Mario Botta San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
SFMOMA Virtual TourSFMoma has been one of my favorites museums ever since i first saw it on the Lightscape box 
back in 1996, so when i was looking for a building or idea to create a personal project it was easy to pick Moma.
In 2013 started to collect all the reference I could get my hand on about Moma, I already had hundreds of photos I had taken, as well as a book I bought the first time I visit the museum but I needed every possible detail to be able to model the spaces. So I searched online for thousands of photos and organize them in areas, like atrium, shop, galleries, stair, bridge, etc. for easy reference. But even do I had plenty of photos I usually ended looking for more on a specific detail.
I was also lucky to find a few floor plans, sections and elevations. Some cad files at archweb and a few low res images searching online. The cad plans helped get the overall volume and proportions but all the detail came from the photos.
Several months later I found out about the Museum renovation and was devastated when I herd the Botta stair was going to disappear. Wish I had taken more photos before it was destroyed.
Once I had a Simple 3D model with that beautiful stair and huge skylight I started to research what render engine I would use. At first I wanted to do it on a GPU render so I tried several demos from. Arion , Ocatane , iray, and Vray RT. As well as the CPU ones like Maxwell Render 2.7 , Vray, Mental Ray and Corona.
I continued testing them while the model kept getting heavier and more complex but it was clear that the GPU solutions would not work with this project. it was just too heavy and with some unique lighting that every render had issues with. At the end it was between Corona and Vray. While I had use Vray since the beta stage and still use every day. I wanted to take the opportunity to try Corona on a real project so Corona was what I end up using.
The model might not be 100% accurate, but I think its close. For all the people that liked the old stair design by Botta they can see it on this images and virtual tours I have created.
Software used: 3DsMax, Corona Render, Forest Pro, RailClone, Glare 1.5, Multitexture.
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