much, maybe a little bit more, like that. And then what I'm going to do, So I'm going to minimize these and I'm going to go to the array, give it an array. I'm going to make it zero on the X. And let's come here to the Y and let's make that... So I'm going to look at my reference image here, and I would say I'm going to eye it, and I'm going to say let's go with about nine meters or less. It really depends on the scale of your scene. Yours might be a little bit different, but just get it roughly to a point where it looks like the reference image. And then we're going to come here, we're going to come and type in 15 on the count. Okay, so now we have a whole bunch of them going down like that. And now if we want to edit anything at any time, all we have to do is we have to come in here and we only have a few things to move around. And that makes it a lot easier. So what we're going to do in our front orthographic view, we're going to go shift A. Let's quickly add in a camera. G, let's move it over like so. Let's place it about here and let's go to our top view. Let's go G and move it in like so. So we have a camera sitting in here. So we go to press 0 on our number pad. We can go to camera view. Now we're going to go Shift A. We're going to add in a plane and let's take this plane. Let's move it over to the side. Let's go S to scale it up and then G Y move it in. Then we want to go Ctrl A and just apply that scale. Then we want to tab into edit mode. Let's go to our edge select and select this edge here. And we're going to go G, Y, and we're going to move it all the way down to the end. And this is going to be our floor for now. And what we're going to do is we're going to come over here and select the vertex option. We're going to select this one vertex over here. We're going to go Shift-D to duplicate that. And now we still have it active. We're going to go into our front orthographic view. And then we're just going to go E to extrude that. And now we have this little edge here. We're going to go Control-L while we have that vertex active. Now we have both bits. We're going to go E to extrude and Y. And we're going to extrude it down on the Y just a little bit like that. We're going to go Control-L while we still have a vertex. Now we have the whole thing. We're going to go P and we're going to separate by selection. Tab back out. And now we have this object here. What we're going to do is we're going to go over to our add modifier. We're going to give it an array. We're gonna make it zero on the X and let's go to the Y here. Let's make it one, like so. Now we're gonna go into our right orthographic view by pressing three on our number pad. We're gonna tab into edit mode and select this edge here. We're gonna go G, Y, and we're gonna move it up till this one over here is in the middle, like so. And let's come here to our count. And let's just roughly drag it out till it goes to the end. So something like that, okay? That should do just fine. It doesn't have to be too perfect. You can always come in here and adjust this till things line up a little bit better for you, but I'm just gonna go with something like that. Now we have the side panel here, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna go to our edge select option and select this edge over here. We're gonna go into our front orthographic view, and let's go into wireframe. In fact, I'm gonna make this the vertex select option. We're gonna have these two vertices selected, and in our front orthographic, what we're gonna do, It's just going to select this whole edge like this. I'm going to go G, X and move it in a little bit, like so. And then we're going to select this edge here. And then we're going to go G, we're going to move this, let's go to about here. And then what we're going to do is we're going to go E to extrude and we're going to extrude it out like this a little bit, as you can see here, and then E to extrude again. And all we're doing here is making a little lip like that. Okay, and now you can see it's arrayed that way all the way down. We're going to come in here, Ctrl-R, add in a loop, just left-click once and slide it. Then we're going to go Ctrl-B just to give it a bevel, and then E to extrude out, like so. And now we have that. It's a little extra detail. And what we're going to do to create a window is we're going to come over here, select an edge, like so, and then let's go into our front view, Shift-D to duplicate that edge. If you can't see it, just change it to the vertex option. And what we're gonna do now is we're gonna go E to extrude and extrude this, and that's gonna be the window panel, like so, as you can see. And now that you have a square, what you can do, is go to your face select, select that face, press I to inset it a little bit, and then S to scale if you have to, so we have something like this. And then you're gonna go X and delete that face. Then just select a single face and go Control L. And then go E to extrude and extrude the thing out like so. Then go to your edge select option, come in here, Ctrl R to add in a loop, left click twice. Then go Ctrl B to bevel a little bit, left click and then go E to extrude, right click and then go Alt S and scale in along