What Software to Model a House?

[Paint Guy]

What is a good software to allow me to quickly model a house. I don't need excessive detail. I currently use C4D, but I want something that will allow me to model a house quicker. I also have tried Sketchup, but I find it a little too sloppy for my needs. I like to see the grid and be able to snap to it.

 

Is there a mac software that allows me to quickly build walls and roof and add windows etc? I have never used cad software.. Does Cad software make the job quicker? I also need to export the model as an .OBJ after.

 

Thanks

[STRAT]

SU is your man. If you find it too sloppy it's because you aren't using it properly. C4D will also speedily do the job in SU speeds in the hands of an experienced user. you're only modelling a quick house, how sloppy do you want to get?

[Paint Guy]

Stephen,

 

I guess coming from C4D, Sketchup feels inacurrate, but that is probably because I am inexperienced or using it wrong. What I like about C4D is that I can quickly use splines to draw walls on the ground plane, then extrude (loft) the walls up. I can see the grid and snap to it when I'm drawing the walls. I also can select and drag the slpine pointsand add points to the spline if needed. I like that.

 

When I drag a plane over the surface in SU it doesn't snap to a visible grid so it feels sloppy to me. There's no visible units of measurement telling me how tall, wide, thick the walls are for e.g.

 

I want to look at the model in four views (perspective, top, bottom and side) then draw the roof profile and drag it out. In C4D I can see the points on a grid and when I drag them it feels accurate.

 

Is there other software that will give me the feeling of accuracy? Does Cad software work in a similar fashion to C4D? Does SU do some of the above things. AFAIK SU doesn't have a visible grid does it?

 

 

Thanks

[AFK_Matrix]

While I havn't used C4D so I can't make a comparison, I would have to agree with STRAT that SU can be very accurate. When I draw a house i use the line command and just click and then type in a distance, on the bottom right is a small window where your typed in distance will appear. Thus you can get lines that are exactly how long you need them, you can also alter the units you use etc. Basically I draw the outline of the building, use the offset command for the wall thickness. Then push/pull the wall up to the required height. For windows etc all you do is measure out where ur windows need to be, draw a rectangle/use the lines and then just push/pull that rectangel to the width of your wall, voila it punches a hole in the wall for you.

 

As for roofs, draw the outline of your roof or roof tiles and then just push/pull it, I would recommend either drawing off to the side and moving the roof over ur walls. Or make your walls a group so that when drawing the roof it does not interfer with your walls etc.

 

Thats just a brief explination, if you can't follow what im on about I would recommend going to the SU site and watching there video tutorials.

[innerdream]

The way I use SU is to draw "components" in the correct camera view. Make sure you turn your walls etc. into components and then they reside in the library wher you can drag them into the scene. Use the align tool to snap the corner of a wall where you want it. In SU you can type in the size of the rectangle as soon as you make it and then extrude to the desired thickness by typing that in after you use the extrude tool. This works very fast.

[Paint Guy]

Thanks, yes I have used SU a bit and am somewhat familiar with it. I will try it again. What are some other Cad or 3D applications for the mac that make house/building construction relatively easy to do?

 

I have read about a few of them, but I want to know what others use and why they like them.

 

Thanks:)

[John Dollus]

Vectorworks has a Mac version $1395 and is a parametric modeler similar to Chief Architect but a bit less money. If you are not familiar with parametric modeling, you draw in plan or elevation with 2d drafting tools and symbols and the 3d model is built at the same time. can be tricky to setup but once you create your 'toybox' of construction elements, cranking out houses is easy and the models can be changed simply by changing the dimensions instead of worrying about vertices and faces.

I don't use it myself but I have been watching an architecture group make the transition away from autodesk to vectorworks and it seems to be working really well for them.

[Richard Rush]

You might want to check out formZ http://www.formz.com. It's the only modeling/rendering software I've been using for over 10 years. I had become frustrated with it during the last few years due to it falling way behind other software in rendering capabilities, but version 6.5 is a major leap forward in rendering. Version 6.5 is in final stages of beta testing now. There is also a Maxwell plugin for formZ, and although I haven't tried it yet, it is very well integrated into formZ and works well - according to the reports I hear.

 

Richard

[Mario Pende]

What is a good software to allow me to quickly model a house.

 

Unigraphics!

Sorry, couldnt resist!

[Adehus]

FormZ will certainly do the trick... it has a toolset that would do the type of work you're looking for quite easily. If you're not limited to the Mac, you've got a lot to think about. But if it's Mac only, I personally think FormZ's a great way to go.

 

There's also a large number of archviz guys using Cinema4D... I haven't played with it enough to comment intelligently, maybe someone else could chime in on it.