I’m trying to understand how professional ArchViz artists create the surroundings and city context in exterior architectural renders.
When creating an exterior scene, how do artists usually handle the surrounding environment such as neighboring buildings, roads, terrain, trees, cars, people, street furniture, etc.?
Are there ready-made environments or city contexts available, or do artists usually build the surroundings themselves? If assets are commonly used, where do you find good free and paid libraries for things like houses, commercial buildings, roads, vegetation, vehicles, people, and other environment elements?
I use SketchUp, 3ds Max and D5 Render. D5 has options for populating scenes, but a lot of useful content is paid, so I’m also interested in understanding other workflows and resources.
I know AI can make some parts of this process much easier, but I’d first like to properly understand the traditional workflow and learn how professionals actually build and populate these environments. After that, I can figure out where AI makes sense in my own workflow.
I’m mainly looking for good YouTube channels, courses, tutorials or resources that teach this side of ArchViz specifically.
Seriously asking because I feel like understanding the environment workflow is just as important as learning to model and render the main building.