Best,Fast and Easy modelling solution for an arch. animation studio?

[Nic H]

until you need to mix teh coke and orange juice only to find they dont go and you end up feeling sick

[Brodie Geers]

David. Yes that's one of the few big drawbacks SU still has (polygon limit). SU works jim dandy until you try to place some high poly objects like trees, cars, or to a lesser extant furniture. To that end, I can't imagine using a direct SU renderer that doesn't have a standalone studio program (I use Maxwell Render) for placing high poly objects. I also have 3ds Max, like you and agree they make a good combo, particularly with 2011's sketchup importer which works great.

 

-brodie

[M V]

I think I have pushed SU to its absolute limit on a few projects and these guys are right. It does have major limitations and animation support is poor. I guess there is no single solution to what we all do. I bet everyone on this website has a rather large arsenal in their software bag of tricks. It all depends on the type of work you are going to do. If its highly complex detailed animation, then you need 3DStudio. It is the industry standards for a reason. I just need to start playing with it more because SU has always gotten me what I needed lately.

[callme_ash2001]

hi, thanks for replying and keeping this thread alive.

 

From past few days, we've been testing revit and SU for arch modelling in our studio. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

In revit, once you learn it...it is easy to model as there are libraries for everything.But it is typical Autodesk software, which is vast and not easy to learn.(yeah ofcourse, you can make wall and windows right away but real learning/work starts after that).We modelled a typical floor by importing cad, but when we started copying it(18 copies/identical floors), revit took almost an hour to finish it, which was very strange.(on dual core with 4gb ram and 512mb graphic card)

About Su, i agree that it has limitations.But we dont need it for scene building or animation, we need it only for arch modelling in which SU is very effective.It is damn easy to learn and additional scrpts which brodie suggested really helped us.But sometimes non coplanar faces are pain in the **s.Please dont compare it with 3dmax because SU has different style of modelling but their combo is strong.

Currently, we are working on the workflow.(cad-SU-3dmax).We're using demo of 1001bit arch tools to build walls, windows and frames and the scripts are handy.

please share your SU workflow if you can.

 

 

Thanks a lot guys.

 

Abhay.

[Nic H]

bite the bullet and learn 3dmax for modelling

why are you transferring to 3dmax anyway? does sketchup not have vray/external rendering plugins?

[callme_ash2001]

we are into arch. animation and we dont do still cg.we mostly have really big scenes with thousands of vray proxies.so scene creation and rendering is not possible in SU.we still do modelling of building structures in 3dmax but we needed a fast solution for modelling buildings only and not for rendering and scene creation(fast modelling changes and all.please see previous post of mine).

So from now on we can model buildings in SU(which is fast)until they get final nod from the architects and then we can import them in 3dmax and use it in our scene there.

[Brodie Geers]

Glad my short list of plugins helped. Since that was part of a pm I'll repost those here.

 

Bezier Spline

Joint push pull

soap skin bubble

subdivide and smooth

TT Cleanup

PurgeAll

Copy along path

 

Nothing on there a regular SU user wouldn't recognize but those are the ones I use quite a bit.

 

I don't think I've got any more general advice regarding SU to 3ds Max workflow but if any specifics come up, feel free to contact me. I'm much better at SU than 3ds Max but I've struggled through many of the issues that come up.

 

-Brodie

[David Arbogast]

bite the bullet and learn 3dmax for modelling

why are you transferring to 3dmax anyway? does sketchup not have vray/external rendering plugins?

I am hoping that Chaosgroup eventually gets to the place where a model developed with Vray for Sketchup can be exported and rendered in Vray for 3ds Max (or even Maya) with all the material settings retained. Why would this be great? I work in an architectural studio and I encourage all our designers (architects and interior designers) to work in Sketchup as a means of developing and testing their designs. I feel that Sketchup is the perfect schematic design tool for architecture. Most of our designers are never going to learn 3ds Max; it's just too complicated. But, if designers can learn to competently model in SU, then final renderings and animations can be developed in Max. SU doesn't have the horsepower to power through renderings and animations as efficiently as 3ds Max.

 

We also use Revit extensively as well (all our projects are developed in Revit now), but Revit is not as designer-friendly as Sketchup is. During the design phase of a project, a designer needs an intuitive sketching tool and that's exactly what SU is.

 

So, all this to say: In our architecture studio there is a solid place for Revit, Sketchup, and 3ds Max. I would love to pare this down, but there's too much value in using all these packages. Someone who only does visualization and doesn't interact with the design or production aspects of architecture may not see the value in using all three applications though.

[Slinger]

Here is a little animation we did with Sketchup for modeling and kerkythea for animating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVtOmtmCh3M

 

For our firm it is a good workflow. Also, the firm I work for, our business is 90% K-12 schools and higher education. This animation, for our clients, is over the top, so we are pretty darn confident with the tools we use.

Now I have purchased a copy of Thea( the big brother to Kerkythea) and am having a blast with it.

 

 

I personally would say, depending on the firm and the clients you get, SU and a rendering/animating program like Kerkythea/Thea can be a win/win siutation over 3dmax.

 

Cost, ease of use, ease to render/animate, time frame, and no over the top expensive render nodes needed to get the job done.

[wasteland giant]

Hire a chinese village?

 

/facetious.

[callme_ash2001]

hi all,

 

iam facing an issue in exporting 3ds format in max from SU.The problem is in choosing between "preserving texture coordinates" and "welding vertices" in export options.If i choose one then i'll loose the other one.i want both to be working.Is there any other way to export from sketchup to 3dsmax??

i've tried fbx and obj but iam not getting clean geometry. i've also gone for .dwg format in which i lost all the textures.

 

 

 

Abhay.

[M V]

If you are using MAX 2011 or 2012 you should be able to directly import the .SKP file. Just make sure you faces or forward facing or you'll get issues with mapping or missing materials. Theres a few great plugins on the Sketchucation forums that handle that issue. Learning MAX is a great thing, but I find modeling in SU (on simple straightfoward designs) to be much faster. Also, SketchUp is becoming a standard tool in a lot of arch firms, so you will have to work with a file in that format at some point. I guess I would love to see a SketchUp and Max Pro go head to head modeling the same project and see who is faster.