3D/furniture modelling tool/program

[kennethnedal]

Hello to all you members of this forum! This is an interesting way of sharing creative knowledge and ideas!

 

I’ll start by saying I'm a confused furniture designer. Previously, I've used AutoCAD for 3D modelling, and 3ds Max for visualising. What I need now is to get my hands on a good, 3D/furniture modelling tool/program (if one exists?).

 

I’m happy to continue using 3ds Max, but, as I’ve never used it for modelling, I feel I need to find something really concrete (a technique) within the program to focus on. I also need to know what to exclude/ignore.

 

I would be very grateful to anyone who can reply to this post.

Thank you!

Edited November 17, 2008 by kennethnedal

[Chad Warner]

If you look under the resource tab at the top of the page, there's a good tutorial on furniture modeling in max under the 3dats section. http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/VI/default.asp under week 21.

[Antisthenes]

my preference is NURBS so it is manufacturable, if that is a direction you may want to go, but also easier to work with as much like sub-d's are good control objects for underlying mesh, and with some Uniform deformations you can get beautiful surfaces.

[BrianKitts]

my preference is NURBS

 

nurbs from what program? I've been considering getting a Rhino License in the office to aid in some of our furniture modeling. Would love to hear from someone with both Rhino and Max experience if they think Rhino's capabilities stand out beyond what max can do.

[Antisthenes]

yes i mean Rhinoceros.

[rmccoy]

I hate to bring up an old post. But Brodie Neill, a furniture designer out of London uses Rhinoceros with the T-Splines plug-in to model his furniture for production.

http://www.brodieneill.com/

 

I worked with him on my thesis project and was blown away by some of his work. I used 3d Max polygon modeling to create my piece. but that was because I did not know how to model using Rhino. I'm trying to learn it at home right now as I see it would be a much easier workflow.

 

On that note, Is there any good tutorials out there for nurbs modeling furniture using rhino?

[Horhe]

You dont need nurbs or other plugins to model furniture accurately. Try poly modelling with a meshsmooth modifier. Needs a bit getting used to, but so does nurbs or any other modeling tool.

Edited January 18, 2009 by Horhe

[Magnus_Alexander]

I would highly recommend using Rhino for any 3d modeling, but particularly for industrial designers. I have experience with both max and rhino, and prefer the workflow of rhino over any other program I've encountered ( maya, autoCAD, sketchup). My main reasoning is precision. Although Horhe's suggestion is definitely viable, using modifiers such as meshsmooth allow the computer to interpolate / approximate some of the design work. Some people like this, but sometimes you need certain curves and shapes to be very particular and precise, yet I've always had a difficult time getting that out of MAX. I always found that I would have to constantly jump back and forth between max and cad; using cad to draw precise lines, then importing them into MAX. Perhaps I haven't given MAX enough of a chance, but the modeling in Rhino has just been seamless for me.

[Derek Forreal]

i think it really depends on what you are modelling and what the model is for.

 

if you need to manufacture your object, then CAD (e.g. rhino) is the way. period.

 

if not, then the subject is open for debate. for simple models, i believe that nurbs or poly modelling is the same. straight lines are easy whether in nurbs or in polys.

 

for 'exact' curves (e.g. perfect arcs, circles, spheresmachined parts) then nurbs is probably quickest to use, although when things get complex i think that it takes just as long with nurbs as it does with subd.

 

for 'organic' curves (e.g. a sofa) then the 'perfect' nature of nurbs IMO makes things like furniture look fake. with subd it's easy to give your models a bit of surface variation.

 

my 2p

[Antisthenes]

nurbs (w/ t-splines) or sub-d are essential because they are "cage" objects that control the tessellation of the resultant mesh , no way i would ever want to poly model. polygons are the end way of representing the surfaces you want rendered. even on the simplest of squareness i would not wish anybody to fuxor with mesh based creation, what a mess and lack of clarity

 

and definatly if you want accurate and reproducable in the realworld and not just blobby you want NURB modeling

 

Magnus_Alexander said it best.