tsimon

Totally awesome. It's not often we see non-new construction on here. My one comment is that the DOF is a little aggressive. I don't think the focal plane would be so tight that the ground would be out of focus, unless you were shooting with a tilt-shift lens or something.

Definitely nice. My only comment is that I would think there would be a downlight in the stairwell in the first one; it looks kind of dark to me. But of course, you may not have made that decision

Simple question: if I import a spline rectangle from a dwg that is rotated some arbitrary number of degrees from being aligned with my world axes, the local pivot is aligned to the world axes on import, too. Is there an easy/best way to accurately snap the local pivot so that it is aligned with my rectangle's 90 degree angles? I'm working with more complicated objects than rectangles, but I figure this is the easiest way to describe it. Thanks!

Nice work; it looks a little blurry to me overall. Could be your AA filter settings? Also, the reflections in the curved windows are stepping with the geometry.

The problem with conversion is that it can screw up some of the extended characters of a font, so you're never quite sure if you're getting the full range of what you paid for initially (which these days is usually in Open Type format). My understanding is that Open Type is the present (and future) of digital typography; it should be supported. That said, I usually convert type to outlines and then bring those into Max.

@peter: Thanks so much for the great tutorials, that's stuff I've been wondering about for a long time. Architectural modeling so rarely goes into that kind of thing, but I think it's important to understand your tools at the very least. That guy is a wizard. @antisthenes: Yeah, Rhino might be able to handle it more easily, but it's far from impossible to do in max, and that's what they've given me a license for. Thanks for the advice, though.

Anybody know of any tutorials out there on modeling fancy stuff like one-piece porcelain toilets? I'm not sure where to start; I guess it's box modeling, but I'm worried I'm not going to get those nice aerodynamic curves in the end. I've also thought about starting from top-side-front splines, but proboolean is giving me crashes. Thought I'd seek out some tips before I wrestle with it. Thanks This is the one I'm working on, Toto Pacifica:

If it's for marketing, then I'd say it's blown out. But as a concept image, it's interesting.

It needs some foliage in front of that stone wall on the back of the lot. It grabs the eye too much right now.

I've been thinking about a FireGL card. They handle the Direct3D apps well, too? Reading your graphics card sticky makes me think that there's no good all-rounder. I.T. isn't too strong on this stuff (we're still 32-bit.....) so I'm going to build myself one first and see if that doesn't move things along.

I was going to get a MacBook Pro, but I don't want to drop 3 grand on something that is going to be far closer to suiting my needs in 9 months when it goes Nehalem, so I might go with something along the lines of the 1300 dollar setup suggested here, and continue to limp along with my G4 powerbook. It looks like even this minimum i7 box will kill the Dell XPS Q6600 I have at work. Anybody figure out a graphics card that can handle Revit, Sketchup, and 3ds Max competently? My 8800GT staggers all over the place with the OpenGL apps.

looks fantastic... the only thing that jumps out to me is the stone texture under the cove light, where i would expect more dramatic shadows. i can understand if that was a no-displacement decision.

the cam 15 a isn't bad as far as showing the new part, but the saturation of the green grass and blue sky are swallowing the building. in your original camera, which may give more necessary context, you have about 2/3 to 3/4 of the frame filled with trees, cars, parking lot and dull brick wall; the new building is nice, so give it a bit more priority.

Thanks again. Since they wanted it yesterday, I ended up photoshopping a bit. But this is something I will definitely be coming back to as far as light fixture diffusers etc., so I appreciate the input.

Thanks so much, these are getting me much closer.