the normals. And then let's go back in here again, Ctrl R to add in a loop, left click twice. And with the whole thing selected, Shift D to duplicate and then F to fill it. Let's go E and just slightly extrude it like so and now we have a window panel and what we're going to do now is we're just going to select this edge over here and let's go to our front view and I'm just going to go and extrude it up till it touches the window here like that and now we have these inside window panels and they run all the way along here. Let's tab back out. Let's select this bottom floor. Let's go shift D to duplicate and move that one up. Till it's kind of sitting at the top, and then let's go to front view, tab into edit mode, and then just select these verts here and just move them down to here. And over here we're going to go E to extrude down, E to extrude. We're just making a little cap on the roof, that's all we have to do. So when we look through the window it looks like there's kind of a gutter running across there. But we can stop right there, that's all we need to do. And then let's come over here, select this floor. Let's go edge select and select this edge over here. And let's go E to extrude and Z and extrude it up so we have a wall. So let's tab back out. And what we're gonna do now, we're gonna go into our camera view. And you can see this is where we're at so far. But what we can also do is we can kind of cap the end. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna go Shift A, we're just gonna add in a plane. And let's go to our top view. Let's move that plane all the way to the end, like so. And let's go RX 90. Now let's go back into our camera view. And we can just scale this guy up and move it, and then scale it on the X just to fill all of that in, like so. Now we have a very simple wall on the end, like that. Then maybe move it in just a bit. Okay, then we're gonna go shift D, Y, and we're gonna move this all the way to the front here as well. So now we have it close to the front. So long as our camera is in the inside here, it doesn't really matter. We should be able to see just fine. So the light is gonna be coming in And through these windows here. So now what I want to do is connect kind of like these beams over here to this part of the wall with some brackets. So what we can do is go into a front view. I might just hide this panel for now by pressing H. So it's out of my way. I'm going to select this wall support. I'm going to tab into edit mode. And in wireframe, to make it easier, I'm just going to select these verts here. I'm going to go G, and I move them down to about here. And now I know where I want these to connect to the wall. So I'm going to go Shift-A, I'm going to add in a circle. And for now, let's just press Control-I to inverse the selection, and let's just go H to hide everything else. So now we just have this. And what we're going to do is, in edit mode, We're gonna go to, this is just tab into edit mode, and we're gonna go to a vertex select option. We're gonna go E to extrude, S to scale. And then what we're gonna do, we're gonna press A to select everything. We're gonna go RX 90 and hit enter. And then in our front view, we're just going to select these bottom verts like so. We're gonna go E to extrude and extrude them down, and then S, Z, zero, and press enter. Now we have this thing over here. We're gonna press A to select everything, E to extrude it a little bit, And then we're going to press A to select everything. We can go Shift-D-Y and duplicate it on the Y. And then in our right orthographic view, we can go Shift-D, put one over here. And then go RY 180 and rotate it around like that. And now in your front view, just move this and line that up like so. And then we can go Shift-A. Let's just quickly add in a cylinder. RX 90, RX 90. and then enter S to scale it down and then this is just going to be the pin it kind of holds everything together and you can just scale that on the Y like so okay now we have a very simple part made we're going to tab out and then we're going to go to our modifiers let's give this a And let's increase the segment. You can mess around with the size all you want. I'm just going to go something like this. I'm going to go and apply it. Right click and I'm going to go shade smooth. Now we have these things here. I'm going to go alt H just to unhide everything. And for now, I'm just going to select this panel here. I'm going to go H just to hide it. And I'm going to select this guy now and I'm going to go S to scale him down. And in wireframe, I'm just going to come over here and place it over here. Just rotating it a little bit. And let's move it in a bit more. If we have to, we can select this bit and just move it closer in, scale it a bit. And now we have that, but we want it going all the way down along here. So we're going to go and give it an array, make it zero on the X. And on the Y, we're just going to drag it out. And let's go to our camera view and let's increase the count. And all we have to do now is come here and just drag that Y value till these all kind of line up. We have a beam, so I'm gonna maybe take it way more. Okay, something like that. They all seem to be lining up. I'm