Design software in accordance with an implementation of the present invention is configured to provide believable three-dimensional representations of user selections in real-time. Design elements that would otherwise be difficult to efficiently render three-dimensionally in real-time are prerendered for realistic visual effects, such as realistic shading, which correspond to various positions of the elements in a design space. Blanks of the visual effects for each position are then stored in a data store for visual effects. At run time, data associated with user design choices, as well as the blanks for any corresponding design elements are fed in one implementation to peripheral processing hardware, such as a GPU, which sends the processed data to a display device. The user is therefore able to view complex visual data of certain design choices efficiently with added realism.