Exploring how graphic design skills translate into 3D.

This is a very simple low-poly tree, built intentionally as a module — not a finished illustration.

I’m slowly creating a small asset library so building a low-poly world later feels intuitive, flexible, and playful.

Manual color instead of default shadows/lighting.

Thinking in surfaces instead of light.

Process over polish.

Still experimenting.

Still learning.

Laying the groundwork.


Part of an ongoing exploration of SketchUp as a creative tool for graphic designers.


See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Professor
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

p.s. Raw & Expressive: Turning SketchUp 3D Type into Graphic Design

I spent the afternoon testing SketchUp’s AI rendering vs. Adobe Firefly — and the result surprised me.

I built a simple geometric composition in SketchUp.

Clean shapes. Intentional colors: purple, yellow, orange, blue.

My prompt for SKP AI was dead simple: "matte finish, yellow soft background." I kept SketchUp's rendering AI on AUTO to see what would happen.

I expected Firefly to win.

It’s Adobe. It’s polished. It’s known for beautiful results.

But here’s what actually happened.

SketchUp’s AI stayed faithful.

My colors stayed true.

The composition didn’t shift.

The matte finish was consistent.

It wasn’t trying to be creative — it was doing its job.

Firefly produced a sexier image.

Gorgeous gradients. Dramatic lighting. High-end 3D illustration vibes.
But it also reinterpreted my design:

• Yellow turned orange-red
• Relationships between objects changed
• My original intent got diluted

And with multiple objects, control became much harder.

Firefly worked beautifully for a single element — but once complexity increased, consistency disappeared.

So yes — Adobe still wins on beauty.

But it wasn’t what I wanted.

• The real takeaway for designers: Exploration? Let AI interpret and surprise you.
• Teaching, documentation, iteration, or precision? You need a tool that listens.

Sometimes the best AI isn’t the most creative one.

It’s the one that respects your decisions.

And for the record — I’m still learning AI.

But this test made one thing very clear to me:

control matters more than polish, depending on the goal.

left to right: SKP output, SKP_AI output, Adobe Firefly output


Part of an ongoing exploration of SketchUp as a creative tool for graphic designers.


See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Professor
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

p.s. Exploring Low-Poly Modules in SketchUp Through a Graphic Design Lens

Spent the morning exploring SketchUp not as an architectural tool, but as a creative medium for graphic designers.

Can SketchUp be as cute as Blender?

I came across models that feel like warm, miniature worlds—and it made me realize: what if we skip the complex rendering?

Here's what I'm testing:

Use SketchUp's native display modes (no Enscape, no V-Ray)

Turn off shadows and apply lighting and shadows manually!

Embrace the flat, graphic quality (think game design, pixel art, isometric illustration)

Add lighting in post (Photoshop) instead of rendering plugins

Why this matters for graphic designers:

• Lower barrier to entry
• Faster workflow (no render times)
• Style feels more illustrative, less architectural
• You control the "look" like you would in 2D design
• Less photorealis

Part of an ongoing exploration of SketchUp as a creative tool for graphic designers.

See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Professor
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

ps: Testing AI Rendering Control in SketchUp vs Firefly

The animation above is the result of a motion exploration centered on "a few letterforms.


In a design world increasingly dominated by hyper-realistic AI visuals, there is a growing hunger for the "human touch." We’ve reached a point where digital perfection can feel sterile. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a different path: Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR).

By pushing SketchUp’s native style engine to its limits, I’ve been exploring how 3D typography can be transformed into raw, expressive graphic art—without ever hitting a "render" button.

The Experiment

Most users see SketchUp as a tool for precise architectural floor plans. However, when you strip away the CAD-standard "hidden line" or "shaded with textures" looks, you find a powerful graphic engine. By layering sketchy edge styles and custom hatch textures, you can achieve a look that feels like a hand-drawn sketch or a panel from a high-end graphic novel.

You might wonder: Are people actually curious about "lo-fi" 3D?

The answer is a resounding yes. We are currently seeing a massive shift toward Analog-Digital Fusion. Designers are looking for ways to make their work stand out in a sea of "too-perfect" 3D.