gonna increase the count to 15, since we have 15 of these big support beams. And they should all be lining up more or less. You can go into wireframe towards the end and just have a look. If they don't, just decrease that number till they all kind of line up. And now you can see in our camera view, we have all of those supports running along there like that. And that has been most of the modeling completed now. So what we're going to do is we're going to grab these beams for now and let's just give them a bevel. And the bevel isn't going to really look like it does much. But what we can do now is we can go and give this a subdivision surface modifier on top of the bevel. And now we can right click and go shade smooth. So now that's looking a lot better. And what we're going to do, we're going to just save this. So I'm going to save it to my desktop and now we can do some lighting and rendering and then we'll set up our materials. But let's get our lights set up first. So we're going to go to our renderer. Let's change it to cycles. Let's change it to GPU if you have one and then under the render, let's make it 80 samples and I'm going to leave the noise enabled. We're then going to go control B and drag over our camera. So the render will be limited to our camera view which makes things a bit more efficient. And then what we're going to do, we're going to go to our world settings and then we're going to go to color and then we're going to go to sky texture, right? And another thing I'll explain in a second, you can also use a HDRI, but for now, let's just stick to a sky texture. But if we want to be able to see the light coming through, what we can do is we can grab this panel here. And we can actually just tab into edit mode and just go to face select, select one of these panels, control L to select the whole thing, and then just go P and separate by selection, tab back out. And what you could do is you can go to your materials, go new and give this a glass material. Now, what a lot of people do in the architectural world is they'll actually not even add in glass panels unless you really need to see the reflections. And in Blender, it is sort of a bit of a trick to get the refraction and stuff just right and it makes your scene a little bit darker and a little bit more noisy. But what you could do is just change this material here to glass by typing glass. And then if you now go into camera view and you go Z and you go rendered, you can see there's some light coming through that. You might want to take that roughness all the way down but what I'm going to do is I'm just going to delete that because I don't want any of that in my scene. Okay so I'm just going to have empty frames here with the light coming through. What I'm going to do now I can go alt h just to bring back this panel here and you could stick with a sky texture like I said and what you'd want to do is take the strength way up to something like maybe four. But what I'm going to do to make this look even better is I'm going to go with a HDRI, which is optional. So I'm just going to get one of my HDRI textures that I have. By the way, you can get this from Texture Haven or Polyhaven. They have free HDRIs. You just download a file and you can import it. I'm just going to find one that I like and I'm going to use that. And the lighting on that should look a lot better, a lot more natural. So what I'm going to do, I'm just going to quickly go render and give this a test render to see what the lighting looks like. And here we have it. This is our scene now. We've got some nice lighting coming through. Whether you used Sky Texture or HDRI, as long as we have some lighting coming in here, now we can work on our textures, which is actually, believe it or not, the easiest bit of all of this. So what we're going to do... You're gonna go to the description below and the two main materials we're gonna be using in this tutorial is gonna be this tile floor and this wood material. Now all you have to do is come here and download and it'll actually download the blender option by default. And it's gonna download these zip folders for each material. Now for me, I already extracted those zip folders into a textures folder. So you can see here, these are the actual materials. So here we have. The brown planks, that's one of the ones you can download. I'm going to put it in the description. And the other one also is the floor tiles. Then all you have to do, and this is really simple, in your Blender scene, all you have to do is go to File, Append. And then go to wherever you extracted those zip folders. So for me, it's on my desktop. I put it in a folder somewhere and these are the extracted zip. So in this case, I'm going to get the weathered planks, which once again, in the description below, and you click on the blend file. And then what you're going to do, you can go to material and then just click on the material and go append. Now, all we have to do is select our roof over here. We're going to go to material and let's come to the drop down and there we see weathered brown planks and click on it. Now all we have to do is go over to our UV editing and in edit mode with this thing selected, we're going to press A to