Enscape rendering with half in Sketch Mode
Dinnie Muslihat

Dinnie Muslihat

Last updated: September 20, 2024  •  2 min read

Illustrate Design Ideas with Artistic Visual Modes

The latest version of Enscape, Enscape 4.1, is packed with features that elevate visualization and performance—one of which is artistic visual modes.

Make better design decisions faster

The new artistic visual modes, Sketch and Watercolor, are rendering styles that simulate pen, pencil, or watercolor drawings. Available for walkthroughs, screenshots, batch rendering, and video exports, they allow you to illustrate your ideas uniquely during the conceptual stage of your design workflow.

The modes reduce details from your project and produce a maquette or sciographic rendered image style, highlighting the general structure of your model. This is helpful when showing clients ideas as they can focus on the core elements of the design and make better decisions faster as they are not distracted by details.

Another benefit of the artistic visual modes is their aesthetic appeal. You can adjust your presentation style to suit your client's needs and express design intent in a creative and captivating way. The Sketch Mode mimics hand-drawn illustrations, and the Watercolor Mode gives your visualizations a delicate and imaginative feel—all without having to spend time post-processing. 

Ilias Kapouranis quote about Artistic Visual Modes

How to access artistic visual modes

To access the new artistic visual modes, ensure Enscape is running and open the Visual Settings window using the associated button in the Enscape Viewport user interface.

Enscape Toolbar highlighting the Visual Settings button

Sketch Mode

This mode recreates your rendering as pen or pencil sketches. You can adjust the mode as black and white outlines, grayscale, or as a colored rendering.

Enscape Sketch Mode settings

  • Outlines – adjust the thickness of lines
  • Jitter – modulate the distortion of lines within your sketch composition
  • Extended Lines – control the length and prominence of extended lines in your drawing
  • Transparent Glass – lets you render objects behind glass with lighter colors
  • Hatched Shadows – enhance the drawing by creating depth and form through hatched shadows

 

Enscape exterior rendering of red building in Sketch Mode simulating colored pencil

Sketch Mode: colored pencil

Enscape exterior rendering of building in Sketch Mode simulating pencil

Sketch Mode: pencil

Enscape exterior rendering of building in Sketch Mode simulating pen

Sketch Mode: pen

  • Pen – the default sketch style is in black and white pen
  • Pencil – transform your sketch style to grayscale pencil
  • Colored Pencil – customize the style of the sketch by applying colors

Watercolor Mode

The Watercolor Mode turns your viewport into a real-time painting, simulating watercolor effects to achieve a soft, blended appearance in your visualization. You can adjust the various color settings with the following options:

Enscape Watercolor Mode settings

  • Color Gradient – affects the number of colors and hues; higher values result in more vibrant hues, enhancing color and texture definitions
  • Bleeding Effect – controls color overlap between surfaces
  • Transparent Glass – lets you render objects behind glass with lighter colors
Enscape exterior rendering of red building in Watercolor Mode

Watercolor Mode

Elevate your design workflow with artistic visual modes

 

The new artistic visual modes feature is included in the latest Enscape 4.1 release, along with other great features. If you’d like more information on how to get started with the new modes or Enscape in general, visit the Enscape Knowledge Base. To enjoy this new feature, make sure you've upgraded to Enscape 4.1, which is free for existing users.

 

Upgrade to Enscape 4.1

Important information regarding Enscape licensing changes in version 4.1. To avoid potential challenges, please read this article before you install.

 

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Dinnie Muslihat
Dinnie Muslihat

Dinnie is part of the Content team at Chaos and manages the Enscape blog. She enjoys sharing informative, insightful, and inspirational content for architects and designers to empower their visualization workflows. If you have an excellent idea for a blog post, get in touch via blog-editor@chaos.com

Enscape Toolbar highlighting the Visual Settings button
Enscape exterior rendering of red building in Sketch Mode simulating colored pencil

Sketch Mode: colored pencil

Enscape exterior rendering of building in Sketch Mode simulating pencil

Sketch Mode: pencil

Enscape exterior rendering of building in Sketch Mode simulating pen

Sketch Mode: pen

Enscape exterior rendering of red building in Watercolor Mode

Watercolor Mode