• The Contrast: The sharp geometry of the 3D text vs. the charcoal-like grain of the background creates an immediate visual tension.
• The Focal Point: Adding a single "pop" of texture—like the teal-hatched sphere in my exploration—guides the eye and adds a layer of intentionality to the raw aesthetic.

One of the biggest hurdles in 3D design is the "Render Wait." By staying within SketchUp’s native viewport, the feedback is instantaneous. You can rotate the camera, adjust the line weights, and see the final "art" in real-time. This allows for a much faster creative flow and a more "playable" design process.

Final Thoughts: 3D as a Playground

SketchUp isn't just for buildings; it can also be a playground for graphic designers. This exploration taught me that sometimes, the most interesting results come from stripping away the bells and whistles of modern rendering and returning to the basics of line, texture, and form.

See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Professor
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

p.s. Black Edges, Not anymore
Want to push SketchUp this way yourself? Here's where graphic designers start.

I spent a few hours stress-testing LookX AI to see if it’s finally time to ditch traditional rendering engines. My experiment started with a basic SketchUp isometric export—no post-production or fancy lighting—just a raw file to see how the AI rendering handled complex geometry. (If you’re curious about the base model, check out my post on Exploring Low-Poly Modules in SketchUp Through a Graphic Design Lens as well).

The initial results? A flood of beautiful renders. Different moods, cinematic atmospheres, all visually impressive. But in a professional visualization workflow, "pretty" isn't the goal—consistency is. Here’s what happened when I tried to push LookX into a real-world SketchUp AI workflow.

The "Seed" Rabbit Hole: Why Consistency is Still the Final Boss

In theory, a seed in AI generation is a numerical value that locks the random noise pattern. If you lock the seed and keep your prompt the same, you should get repeatable outputs. I tried locking the seed in LookX to see if I could refine a specific render.

It didn't quite lock. The results shifted anyway—subtly, but enough to matter when you’re trying to maintain architectural intent. In the world of client work, "close enough" isn't enough for precise 3D modeling revisions.

Testing "Enable Imitation Hue" for Look and Feel

This feature is designed to copy the color palette and atmosphere from a reference photo and apply it to your AI render. It’s a great tool for matching a specific "vibe" without writing a 50-word prompt.

In practice: The more I pushed it, the weirder the results got. Instead of just shifting the tone, the image began to drift further and further from my original SketchUp geometry.

The Reality of Credits and Render Times

You start with 100 credits, but for a professional AI rendering process, you’ll burn through them faster than you expect:

• Video Exports: A single video runs 20 credits and takes about 15 minutes.
• The Verdict: For quick exploration, the credit system is fine, but for an iterative design process, the costs and wait times add up.

My Honest Take: Is LookX AI Client-Ready?

I was genuinely impressed by the output quality. But the bottleneck isn't making a "beautiful image"—it’s the revision process. Architecture is a long game. I need to show a concept, get feedback, and then reproduce the exact same rendering environment weeks later.

Current AI Rendering Gaps:

• Consistency remains the hardest hurdle.
• Repeatability is still an unsolved part of the workflow.

Final Verdict

Until AI rendering tools like LookX can provide a reliable, revisable workflow, they stay in the "impressive demo" category for me. It’s a powerful tool for rapid mood-boarding and early-stage inspiration, but it isn't a "client-ready" replacement for traditional software yet. I’m just starting with LookX, and I’ll continue to refine my AI rendering workflow!

NOTE: My review reflects the "out-of-the-box" experience for a designer moving quickly from SketchUp to Render. While the ceiling for this software may be higher with technical mastery, the floor for a seamless, intuitive architectural workflow still feels a bit uneven. I’ll be diving deeper into these advanced controls in future posts to see if they solve the "revision" puzzle.

Stay tuned!

See you next time,
Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Professor

Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

PS: I Tested 5 AI Render Tools on a SketchUp Brand Asset. Here's What Actually Happened.

I run these experiments to find what's actually worth teaching graphic designers — the rest goes here.

For a long time, Enscape for SketchUp has been my go-to for real-time architectural visualization. It’s fast, integrated, and honestly hard to beat. But I was always curious about product renderings. I wanted more control over textures, lighting, and a level of realism that a real-time plugin can't quite reach.

