Help please..

[annamac]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to 3D modelling & animation (and to this site.. hi!). Over the past three weeks I took a Lynda.com course on 3ds max and managed to get as far as importing a Revit model, assigning it materials and sitting it on a plane. I now want to place it in a cityscape and downloaded Lumion to achieve that but there doesn’t seem to be any cityscape templates. Would you perhaps have any guidance as to what steps to take next? I’m a bit lost to be honest. Do I go back and create a cityscape from scratch in 3ds Max? As I said, I’ve only taken all this on in the past three weeks and I’ve kind of hit a wall. I’d appreciate any guidance at all.

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Anna

[Devin Johnston]

Anna instead of looking for a model of a city that will more than likely be very expensive you should consider using a background image.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Hello Anna, welcome to cgarchitect and to the 3D world.

As Devin mentioned, there are different ways to approach each project.

After exported your Design from REVIT or any similar CAD software, you need to decide what type of presentation you need, what will give you better return for the time you'll invest preparing. Using 3D Max will give you infinite possibilities, still images, animations, VR. and more, but all those require time and know how to develop.

In the Other hand you have a more easy to use tool like Lumion, simple user interface, limited options but over all you can get a pretty decent image or animation with very little effort.

 

You also have the option to render inside REVIT and do the rest in Photoshop or similar software.

 

My main tool is 3D Max, but in several occasions I just render the building and everything else is created in photoshop.

You can also build the whole block inside 3D Max, from scratch, or buy pre-made cityscape models from websites such turbosquid (very popular selling BMW cars )

 

I know that if you are a beginner you'll fell very confuse, but a little research and taking all software publicity with a pint of salt, you can find the software that fit better your needs.

 

So after all this bla bla bla I did, what type of presentation you want to create? still images? animations? just want to look colors and material variations in your model??

[annamac]

Thank you both so much for getting back to me.

 

Devin, getting decent quality still images of the site right now is a bit of an issue for me. I'm trialling this workflow on a site based in the states and I'm working from London. Thank you for your input. Maybe I could use a random background image of a city block for the time being.

 

Francisco, thank you for your "bla bla bla", it was very informative. Right now I'm just working out the best workflow with this. Initially I just want to get some still image renders out to see what 3ds Max is capable of compared to Sketchup and renders from Revit. If the client is happy with those I'll be looking towards animations and mirroring the type of simulations that Navisworks is capable of. Does this make sense?

[Francisco Penaloza]

Well if you are new to this, there is one tool that you need to add to your arsenal and it will make a big difference, Photoshop.

Photoshop is one of those tools that are kind of overlooked in the Arch Viz industry, when we all know how important really it is, you can actually do the whole thing inside of photoshop if you know how.

 

If you want to compare 'render quality' between Sketchup and 3D Max, well is not that simple, Sketchup by default does not have a renderer, what you see is what you get, 3D Max in the other side is a 500 pound gorilla in the CG industry. Having said this you still can get high end images out of sketchup using or not external plugins. If you use V Ray for Sketchup and you are good at it, there is way for you to differentiate of a good 3D Max rendering or Cinema 4D or whatever. It is all about the artist.

 

If you are an Architectural student, you can try to learn all the software you want, but be sure to study your industry first, and see what is the trend where you hope to work. If you are working already, and your company work with Sketchup, well I would recommend to study, photoshop techniques that you can use to enhance sketchup images, and at the same time learn some plugin render such V-Ray to create photoreal renders inside Sketchup. Since you are in UK I imagine it may be more like Archi CAD or Rhino.

 

If you want to learn 3D Max, well go a head, but don't think that because it is 3D Max you'll get better images. 3D Max will help you if you want to do animations and so on. But they won't be easy to create as you do with Naviswork. That tools is designed to do that type of simulations/animations. Within 3D Max everything had to be created manually. of course you could get better image quality if you know how, and you could do more complex animations, but at the end of the day, the main thing is what you clients need, or what you need.

Fun time a head for sure