select everything, we're going to go U and we're going to go unwrap. To unwrap it and over here we can just go S to scale it and move it over here and let's go Z over here, let's go material preview and now you can see a preview of your material. I'm gonna come over here. And scale it up till I like the scale of things over here. So I'm going to go something like that. That looks okay. And what I'm going to do, I'm going to go to face select. Just select this gutter face here and go control plus to grow the selection. Just so I have that gutter selected. I'm going to go over here in the materials tab. Go plus and go assign and then go new. I'm just going to call it gutter. And under the base color I'm just going to make it darker and a little bit bluish. And now what I'm going to do is go back to the layout, go into the camera, and now let's quickly give this a test render and see what our roof looks like. And here we have it. You can now see we have these nice wooden panels that have been rendered on the roof. And this is what we're going to do now. We're going to systematically keep adding materials really simply by downloading them and adding them. So another one you can download is the tiles. So in this case, let's go to File, Append, and let's go back. So you got to find wherever you downloaded those folders. So for me this time it's going to be the floor tiles. I'm going to click on that blend file, go to material and then click on the floor tiles and go append. Now I can simply select my floor. I'm going to tab into edit mode actually and just select this floor and then go p and separate the selection so it's no longer attached to this wall. So all we have is a floor. I'm going to go to my material drop down and this time I'm going to give it the floor tiles. And once again, let's go to our UV editing. And with this floor here, we're going to go U and unwrap, scale it up, do whatever you want to. And then over here, we can go Z, go Material Preview, go into Camera View, and you should be able to see what it looks like. So for me, I might scale it down a bit. This is going to be up to you how you want to do this. So I'm going to go with a scale like that. Then I'm going to go back to Layout. I'm going to Save. And now let's go Render, and let's give that a test render. And there we have it, we now have some nice tiles on our floor and at this point what you're going to do is you can go anytime you want to to Texture Haven and at this point find some textures that you like. So if you see a specific texture like maybe a kind of like stone wall or something in fact let's just try one, let's just go to Texture Haven and let's find a brick texture so you guys can find one, just give it a download. And what we'll do is we'll add it to our wall in here and add a nice brick wall to that and see what that does. Okay so here it's done downloading. I'm just going to extract that zip folder and then I'm going to take that extracted zip. I'm just going to copy it and I'm going to go to my desktop where I've been keeping these and just put it in there. And now what I'm going to do is go back into our blend file quickly and let's select that wall. Let's go file, let's go append And let's grab that. So it is the... Brick wall. I'm going to click on that blend file, go to the material, click on brick wall, and whatever one you downloaded, go append. Now let's select that wall and let's give it that brick wall. Now if we go Z and we go material preview, we can see it's way off. So let's just go to our UV editing. Let's go A to select everything, that whole face. Let's go U and let's go unwrap. Then over here we can rotate it first of all. And then go S to scale it. And over here, you can see it's updating in the material preview. So let's go with an appropriate scale. Something like that looks okay. And let's tab back out. And now we can go Control S to save. And now let's go render and give that a test render. And there we have it, we now have a nice brick wall over here and what you could do to make this look more realistic and obviously I'm just doing a tutorial here but if you're going to spend some time on this what you can do is get some more randomized textures try add in some assets into the scene try adding in some nice lighting in the inside all these sort of things you can do to make your scene look quite nice. So this is how to very quickly look at a reference and then Using some array modifiers and some very basic modeling techniques you can build an architectural scene quite quickly. So what I'll do at this point is I'll close this and save it and I'll show you guys my original. Now the original is exactly what I just showed you guys. The only thing is, like I said, I added in some more lighting. I just tweaked around a little bit with the materials but it's pretty much the exact same thing. For this one I added a plaster texture and a cement texture on the end but other than that it's the exact same thing. I added in the tiles, I added in the wooden roof. So I like to see what you guys are able to do with this. Definitely give this a shot, make something and if you do share it on the discord or on Instagram. I'll see you guys next time for another tutorial. Enjoy!