Render Weekly

As a new online magazine and designer community, Render Weekly has quickly become a hub for render-fanatics who want to both promote their work online and see what the best create. Founded and run by two KeyShot enthusiasts, Render Weekly posts a challenge to the community every Monday and share the results throughout the week. We sat down with Ryan and Tyler to discuss their follower growth and their love for KeyShot.

instagram.com/renderweekly/

What inspired you to pursue design?
Tyler: Well, Ryan and I met when we were both studying Industrial Design at BYU in Utah. Growing up, I always had a passion and enthusiasm for making things and designing–this was a natural progression for me.
Ryan: I was pretty much the same. I would definitely say that I was a creative kid, especially when it came to art and design, and I loved to express my creativity through drawing. That inspired me to pursue the design life.

How did the idea for Render Weekly come about?
Ryan: We officially launched Render Weekly in April of 2018. We’d been working on personal design projects and realized we worked really well together. Tyler went off for an internship and came back with amazing KeyShot skills. It wasn’t long before I was sold!
Tyler: We started having friendly render competitions between ourselves, pushing each other on with the software. We would constantly check in to show off a new technique or feature. The concept behind Render Weekly came from the weekly design challenge competition for hand-drawn sketches on Instagram. We started sending in our renders, but quickly realized they wouldn’t be accepted, and so, Render Weekly was born!
Ryan: We find inspiration through KeyShot tutorials and professional videos–there have been amazing designers sharing their work for years–and we want to streamline the process of becoming a rendering artist or designer.

We find inspiration through KeyShot tutorials and professional videos–there have been amazing designers sharing their work for years–and we want to streamline the process of becoming a rendering artist or designer.”

Gustavo Rodriguez

Jon Welch

Nicolas Robertson

Trevor Timson

Jon Welch

So what was your first introduction to KeyShot?
Tyler: During my internship, my mentor was always talking about how much he liked KeyShot. We’d sit down and he’d say, “Oh man, let’s open up KeyShot real quick!” His images were amazing. I knew I needed to learn how to use KeyShot.

There’s so much depth to KeyShot, but it’s so well formatted and intuitive.”

Ryan: We’re both huge fans of Will Gibbons and Esben Oxholm on YouTube; when you look up product rendering, KeyShot is the first thing that appears, and those guys are amazing teachers. I had to sit with Tyler and watch videos before I could use it. There’s so much depth to KeyShot, but it’s so well formatted and intuitive.
Tyler: When it comes to communicating ideas, it’s incredible.

What do you like most about using KeyShot?
Tyler: Transitioning from a really math-heavy piece of CAD software to KeyShot, it feels completely different. You can play design-god with KeyShot; you’re in a virtual room with every material and lighting type in the world.
Ryan: We started with KeyShot 7, and it was already really powerful. I’m always looking at new features and techniques, so the regular updates and improvements are amazing.

You can play design-god with KeyShot; you’re in a virtual room with every material and lighting type in the world. “

What inspired you to connect with Luxion for video content?
Tyler: We had done some collaborations with Will Gibbons, he reached out to us personally. He had this idea for a collaboration—for an already recorded video—and asked us what we thought. All we had to do was load a Monday image and he had the rest sorted out. He got us in touch with Luxion.
Ryan: A lot of the video is centered around the usability of the software, it was amazing to have a collaboration with the software company that we’ve been using to build our project.

How did you manage to land such an active Instagram?
Ryan: After about two weeks of starting, we already had 400 followers, we didn’t expect such a boom! It’s grown more than we ever expected. We have to meet weekly to discuss the maintenance of render weekly, and our accountability as a sort of rendering authority. We need to make sure it’s free and useful.
Tyler: One really beautiful thing is we send out this prompt, and there are 1000’s of hours of render time put into our posts, with over 150 submissions a week. That’s amazing, and I think the rendering community loves to experience everyone’s creativity.

The whole reason Render Weekly is so successful is because of collaborations.”

How important is collaboration in the rendering community?
Tyler: The whole reason Render Weekly is so successful is because of collaborations. The fact that we’re posting every Monday is not the sole reason people are following, it’s to be a part of a community.
Ryan: People that post beautiful renders validate Render Weekly. It motivates people of all levels to share their work. If you can produce something of merit, we’re going to post it.

What’s next?
Ryan: Be prepared to see Render Weekly claiming more educational ground. We plan to dedicate a lot of our website to a portal for KeyShot and rendering tutorials.
Tyler: We’re self-starters ourselves and want people to understand that producing a good render is attainable. KeyShot is our favorite software. We can’t imagine moving away from it and we want to share this experience with everyone.

You can follow @RenderWeekly and join in the challenges each week on Instagram.