Getting started advice..

[antonioabrussi]

Hi all, I used to do a bit of CAD work for product design but am relatively new to buildings & arch vis.

I'm by no means professional and just do it to see where I can get and what I can create.

 

I have always been interested in new tech and have tried a few programs so far (showcase, lumion and realis3D).

 

My question is what are others using? Which is best as the sites are all pretty salesy and boast much of the same content. Are there any other arch vis hobbyists or am I just weird?

 

Many thanks.

 

Ant.

[junglee]

What are you looking to do?

I can tell you for sure that no such "vis hobbyist" would make into the real world.

Visualization requires long hours of working and have to be able to work under stress and these simply don't work as a hobby as you can imagine.

And "bit of CAD work" for product design wouldn't work in architectural field. You might be able to model something but you would need to know of basic architectural detail work at least in order to put you in a good position.

 

And basic programs you would need to use are:

-AutoCAD: for reading drawings

-3d Max or Rhino: for modeling and rendering

-Rendering plug in such as Vray: for rendering

 

These are the basic programs that are universal and you should master these first before anything else.

 

Good luck.

[Tommy L]

What are you looking to do?

I can tell you for sure that no such "vis hobbyist" would make into the real world.

Visualization requires long hours of working and have to be able to work under stress and these simply don't work as a hobby as you can imagine.

And "bit of CAD work" for product design wouldn't work in architectural field. You might be able to model something but you would need to know of basic architectural detail work at least in order to put you in a good position.

 

And basic programs you would need to use are:

-AutoCAD: for reading drawings

-3d Max or Rhino: for modeling and rendering

-Rendering plug in such as Vray: for rendering

 

These are the basic programs that are universal and you should master these first before anything else.

 

Good luck.

 

Im not quite sure what question you are asking...if the question is "does anyone render buildings for fun?' then yes, I think they do.

 

Another way of answering that question is with a quote from a professional photographer I know.

"Dont turn your hobby into a business because you'll ruin something you love". Im not sure if he coined that or if he was re-quoting, but it goes well with another good quote;

"do something you love for a living and you'll never work another day in your life".

I guess you need to find some middle ground between the two.

[Reitveld]

Last two posts were great. The only thing I can add is that you must understand Architecture (the basics of how a building goes together). I've seen too many renderings which were done by someone who didn't understand a building, and it really shows.

[antonioabrussi]

Hi all thanks for your helpful responses, there's me thinking the internet is full of hatred and antipathy.

 

@Tom Livings. I was reaching out to see what vis programs were a hit among the professional community in part. The second part to my question was does anybody else get involved with building design and architectural visualisation for fun and are there other complete amateurs like me?

Also I like the second quote, rings very true for me.

 

My interest in design tech started with photoshop but then again who's didn't!? The nearest experience I had was product design, for which I used solid works and a bit of 3dsmax whilst under supervision, i have also tried autocad. My friend who works as an architectural assistant is a wiz with auto cad and revit. He kitted me out with a few FBX's and I went ahead and downloaded the trial for lumion. After that I did a bit of research to see what else was on the market for the vis side and that was when I came across this forum.

 

My findings were that it did take a fair while to create anything I was proud of but it wasn't particularly stressful.

I managed to find youtube tutorials for a lot of the stuff like importing the FBXs. Lumion was a bit restrictive, I found using it fairly straight forward and easy to get stuff done but I think the cost is just ridiculous and maybe they're not making the most of some of the benefits of real time.

Realis3D was really easy to use most of it was drag and drop for texture and lights so came up with quite good results in about 40 mins i'm on my home computer at present i'll try and upload some pics. I also think it has much more exciting features in the pipeline like making programs that you can share with people.

 

Don't even get me started on showcase, not for me!

 

Thanks again.