4D for Architecture?

[innerdream]

Hello everyone,

 

I have just spent the last two months trying out both Cinema 4D and 3D studio Max. I would like to know if C4D has an attach tool for aligning planes and extruded planes etc. to make Architectural type models. For example in Max you can model a floor and a wall and tell the wall to sit exactly on top of the floor with the attach tool and align tool. I haven't found a tutorial on C4D for that kind of work. The reason I ask is there is a huge price difference in the programs and I find C4D easier for me. Thanks for any insight!

[AJLynn]

For this kind of thing you could start with the Axis Center plugin (I found it through a link from c4dcafe.com) to put the wall's pivot point at its bottom (Y=-100%) and the floor's pivot point at its top so you can Transfer the wall to the floor, or snap it, or manually set the Y values. Then there's a polygon attach or collapse funtion, but I can't remember exactly what it's called and what to do with it and I don't have C4D on this computer But yeah, you can do that and it's not too complicated.

[innerdream]

Thanks for that.

 

Anymore insight into the main differences of the two programs? It's a big choice.

[Ernest Burden III]

For this kind of thing you could start with the Axis Center plugin

 

I was waiting to see what you'd say. I'm not sure if there is a direct command for that, but C4D isn't written for arch-vis and so sometimes you discover that there really is a button for something you need, its just weirdly named and explained.

 

Another way to easily do this is to select all the points at the bottom of the object to meet the floor and set their Y value to that of the floor (let's say 0 ft). If the floor is not flat you can use a boolean subtract to make sure the wall meets it, another to cut holes in the floor if that's what you want. But that isn't necessary for good rendering like it was in Lightscape for example.

[AJLynn]

Good idea - and if you were working from a 2d cad plan you'd probably already have everything lining up anyway. Don't forget to Optimize any compounded polygon objects you end up with.

 

As far as which program is easier - I think everybody you ask who's used both would give you a different answer. Mine would be "it depends" - for most modeling, scene setup, basic rendering, Sketch&Toon style stuff, and a lot of parametric modeling and animating, I find Cinema easier and faster. If I've got a model from, say, Sketchup or cad, and and I want to get a GI render with good materials setup and lighting, the easiest/fastest thing I've found so far is Max9 with mental ray. Max with Vray tends to be the fastest in terms of render time for most of what I've thrown at it.

[innerdream]

All good stuff - thanks everyone.

[Frosty]

For this kind of thing you could start with the Axis Center plugin (I found it through a link from c4dcafe.com) to put the wall's pivot point at its bottom (Y=-100%) and the floor's pivot point at its top so you can Transfer the wall to the floor, or snap it, or manually set the Y values.

AJ are you using v9 or higher? This function is now built in. The orientation point of individual or groups of polys, edges, or point can be offset in any direction by percentage slider. It can also be aligned to a root object to the normal or world.

 

I'm sure it could be animated too although thats likely of little assistance.

[4DM]

There is also a plug-in called Drop to Floor, ( which I have given the keystroke Control-F).

 

This drops an object's lowest point to a global Y-value of "0".

 

There are snapping and aligning features, though these probably work best at point and polygon level, rather than object level.

 

To be honest, much as I love C4D, I do most of the building model in Vectorworks, then render in C4D.

 

But C4D is great for modelling furniture.

 

Cheers,

 

D.

[innerdream]

There is also a plug-in called Drop to Floor, ( which I have given the keystroke Control-F).

 

This drops an object's lowest point to a global Y-value of "0".

 

There are snapping and aligning features, though these probably work best at point and polygon level, rather than object level.

 

To be honest, much as I love C4D, I do most of the building model in Vectorworks, then render in C4D.

 

But C4D is great for modelling furniture.

 

Cheers,

 

D.

 

Thanks again everyone.

 

I have to be honest with myself. Chances are I will not be able to buy 3D Studio Max because of it's cost, are there other programs I should look at strictly for "rendering" Architectural projects (that's my field)? Most likely I will be importing CAD models and such.

 

Thanks in advance!

[STRAT]

 

To be honest, much as I love C4D, I do most of the building model in Vectorworks, then render in C4D.

 

But C4D is great for modelling furniture.

 

Cheers,

 

D.

 

same here

 

i model my buildings in acad, but find c4d great for modelling furniture too

 

i still love it's antiquated render engine aswell

[Ernest Burden III]

i still love it's antiquated render engine aswell

 

Sharpen the knives while on holiday?

