ArchVision Webinar - Preview of my Architectural Illustration Workshop in Japan

Join me for a preview of a workshop I will be giving at the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) internal conference in Tokyo, Japan, later this year! The preview webinar, hosted by ArchVision, is free and in the second week of July, 2025.

keep reading to learn more...

Understanding and Application of Albedo in Enscape

In today's post, I am sharing an article I wrote for Enscape in 2018 that never made it to their new and updated blog. I collaborated with Enscape co-founder Thomas Willberger on this piece.

The post offers an introduction to material albedo and the impact it has on visualization in general, but Enscape specifically.

keep reading to learn more...

BIM After Dark - Live: Revit & Enscape 2.8: Design, Present, Collaborate w/Dan Stine (Episode 26)

I will be a guest on Jeffrey A. Pinheiro's The Revit Kid live YouTube 'happy hour' again this week. We will be talking Enscape 2.8 new features, but I will also drop a few of the new 2.9 features at the end!

keep reading to learn more...

Adding a Pause in an Enscape Animation

Today's quick post highlights how you can add a pause to a video/animation within Enscape. The method involved stacking multiple keyframes in one location, similar to my previous post, Animate Time of Day from a Single Location in Enscape.

keep reading to learn more...

Animate Time of Day from a Single Location in Enscape

Creating a video in Escape is very easy. But, as with any sophisticated program, there are a few tricks you might not be aware of that can make your presentations even better. Today, I will share the steps required to animate the time of day from a single location.

For more on creating videos with Enscape, see my blog post on their website: A Guide to Video Creation in Enscape. The following image is from that article.

keep reading to learn more...

Free Webinar Recording Link + $49 Enscape Training Course Promo

In today's post you will find the link to the free webinar I did yesterday, with Michael Kilkelly from ArchSmarter, called Revit Rendering Makeover. You will also learn about a special $49 course I created around the topic of Revit and Enscape to produce stunning architectural presentations.

• Free 1 hour webinar recording link
• Three hour video-based course for $49 until April 30th (normally $99)

keep reading to learn more...

ArchSmarter Webinar - Revit Rendering Makeover with Dan Stine

I am excited to announce a free webinar I will be co-hosting with Michael Kilkelly, from ArchSmarter, next week on improving Revit model-based renderings!

Update: Here is a link to the recording

Free Webinar Recording Link + $49 Enscape Training Course Promo

Keep reading to learn more...

My Enscape gallery Page

Just because, I decided to create a sub-page on my blog to collect and display my favorite images rendered in Enscape.

Previously, to find an image to show someone a result or talk about a technique, I would have to open several blog posts on both my blog and the Enscape blog, where I have written many posts. Some of these images are work related, some are from my blog or Revit books and others are from the Enscape blog.

I plan to add to this page as new images are created or projects become shareable!

That page has a place for comments at the bottom... I would love to hear your feedback.

Keep reading to learn more...

Extracting Revit's Material Textures

When sharing a Revit model with another firm, contractor or client, it is difficult to know which custom textures (jpg, png) files are used so they can be shared as well. This post will share a tip I received this week from Harlan Brumm at Autodesk!

First, there are two other options that might come to mind if you wanted to do this....

Keep reading to learn more...

Revit Advanced Materials - Base Material Templates

The new Revit advanced materials are based on PBR shaders, which is what modern rendering engines utilize. Understanding all the related options in Revit can be a bit challenging, as there is no easy way to switch between appearance assets in Revit (watch the comments below for a link to a Revit Idea on this from my good friend Pieter:)).

In this post I will share a fundamental tip in understanding this newer option in Revit. It has to do with the provided "base material" templates...

keep reading to learn more...

Restoring Duluth’s Lincoln Park – Designing Site Features with Enscape

I have been looking forward to writing this post for several months now. Often, when working on a project and doing exciting things in terms of design or use of technology, we cannot publicly talk about it. Now that this work effort is well known locally, I have the opportunity to share an interesting use of cutting-edge technology LHB's Landscape Architecture and Planning group evaluated on a large park restoration project.

Keep reading to learn more...

Existing Materials - Creating a Custom Seamless Texture

Today's post: A quick and dirty example of one workflow for representing existing materials in an architectural visualization. In this example I took a photo of the concrete road in front of our office.

Read on to learn how to turn this image into a seamless texture which can be used in Revit and Enscape...

