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Sometimes a sketch is intentionally vague, to let the onlooker’s imagination fill in the blanks. In other cases, something more photo-realistic is called for, like this stunning series of images that looks almost more real than reality itself.

When someone like motion graphics designer Lilit Hayrapetyan has a vision of what a home could look like, computers increasingly make it not only possible but feasible in a limited time frame to render space in full color, vibrant texture and with complex light and shadow like never before.

The particular series of rooms shown above draws on a variety of cultural sources and shows off the possibilities of using various materials to give warmth to the abode. Wall art, bare brick, chipped concrete and faded paint all add to the convincing sense of these being actual lived-in rooms.

In some shots, there is clearly post-production work (or too-clean edges) that reveals the image to be less than natural. All the same, the effect is convincing, and any client could learn a lot about their house-to-be before it was built by looking at such gorgeous and complete snapshots.

Not sure about that shiny surface on the kitchen cabinets? No worries – let’s take a look at that in faux-wood finish. The catch, of course, is that realism can be blinding – a viewer can become hung up on the details in a way that more sketch-like approaches help avoid.