AI Rendering Workflows for SketchUp

How long since you sat down and added up what realistic rendering costs your business?

Here's some of what you might be spending:

❌ Subscriptions to Enscape, Lumion or V-Ray at $700-$5,000 a year depending on how many seats you pay for

❌ Outsourced renders at $500-$2,000 per project (plus days or weeks of turnaround time)

❌ Hours of staff time working inside rendering engines (a junior designer spending 10 hours on a render is not free!!)

When you add it all up you're likely spending somewhere between $5,000 and $50,000 a year on realistic rendering alone.

Some of you skip rendering altogether and you're paying for it as well, just in a way that's harder to see:

➡️ Weaker proposals that prospects are comparing with competitors who are rendering

➡️ Lower perceived value to clients

➡️ Slower client approvals because they can't picture what you're proposing

➡️ Lack of confidence in your own pricing

These costs show up in lost clients and lost revenue.

 

What's changed recently

AI rendering quality has made a massive jump in the past few months. The gap between AI renders and traditional renders is closing fast and this is a real commercial opportunity for your business.

The cost of realistic rendering has basically collapsed. The tools to do this now cost about $20 a month compared to the thousands you're probably spending right now.

What hasn't collapsed is your design and the SketchUp model underneath it. But you can now take your SketchUp work into an AI workflow and control:

🟢 Interior and exterior realism

🟢 Lighting and time of day

🟢 Pool water, landscaping, planting and sky

🟢 Materials and finishes

🟢 Furniture and styling

The AI render may not quite match the $800 outsourced one but it's about 90% of the way there, costs almost nothing and takes about 2 minutes!

More importantly, your clients can't tell the difference between the two and will be just as "wowed" by the 2 minute AI render as they would be by the one you outsourced for hundreds of dollars and waited a week to get back.

 

Why I've finally built this (after saying no for 7 years)

For the past 7 years I've taught SketchUp to over 15,000 students. Over the years the most requested thing people have asked me for is a rendering course so they can take their SketchUp skills further.

For years I've been saying no to creating this because I didn't want to make another software course and honestly didn't think realistic rendering was necessary for most A&D professionals. You could win great work and look professional without it.

But with the recent advances in AI rendering capability I've changed my mind.

In the next 6-12 months rendering won't be a "nice to have" anymore, it'll be what everyone does. The two things that used to make it hard (the cost and the time) have basically vanished. So if you're not rendering you'll be the practice that stands out for the wrong reasons.

Everything I've ever made at TLDC has the same goal, I want you to make more money and look professional doing it. Realistic rendering now sits in that camp, which is why I've finally built the program people have been asking me for.

If we've not met, I'm Dr Clare Le Roy. I spent six years as a practising interior designer before I started teaching other A&D professionals how to run better businesses. I have a PhD in business and I've run a multi-million dollar education business for 7 years with no staff. Most AI content right now is taught by tech people who've never run a design practice but I understand exactly how your practice works. 

What you will learn and implement: 

✅ Photo realistic renders from your SketchUp model in a few minutes, using the workflows I've spent 40+ hours testing for you

✅ Generate seamless materials and textures on demand from images of your real project products (tiles, fabric, flooring, wall surfaces etc.)

✅ How to turn images of your real world furniture and accessories into 3D SketchUp models (this has been a huge issue with SketchUp up to this point and normally people have had to pay someone to model pieces they couldn't find). This saves you paying to get someone to model these for you!

✅ How to create early renders for prospects in a matter of seconds, which will help you win more work

✅ Other workflows your competitors haven't even thought about yet! 

 

Who this is for: 

Any architect, design or build professional who already use SketchUp or other 3D modelling software but want to have a super fast and easy way of turning their models into realistic renders (that actually look good!). 

This is perfect for:

• Architects, interior designers, landscape designers/architects and decorators

• Builders and trades looking to improve client presentations

• Cabinet makers, joiners and anyone who uses SketchUp or 3D modelling software in the design + build space

• Renovators designing their own homes

• My former SketchUp course students

The maths that makes this a no brainer

You make the program investment back the first time you skip an outsourced render.

Everything after that is money you stop spending e.g. the subscriptions you cancel, the offshore modelling you stop paying for, the hours your team gets back. A few hundred dollars, once, against the $5,000 to $50,000 a year rendering is costing you now.

I've put 40+ hours into testing these workflows so they're stable and they actually work. If you charge out at $150 an hour, that's another $6,000 of your own time you're not spending working this out yourself.

 

Do you have a team? 

A lot of you have one or two "AI curious" people on your team. Don't let AI live just with them. Your goal should be an entire practice that is thinking AI first, with everyone using it daily across as many design and business workflows as possible.

Rendering is the easiest place to start because the ROI is immediate and it's also really fun! :)

In the program I show you how to implement this as a team, which opens up the conversation about AI in your practice in a fun and engaging way.

 

FAQs

💡 Do you teach SketchUp in this program? No, you will need to already have a 3D model from SketchUp (or other 3D modelling software) to make use of what is taught in this program. I teach SketchUp in THESE COURSES if you're interested in learning. 

💡 What if I'm not using SketchUp yet, should I do this? No, start with my SketchUp Beginners Course first, then come back to this one.

💡 What software costs do I need to factor in? You'll need SketchUp and a paid ChatGPT subscription (which you can pay for month to month to see if you find it useful). It's also helpful to have a Claude paid subscription as well. Both of these are about $20/mo. When you start thinking of AI tools as workers in your business you'll realise how valuable they are for the low subscription cost. This is part of the way I teach you to start thinking about AI in your business. 

💡 How long will this take to complete? We do the work together. The workflows can be implemented in a few hours. You can binge it in one sitting if you want or break it down into modules. 

💡 Will I get a certificate at the end? Yes a certificate of completion is provided at the end that you can use for professional development or CPD purposes. 

💡 Can I share it with my practice employees/staff? Yes and I show you how to learn these workflows together. That way you can see the productivity improvements across your entire practice at once and talk together about the best way to implement them into your day to day work. 

💡 Will it work for my specific work (residential / landscaping /

commercial / hospitality)? Yes. The workflows work across all project types. 

💡 Do you offer refunds?

I'm so confident in these workflows that if you can't produce a render you'd be happy to put in front of a client, email me within 10 days and I'll refund you in full.