Daniel Brown shares a custom workflow for enhancing vegetation and people assets in Enscape. By combining real-time rendering with AI-generated images, lightweight FaceMe components, SketchUp, Skatter, and Enscape’s material features, Daniel creates flexible, realistic plantings and people for large-scale public exhibits.
For the past decade, I’ve served as the rendering consultant for the Entrance Garden at the Philadelphia Flower Show. It’s a high-visibility space that sets the tone for the entire exhibit, which means the visuals need to be not just beautiful, but also accurate, flexible, and fast to produce.
Enscape’s built-in asset library offers a strong starting point, but for a space this detailed and carefully curated, I often need more—especially when it comes to specific plant species or people that reflect the scale, mood, and design intent of the installation.
How I use Enscape and a custom workflow to create flexible, realistic plantings and people in large-scale public exhibits
Over the years, I’ve developed a workflow that complements Enscape’s strengths and allows me to bring in custom vegetation and people assets that look great, render fast, and stay flexible throughout the design process.
Why Enscape is central to my workflow
Enscape makes it possible to iterate quickly, visualize planting concepts in real time, and communicate clearly with stakeholders. From initial layout to final render, I depend on:
- FaceMe components to keep lightweight 2D components looking sharp from every angle.
- Real-time feedback that helps me fine-tune compositions on the fly.
- Material overrides (like foliage mode) that elevate realism without complex geometry and remove outlines on vegetation.
- Fast exports that make it easy to generate high-quality visuals, even on tight deadlines.
That speed and simplicity is what makes Enscape ideal for projects like the Flower Show, where things are constantly evolving and visual clarity is key.
Step 1: Creating custom vegetation and figures
The Enscape Asset Library includes a wide range of trees, plants, and people, but when I need a specific perennial or a figure dressed for a garden exhibit, I go custom.
I use a custom GPT in ChatGPT that I’ve finetuned to create flat, straight-on images of specific plants or people. It allows me to:
- Prompt for exactly what I need.
- Iterate quickly until I get the right look.
- Train the model using reference images when I want consistency across assets.
This step gives me a starting image that’s clean, high-resolution, and render-ready.
Step 2: Building FaceMe components in SketchUp
Once I’ve generated the image, I bring it into SketchUp and convert it into a FaceMe component—a lightweight 2D object that always faces the camera.
Because Enscape supports FaceMe components in real time so well, these components remain visually consistent no matter where I place them. Even better, they keep file size and system load to a minimum, so I can populate large planting areas without sacrificing performance.
Step 3: Placing assets using Skatter
To lay out natural-looking planting beds or crowd scenes, I use Skatter to distribute my custom assets throughout the model. This helps avoid repetition and gives me full control over placement, rotation, and scale.
The result is a more organic, grounded composition—perfect for large garden displays or detailed exhibition areas.
Skatter also includes a “Render Only” mode, which proxies components in SketchUp to keep the model lightweight and responsive. While these elements are wireframes in the SketchUp viewport, they’re still fully visible in Enscape’s real-time render, giving you performance and visual fidelity at the same time.
Step 4: Enhancing realism in Enscape
Enscape gives me all the tools I need to take these simple 2D assets and make them feel lifelike in the scene. A few key adjustments make all the difference:
- Foliage material type: I assign foliage to my textures in Enscape’s Material Editor to enable subsurface lighting and soften harsh outlines.
- Lighting response: Enscape handles lighting beautifully, even with 2D assets, so I can preview how sunlight interacts with the vegetation in real time.
Occasionally, I’ll make minor touch-ups in Photoshop, but most assets go straight into the scene and render beautifully with minimal fuss.
Step 5: Using proxies when needed
While FaceMe components handle most of my planting needs, sometimes I need more depth, especially for larger trees, grasses, or hero elements close to the camera.
That’s when I switch to Enscape proxies or third-party assets, which let me bring in higher-detail 3D models without slowing things down. It’s a seamless switch and allows me to maintain visual fidelity where it matters most.
Results that speak for themselves
This workflow gives me the best of both worlds: the speed and flexibility of Enscape’s real-time rendering combined with custom, project-specific assets that elevate the realism of my scenes.
Whether I’m collaborating with horticulturalists, communicating with exhibit designers, or presenting final visuals to stakeholders, Enscape helps me move quickly, iterate freely, and deliver high-impact visuals that tell a story.
Final thoughts
Enscape is a core part of my design and visualization process—not just for renderings, but for decision-making, collaboration, and storytelling. By pairing it with a few lightweight tools and a bit of custom image generation, I’m able to extend what’s possible while staying inside a real-time workflow.
If you ever find yourself limited by a default library, this kind of custom pipeline might be worth exploring. With Enscape’s support for FaceMe components, foliage materials, and proxies, the possibilities are wide open.
👉 Want to go deeper into AI-powered workflows?
Check out my new 4-part live course: AI Workflow for SketchUp. We’ll cover real-world tools, practical demos, and how to integrate AI into your daily design process. This includes using the SketchUp/Enscape to Veras workflow. I currently use it mostly in the concept phase for watercolor-style renderings.