Today, I took the plunge into Adobe Substance 3D Stager. Here is what those first few hours felt like and why it might be the right move for your next hero shot.

The Learning Curve: A Virtual Photo Studio Philosophy

The first thing you realize is that Stager isn't just an extension—it’s a virtual photography studio. In Enscape, you’re usually adjusting the time of day with a sun slider. In Stager, you are a photographer:

• Physical Area Lights: You place and manipulate actual light sources.
• Roughness & Material Maps: You have granular control over how light interacts with surfaces.
• UV Unwrapping: You have to think about how textures wrap around your 3D models.

It’s more complex, but that complexity is exactly where the "magic" happens for high-end rendering.

3 Game-Changing Features in Substance 3D Stager

1. The Light Editor & Specular Highlights

Instead of fighting with global settings, I could literally "pin" a light highlight onto my model. Being able to click a dark corner and say "put a light reflection right here" is a game-changer for product visualization or interior close-ups.

2. Physical Material Depth (PBR)

Substance materials don't just look like images slapped onto a surface; they have physical properties. The way light hits a brushed metal or wood grain texture in Stager makes other renders look flat by comparison. The depth provided by the Adobe Substance 3D ecosystem is in a league of its own.

3. AI Match Image

I imported a background photo, and with one click, Stager's AI-powered tools aligned my camera perspective and matched the lighting to the environment. I was BLOWN AWAY. ! It saved me the manual tweaking and made the model feel "grounded" in reality.

The "Messy Middle": Workflow Challenges

It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Coming from the Enscape Live Link world, the Export/Import workflow takes getting used to. SketchUp models can be "messy," and I learned quickly that how I organize materials in SKP dictates the success of the transfer. Proper 3D model optimization in SketchUp is key to a smooth Substance experience.

Key Limitations

• Not a Modeler: Stager is not intended for creating the architectural structure itself (e.g., drawing walls from scratch), but rather for assembling, texturing, and rendering scenes created elsewhere.
• Not for Complex Architecture: While it might be excellent for mockups, it may be less efficient than tools like Ensacpe for complex, large-scale, or exterior architectural projects.

The Verdict

If you need to show a client a 360-degree walkthrough of a whole house, stay in Enscape. It remains the king of speed and real-time feedback.

But if you want to create a hero shot—that one stunning, portfolio-defining image where the lighting feels cinematic and every texture is perfect—Substance 3D Stager is the winner. It’s a steeper climb, but the view from the top is much better.

My Journey Has Just Begun

Right now, I’m learning how these two tools can live side-by-side in my workflow. Stager has a much steeper climb, but even in these first few hours, the "view from the top" looks promising.

I’ll be sharing more of my rendering journey as I figure out the best export settings, material hacks, and lighting setups. Stay tuned—it’s probably going to get a little messy before it gets perfect.

See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Educator
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers


p.s. In Part 2, I dive into a rendering experiment of an isometric bedroom. Read part 2.
New to SketchUp? Start with why it feels broken to graphic designers.

If you caught Part 1 of my Adobe Stager experiments, you know I’ve been on a quest to find the "Holy Grail" of SketchUp rendering for graphic designers.

SketchUp is my go-to for modeling, but let’s be honest: its native output has a specific "look" that doesn't always cut it for high-end presentations. I am experimenting with many different methods and workflows to find the easiest and best way for my students. I've been moving from AI to native SKP exports to Illustrator and Photoshop, Ensacpe, and recently I’ve been putting Adobe Substance 3D Stager through its paces.

Here is what I’ve discovered in my second round of testing.

First Impressions: The "Wow" Factor

My first impression of Stager? It blew my mind.

While Enscape is a fantastic plugin, Stager feels like a full professional software suite. Right out of the gate, everything looks incredible with almost zero effort.

• The Materials: The realism of the Substance materials is miles ahead of standard SketchUp textures.
• Lighting Control: The settings are powerful.
• The Killer Feature: My absolute favorite part is the Match Image lighting. In SketchUp, getting a model to sit perfectly in a photo using the "Match Photo" tool is a hassle. Stager does the heavy lifting for you, automatically aligning the perspective and lighting.

