Hello world :)

Just wanted to say hi to everyone - new member here. The company I work for has just purchased the lastest version of ArtiCAD. I've used a really old version before (v14) but will be first time using the latest version so hoping the forum will be a good source of help and guidance.

Some of the work posted on here is phenomenal and from looking at posts across a few forums, I know the images aren't like that straight out of the box!

Shaun

Welcome Shaun

Yes, you are correct that some renders are not straight out of the box. I am not sure how things are with the new version/builds of ArtiCAD with regards to materials and lighting. I know they were working on the materials being more accurate but I did not like what I saw with regards to some I did see before I stopped using the software. They were set just for speed rather than accuracy.
The biggest thing to remember to get some initial decent results is not not just flood the design with loads of lights. Increasing the brightness of a light does not mean a brighter image as it uses Tone Mapping like in a digital camera. If you ever try to take a photo of a light fitting you will see, yes the light is bright but everything around it very dark. That is tone mapping compressing the image so it is viewable on your computer screen.

Welcome to the forum. You'll notice a big difference since V14 in the HD renders. As Daz says, out of the box ArtiCAD is built for speed but it can live with other software in terms of realism if it's tweaked. stock material settings are basic to say the least and they really are missing a trick. The daft thing is they'd only need to spend a couple of hours correcting some defaults to make a tangible difference.