A working sketch-to-render pipeline, documented end to end

Most published AI workflows skip the boring parts. This is the full sequence for a competition-stage image, including the steps that consume the time.

Stage one: massing

Rhino, twenty minutes. Nothing clever. The model needs correct proportion and a clear ground condition; surface detail is wasted effort at this stage.

Stage two: base render

A clay pass at low denoising establishes light direction and material weight without committing to finish. Ten minutes including reruns.

Stage three: the finished image

Flux.2 Klein at 0.45, twelve generations, of which two are usable. This is where the ninety minutes mostly goes, and no tool has yet reduced it.

Stage four: compositing

Photoshop, fifteen minutes. Sky replacement, entourage scale correction, and removing the artefact that always appears somewhere in the parapet.