pole - do you model in cad or max?

[paulison]

Archicad because most of our work involves slapping together cheap houses in 3D REALLY quickly. I mean insanely quickly and easily with favouites, quick roofs and nasty objects that you can stretch into each other (eg gutters and ridgecapping). Cheap and nasty...

but, I have no problems with coplanar faces at all. All mid-high level geometry is done im max, especially for interiors so its a bit of a hybrid method to balance quality with speed. I find modelling in max for basic geometry frustrating, slow and annoying to try and draw accuratly to scale. Why model a house from scratch when the donkey work can be slapped together accuratly in 30 mins? For bigger jobs working in stories helps a lot in creating niceley finished models although you do end up with a lot more polygons than modelling purely in max. The polygon difference between modelling in max and archicad isnt enough to make any difference these days though when it comes to rendering. I've seen a lot of extremely low detailed large buildings done in max which doesnt do the architecture any justice and i think this comes with a history of having to be ruthless with polycount

I'd prefer to model in max though but economically i dont see it making any sense for me due to 10 years of archicad experience. If you are still new to the 3d side of things, max/maya/lightwave make a lot more sense for modelling but if your background is architecture the transition seems like too big of a leap. As long as the tools you use doesnt limit you!!

[thablanch]

dont forget form-z.... bleh!

In schools here, they teach that, and brainwashing students telling them it is the better way to go. (mandatory )

Yep.... Higher learning

[Frances]

I model 98% of my stuff in Rhino and import to viz with Power Translators.

[tricky]

We do all our building modelling in AutoCAD (ADT) and export as wblocks to Max. Any models of furniture/plants etc are done in Max itself.

We did try some years ago to start the modelling in Max (it would save us a heck of a software bill!) but found it very problematic - importing complex high detailed plans and elevations just choked Max. There were some nice fatures in Max, but we couldn't get the accuracy that AutoCAD allows us - although saying that, having to be 100% accurate down to 20-odd decimal places can get annoying at times if the supplied 2D plans and elevations aren't accurate! Anyway, we decided to revert back to AutoCAD and have done so ever since.

Autocad: accurate modelling
Max: cameras and animation
Vray: cool looking renders
Photoshop: make the renders look real!

[dlparisi]

We do all our building modelling in AutoCAD (ADT) and export as wblocks to Max.

Why no DWG linking? I've been using it for many years now without problems and it definitely is the way to go in my opinion. The way it handles blocks, layers, etc seems to have really improved in the last couple of releases too. The clients/architects inevitable change their mind and the ability to just have the AutoCAD model update in VIZ/MAX is just too good to overlook. This way I'm not stuck reattaching materials, setting UV's etc on the unchaged items.

How many out there modeling in AutoCAD are using DWG linking?

[thablanch]

Frances,

Do you keep your stuff as Brep or you convert it to poly

(I have a project to do where I need to do some changes, but a big part of it was modeled by somebody else. We do own a license of n-power translator, but we can seem to get a nice seemless result when importing)

Thks!

[nvanherpt]

We do all our building modelling in AutoCAD (ADT) and export as wblocks to Max.

Why no DWG linking? I've been using it for many years now without problems and it definitely is the way to go in my opinion. The way it handles blocks, layers, etc seems to have really improved in the last couple of releases too. The clients/architects inevitable change their mind and the ability to just have the AutoCAD model update in VIZ/MAX is just too good to overlook. This way I'm not stuck reattaching materials, setting UV's etc on the unchaged items.

How many out there modeling in AutoCAD are using DWG linking?

file linking =

[nvanherpt]

interesting poll/pole results, hasn't really budged from 2/3 max 1/3 cad.

[RErender]

There were some nice fatures in Max, but we couldn't get the accuracy that AutoCAD allows us - although saying that, having to be 100% accurate down to 20-odd decimal places can get annoying at times if the supplied 2D plans and elevations aren't accurate!

Why do you need this kind of accuracy for Viz? For most shots a inch off here and there would not be apparent.

[ShaunDon]

Yeah Tricky, what gives? Even back when I was doing CNC part drawings for millwork engineering, our tolerance was more than one 1/1000th of an inch... are you anal or what, buddy?

Shaun

[dlparisi]

I'm not sure what Tricky is talking about with 20 decimal places, but I have had problems where something is off by a fraction of a inch and when you union or subtract solids weird errors start to show up as errors, misaligned faces, extra lines, etc.

[flipside]

I also model everything in rhino and import with powertranslator. I never convert to poly, why would you do that?

I do mostly product stuff, not arch viz.

[flino2004]

I use Sketchup and Autocad(ADT)...these app. work better and faster for architectural modeling than MAX/VIZ

[ShaunDon]

work better and faster for architectural modeling than MAX/VIZ

That sounds like a challenge! Why don't you pull up a chair...

[thablanch]

Flipside:

I also model everything in rhino and import with powertranslator. I never convert to poly, why would you do that?

because designers/clients always changes their mind 2 minutes before the presentation, so you can't go back each time in an other program, (either rinho or Acad) re-do, re-import-, re-texture or unwrap.. Convert it to poly is a must, a least with the clients I do have. (I started a while ago by building everything in other apps and importing, guess I learned it the hard way...)