First, you need to familiarize yourself with the 3Ds Max software. Luckily for you, it is pretty popular, which means there are plenty of online courses, and plenty of online tutorials, not to mention forums and Q&A websites that are chock full of all the questions and answers you will need.
Start With Necessity
Do not start by trying to learn it all. This is true when learning how to use any piece of design software. Only start by learning what you need to know. Try starting with an introduction to 3Ds Max, and then look for a small project you can try. As you work through the small project, you will learn the basics of creating your designs. Complete a few small projects and then work towards creating your own designs. As you work on your designs, not only will you learn new stuff, but you will also learn through necessity. You will have questions that you will research, and you will become better at designing with 3DS Max.
Use Ready Made Models
This is not always possible if you plan on using certain pieces of furniture and cannot find the models online, but even if that is the case, why not hire a freelancer from Freelancer.com to create the model designs for you. Either way, there is a whole internet out there that is full of ready-made models and designs you can use for free or pay for (if the creator is charging for them). Even if you want to do most of the work yourself, you can add small details using the free catalogs you find online. For example, you could throw a few kid’s toys onto the floors to make the home look more “Lived in.”
Add Lighting, Light-Effects And Blur At The End
Even if you are working on the most basic design, you will ruin it if you add these elements too near the beginning of your creation. They are going to skew the way you design your product. Leave them to the end; all they can do is affect the atmosphere, not the overall design. Also, be wary of adding too much blur. It is okay to have sharp areas if they fit the design, and if you blur the background too much, it will not create the illusion of depth.
Keep it Very Simple
Build the skeleton and then hang things off of it. Luckily, 3D Max allows you to pick up and drop things as if you were playing a computer game, but things can become pretty cluttered pretty quickly. Keep it simple and scale back your designs a little until your 3D render design skills are on par with your interior design skills.
Do rough drafts beforehand because you will be surprised how much you “Can’t” see when you make your designs. Don’t spend days creating the best-looking set of drawers when the sofa obscures most of it.
Render Your Designs With a Third Party
No matter how good you are at designing (or bad), you must frequently render your designs to look for mistakes. Back in the old days, these meant tying up a computer for hours while it generated your models or visual images. These days, you package your design, the rendering service unwraps it, renders it out, and puts it on a server for you to download at your leisure. The services are pretty cheap too. For example, the likes of RebusFarm work on a system similar to the pay-as-you-go system that some phones still use. You only pay for what you use, which is a feature for people in the design industry.