Enscape Blog Post: HOW TO REALITY CHECK YOUR PROJECT

Today I have another Enscape blog post installment to share with you... this one is titled "How to Reality Check your Project". I hope you like it!

Link to Enscape blog post: HOW TO REALITY CHECK YOUR PROJECT

A few highlights and images from the post below...

Enscape Blog Post: BEST PRACTICES: WOOD IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

My latest blog post has just been published on the Enscape website. This one is on the ins and outs of wood textures in Autodesk Revit and Enscape.

Link to Enscape blog post: BEST PRACTICES: WOOD IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

I have included a few teaser images here... distressed wood, plywood with a proper edge and more...

A couple more images...

Revit's Original Rendering Engine, examples and UI

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, My Ancient Renderings from the 90's, the original rendering engine built into Revit was the same one I used in the 90's... called Accurender. Comparing the Revit renderings to the ones in yesterday's post, you can see they are basically the same quality.

All the images in this post are from the very first Revit book I wrote, which has a 2003 copyright. I started the manuscript using Revit 4.5 and then updated before being printed for Revit 5.0. For a little more on this, read Carol Bartz and Phil Bernstein Signed my First Revit Book.

Additionally...

My Ancient Renderings from the 90's

I thought it would give everyone who reads this blog, and my Enscape posts, a good laugh by sharing some of my earliest renderings, all dated from the mid 1990's... I am older than I look I am told;)

All of these renderings were created in AutoCAD + Accurender with no post-processing; sound familiar (Revit + Enscape with no PP). AutoCAD can create some pretty decent 3D models, in fact - but, I did not use the word "easy". And, Accurender, an add-in to AutoCAD, was created by McNeel & Associates, the same people who make Rhino. Accurender was the first rendering engine in Revit (I am not talking about an add-in, it was the built-in renderer), but has since been replaced twice by Autodesk.

All of these projects are located in, or around, the city I live, Duluth, MN, USA, in except the courthouse.

Catholic Church Remodel

Additionally...

Minnesota State Senator Experiences Virtual Reality at LHB

Yesterday I had the opportunity to facilitate a Virtual Reality (VR) experience of an LHB project for few people visiting LHB, including Minnesota State Senator Erik Simonson.

CEEM (Clean Energy Economy Minnesota), a non-profit whose mission is to educate and stimulate economic growth in clean energy industries, brought together the Senator, LHB, Minnesota Power, Ecolibrium3, and CEE (Center for Energy and Environment) to learn about the CIP program. The CIP (Conservation Improvement Program) is intended to help organizations and households achieve energy efficiency. Minnesota Power provided rebates through their CIP program to support the LHB-designed DTA Duluth Transportation Center, which the group toured after the meeting.

I had a few minutes to demonstrate what LHB is doing with VR. In the next two photos I am showing the Senator the Essentia Health Wellness Center in VR, which is currently under construction in Hermantown.

Continue reading...

Enscape Blog Post: TIPS FOR INTERIOR DESIGN

I am once again excited to share a new Enscape blog post which I recently wrote. It is called Tips for Interior Designers.

The next image is the hero shot of the project I created just for this post in about 8 hours - this includes creating the Revit model! I will let you learn why in the actual post.

Continue reading and learn how to get a free chapter on Revit Materials...

Enscape Blog Post: BEST PRACTICES: ALBEDO IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

Quick post:

I had the good fortune to write another Enscape blog post which went live today! If you have ever heard the term "Albedo" and are not sure what it is... this is the post for you.

Here is a link to the post:
BEST PRACTICES: ALBEDO IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

I hope you like it!

For BIM Chapters updates, follow @DanStine_MN on Twitter

Exciting News for AEC from NVIDIA at SIGGRAPH 2018 - Quadro RTX Series

At SIGGRAPH 2018, NVIDIA's fearless leader and entertaining guy, Jensen Huang, announces a new and improved line of Quadro graphics cards; Quadro RTX 8000, Quadro RTX 6000 and Quadro RTX 5000 due to ship later this year!

These cards bring to market, the new VirtualLink, single USB-C connector, to simplify and improve Virtual Reality (VR) and Samsung DDR6 memory. The new line also boasts direct support for real-time ray-tracing via new RT Cores and accelerated AI via new Turing Tensor Cores.

"First implementation of ultra-fast Samsung 16Gb GDDR6 memory to support more complex designs, massive architectural datasets, 8K movie content and more."

Image courtesy of NVIDIA

Our friends at Autodesk are working with NVIDIA to leverage this new technology. I am guessing...