The Learning Curve: Surprisingly Friendly

One of the biggest questions I get is about the learning curve. If you are already familiar with Enscape or other rendering tools, I have good news: it’s not bad at all.

Yes, Stager is more complex because it offers more control, but once you get a handle on the overall workspace, you realize that most rendering programs speak the same language. Concepts like materials, lighting, and camera angles carry over. I’m nowhere near a "master" yet, but after just a few experiments, I feel confident that it's completely doable for any designer willing to explore.

The Reality Check: The Need for Speed

However, it wasn't all smooth sailing. I decided to test a small, isometric bedroom model—a very simple scene. When I compared the workflow to Enscape, the speed in Stager was, frankly, frustrating.

As soon as you introduce transparency, glass, and complex reflections, you find yourself waiting... and waiting. While I’m still in the experimentation phase and likely need to optimize my settings, the render times were "painfully slow" compared to the real-time feedback I’m used to in Enscape.

Because of the performance lag on a simple room, I’m skeptical about using Stager for my heavy-duty projects—like full retail spaces with dozens of graphics and intricate details. If a small bedroom is a struggle, a high-detail commercial environment might be out of reach for now.

The Verdict: Where Stager Shines

While I didn't have enough time to fully polish this model, the potential for improvement is clear. Despite those speed bumps, the SketchUp-to-Stager workflow offers immense value—it’s all about picking the right tool for the specific job.

Enscape remains my king for walk-throughs and large environments, Stager is the clear winner for high-end product shots and 3D mockups.

My Next Step: I’m pivoting my experiments. Instead of trying to render full environments, I’ll be focusing on Object Rendering. Creating high-fidelity product mockups and small, curated settings is where Stager’s "crisp and nice" results truly earn their keep.

See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Educator
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

p.s. This is Part 2 of my SketchUp rendering experiment. If you missed the beginning, check out Part 1: First Impressions.
This is the kind of workflow I'm building in SketchUp for graphic designers.

I spent a day testing AI rendering tools on a SketchUp model I built for a course demo — a Discord-branded isometric building, detailed, with brand colors locked in. Not an architectural project. A graphic design asset in 3D.

I'm using this same model across multiple experiments and posts. Same geometry, same colors, same starting point every time — so I can make a fair comparison between tools as I keep testing. If you've seen this building before on the site, that's why. It's my control model.

The results were all over the place. And the reason why tells you something important about how AI rendering actually works — and why most of the tools being marketed to designers are solving the wrong problem.

This is where I started. Clean SketchUp export, white background, flat render. Good geometry, accurate proportions, exactly what I built. Now let's see what five different AI tools do with it.

Since I was already in SketchUp, I tried the built-in AI Render first. Included in the Pro subscription, uses credits, obvious first move.

The background is genuinely stunning. Dark, moody, atmospheric — the kind of environmental lighting you'd want for a hero shot. If I were an architect presenting a building concept, I'd be happy with this.

But I'm not presenting a building concept. I'm presenting a brand asset.

Look closer and everything that matters to a graphic designer is gone. The Discord logo — destroyed. The "OPEN" sign — unreadable. The "Discord" lettering across the facade — completely scrambled. Every detail that carries brand identity, every piece of type, every specific graphic element — replaced by the AI's best guess at what a building "should" look like.

The background is good. The brand is gone. For architectural mood exploration, SketchUp AI Render has real potential. For brand-specific work where your logo and signage need to survive the render? Not there yet.

My first Firefly result was actually decent. The geometry held, the colors were close to Discord's blurple, and the building was clearly recognizable.

Not perfect — the surfaces felt a little flat and the pipes lost definition — but usable. Then I made the mistake of adding a style reference image. A Discord brand visual with their mascot, thinking it would help anchor the colors and mood.

It did not help.

Firefly took the mascot from my reference image and merged it directly into my building. Added "NITRO" text across the facade. Shifted the entire color palette to purple-pink monochrome. My model was gone. What came back was Firefly's interpretation of "Discord" — not my geometry, not my design decisions, not my colors.

