{
  "id": 11163245,
  "title": "How Ashutosh Rokade Rebuilt His Design Process Around Digital Tools",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/01/how-ashutosh-rokade-rebuilt-his-design-process-around-digital-tools",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-10-01T07:45:02.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "HackerNoon",
    "slug": "hackernoon",
    "url": "https://hackernoon.com/how-ashutosh-rokade-rebuilt-his-design-process-around-digital-tools?source=rss"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Learning to design in production demanded a shift in mindset. While architecture school emphasized perfecting a drawing before sharing it, production design valued presenting a rough concept to the team first. Ashutosh Rokade, an architect trained in India, transitioned to production design in the United States. At Basemint Creative, he crafts themed environments and attractions for various parks, working from early concept art and storyboards to master planning.\n\nAn experiment on an XR stage production taught Rokade the importance of designing for both perspectives simultaneously. The initial forward angle worked well with the physical set and LED volume, but the reverse angle posed a challenge. To address this, key set sections were built to rotate 180 degrees and reposition based on the camera's position. This required designing two sides of the same location concurrently, ensuring that all architectural elements held up in both shots without discrepancies.\n\nRokade's initial exposure to an LED volume revealed unexpected truths. Inside, the walls were indistinguishable, while through the lens, the seam could vanish entirely. He had treated the digital background as a sophisticated backdrop, but the shoot quickly corrected that perception. The wall needed to function as an extension of the physical set, matching scale, horizon lines, perspective, and lighting direction seamlessly. The boundary between physical and digital elements required careful resolution well before the shooting day.\n\nDecisions in production design hinge on the performer and the camera. Elements requiring direct interaction, tactile detail, realistic shadows, and complex contacts with actors should be built physically. Conversely, digital components extend the world beyond what is practically constructible. This decision-making process applies to architecture, landscapes, distant scenery, and the continuation of space. Judiciously determining the handoff point ensures the audience perceives the environment as a unified entity.\n\nRokade relied on essential software like SketchUp, Photoshop, Procreate, AutoCAD, and rendering tools, adapting each tool according to the project's demands. He initially believed a single program could produce a finished result, but the efficient workflow required using each tool's strengths and facilitating seamless design transitions between them. His architectural education provided foundational skills in scale, proportion, circulation, composition, technical drawing, material understanding, and spatial thinking. However, the shift in focus for production design involved using these skills to support storytelling within spaces, blending architecture and themed entertainment into a cohesive whole.",
  "summary": "Discover how architect Ashutosh Rokade applies spatial design, visualization, and technical drawing to production design, themed environments, and XR stages.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}