 

I recently spent a small amount of time with the Max8 trial and was very impressed with MentalRay. C4D has many advantages over Max, but the rendered output is questionable as a plus, it may even be a minus.

 

However, like Max, you have choices for plug-in engines that are great, so the battle over Advanced Render2.5 isn't more than a distraction.

[STRAT]

well, i'm convinced the AR3 just has to be an imminent release, else i'll wait until vray for c4d is released. i still got FR in the box and barely used it (and so far probably wont. i want an uber stable render solution. fr2 aint)

[AJLynn]

Thanks again everyone.

 

I have to be honest with myself. Chances are I will not be able to buy 3D Studio Max because of it's cost, are there other programs I should look at strictly for "rendering" Architectural projects (that's my field)? Most likely I will be importing CAD models and such.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Look at Maya. It's cheaper than Max, and the 8.5 upgrade brings the mental ray updates that Max9 got, including the Arch&Design shader, which makes materials setup ridiculously simple and includes things like automagic AO that cooperates with final gather and a one-check-box auto-edge-fillet. Throw in a glossiness map and some bump and you've got one of the more powerful materials setups I've seen. (Also, and this might not matter to you, the Mac version is now a universal binary! It's about time. And apparently they've managed to make particles work with dynamics and added Python scripting. Also probably not important to you but I've got friends who are really excited about this release.)

 

Also, I hope AR3 comes out soon - if Modo can get an upgrade and suddenly go from "pretty much a really nice modeling app" to "I could use this instead of Vray", why not Cinema?

 

Ernest - if you like mental ray for Max8, try it for Max9. The prerelease announcements got my hopes up, but even so, when I got the upgrade I was blown away by the ease of use improvements. The Arch&Design shader alone is one of the best upgrades Max has had in a long time. See above.

[Ernest Burden III]

well, i'm convinced the AR3 just has to be an imminent release, else i'll wait until vray for c4d is released. i still got FR in the box and barely used it (and so far probably wont. i want an uber stable render solution. fr2 aint)

 

I don't have any hard facts, but my sense is that AR3 is way off. I do know that the vray bridge is almost done, though I don't know how good it will be. But the people doing it are really, really good, and the guy who is leading the effort is an architect. So arch-vis users won't be an afterthought like they are to Maxon and Cebas.

 

FR2 is coming together. I've been working through the possible bugs and issues this week and am making real progress. What are your issues with it, maybe I can help.

 

Ernest - if you like mental ray for Max8, try it for Max9.

 

My 30 day trial ran out on Max8 before I had enough free time to get proficient with it. I hope I can use the Max9 trial on the same machine.

[manta]

Hey Andrew,

I'm trying out the Max 9 demo now, and I have to say it only took me a few minutes to get a nice render out of MR, but maybe you can answer a couple questions since you have explored it deeper than I, Vray has a couple things that I really like, and I was wondering if MR has anything like them now in its new realese,

 

the first one is proxy meshes...

 

the second is PPT, I use it for fast preveiws of my lighting...

 

and lastly, saving and reusing GI maps, when I had used MR in previous versions, it was possible to save out the FG map, but it just didn't seem to work very well, not like vray anyway, so I was wondering if that had been improved...

 

Thanx, Bill

[AJLynn]

Saving FG maps works very well for me now. (I don't even turn on "GI" anymore, just FG with bounces.) Unfortunately mr doesn't have anything equivalent to PPT, but low setting FG and very low image sampling settings will usually do a preview very quickly.

 

As for proxy meshes, no, I don't think you can do that, but Max9 does have XRefs which are almost the same thing.

[manta]

Just gave xrefs a try, and it still suffers the same problems with memory, (crashed) couldn't even render 16 high poly trees, did the same thing using vray proxies with 200 trees and it rendered fine, MR really needs to create something like proxy meshes

[leoA4D]

Hi Sarah,

 

Did you get an answer to your question?

 

If not: import Vectorworks objects using Maxon's Exchange Plugin (http://www.maxon.net/pages/download/plugins_e.html). It works, except when either software is upgraded, and then there is a lag time until the EP is fixed.

 

If the VW-created object is not moved in C4D after "merge" (importing), any changes that are later made in VW will drop into the correct spot in the C4D model.

 

Most uncomplicated architectural elements are much faster in VW, but, C4D is faster and more fun for the complex things – like furniture, as noted above.