The lesson: Firefly reads style references very literally. It doesn't separate "borrow the mood from this image" from "use the actual content of this image." If your reference has a character in it, expect that character to show up in your render.

I ran out of credits before I could fix it.

One attempt. Then the paywall.

This is the most accurate render of the group. The geometry is the most faithful to my original model. The quality is genuinely impressive. The little signage on the side of the building changed both color and content, and the electrical post disappeared entirely — the AI quietly decided those details didn't belong in its version of the scene.

The problem is exactly that — one attempt is not enough to learn how to use any tool properly. Nano Banana's credit system burns fast, and without room to iterate, you're essentially paying to test rather than to produce.

The potential is clearly there. I just couldn't afford to find it.

LookX surprised me in one specific way: the geometry held really well. The building proportions, the pipes, the window frames, the overall structure — all recognizable and accurate. That's not nothing. Most tools either nail the colors or nail the geometry. LookX got the geometry.

The colors, though, went somewhere I didn't ask them to go. The blurple shifted, the pink windows lost their punch, and the overall palette drifted away from Discord's brand. I'm honestly not sure yet whether that's a prompt problem or a tool limitation — this was only my second attempt with LookX, and I haven't had enough time to figure out the color controls properly.

What keeps me coming back to experiment: LookX gives 100 free credits to start. That's genuinely generous. It's enough room to actually learn the tool — to make mistakes, iterate, and figure out what works — without immediately hitting a paywall. That alone makes it worth exploring further.

The geometry accuracy is a real strength. If I can figure out the color controls, this tool could be interesting for this type of work. More testing needed.

I'll be honest. By this point I was frustrated. I uploaded the screenshot, typed a prompt I wouldn't call carefully crafted, and hit generate.

Clean. Sharp. Every detail from my original model present. The "Discord" text readable and correctly placed. No unexpected characters, no color drift, no strange additions. Then I asked for a night version.

The neon glow from the windows, the street lamp, the OPEN sign lit up — this one crossed from "good render" into genuinely beautiful. The warmth is slightly more yellow than the cold blue-purple I'd ideally want, but for a result that took under two minutes and no credit anxiety, it's hard to argue with.

Two attempts. Two usable results. Zero drama.

Here's the real finding — and it's more useful than any prompt tip I could give you.

Every AI rendering tool designed for SketchUp — Veras, Enscape, LookX, SketchUp's own built-in AI Render — is trained on physical reality. Real materials. Real light. Buildings that could actually be constructed and occupied. They are built for architects and interior designers who need their models to look like photographs of real spaces.

My model is not architecture. It's a graphic design asset that happens to exist in 3D. It's not trying to look real — it's trying to look like a brand.

That's a completely different goal. And it's why every "professional" rendering tool kept producing results that felt slightly wrong — too heavy, too literal, too much like an architect's portfolio. They were trying to apply physical light simulation to something that was never meant to obey physics.

ChatGPT and Nano Banana worked because they're generalist image models that understand illustration style, brand aesthetics, and visual design language. They don't care that my building would structurally collapse. They make it look good in the way a brand asset needs to look good — bold, clean, on-palette, and polished.

If you're a graphic designer using SketchUp for brand work — packaging visualization, 3D brand assets, environmental graphics, retail design concepts — stop reaching for the tools that promise photorealism. They were not built for what you're making. Start with tools that understand illustration and brand design. The results will be faster, better, and far less frustrating.

This experiment is not finished. I want to test Nano Banana properly with more than one attempt. I want to push the ChatGPT night render toward the cooler, bluer palette it should have. I'm still building the workflow.

But I'm publishing this now — unfinished, five images, one real insight — because I think an honest account of what I actually figured out is more useful to you than a polished tutorial I haven't fully earned yet.

See you next time,

Sanaz Vazirian
Architect, Graphic Designer, Educator
Founder — SketchUp for Graphic Designers

p.s. LookX AI Review

In this experiment:

See you next time,
Sanaz Vazirian


the thinking behind how I teach
p.s. The control problem I'm describing is exactly what I am building to master in SketchUp for graphic designers.