Project Organisation In max

[Sketchrender]

would like some help Please.

I am starting out on a very large Residential project.

It will contain about 10 appartment blocks fully detailed ie windows glass hand rails the usual.

There will also be extensive landscaping, roads streetlights bus stops and paving, and all will have to contoured too.

 

My questions are:-

 

1. The oranisation of the files structure.

I will be working of server, so everything will be saved back every 10mins.

The file structure, I would like to work straight max from the start which i am new too.

I can not seem to snap to anything.

What i have done is imported the dwg which comes from microstaion v8.5 saved as 2005.

I imported it, and then saved it as a max file.

Then I x ref it in thinking that it will be a better way to work.

Is it, I can not snap to it at all.

and i would like to to trace over blocks with the primitive line tool, and then give the 2d splines height.

 

 

2. I want save each building as a seperate model, and x ref them in as it is going to be big....very big.

 

Is this the way to go...........

 

Please let me know how you work.

The server is a 100mg network.

 

thanks for your help as always.

 

phil

[DennisHolland]

Hi Philip,

 

let's see where I can give you some references for the organsation of your (pretty huge) project here:

 

1- in case you have a lot of the same objects per building in your scene (rails, doors windows etc) make groups of them as much as you can, give 'm unique names. When you're copying objects (within' your scene) don't forget to do that in 'instance' mode. It's very usefull when you must change something later, all instances will change with it.

 

Tracing your blocks with the line tool is the right way to do. When you are going to line-trace the outer walls, for instance, make sure you close it up at the end and then you'll be able to extrude it to a certain hight (modifiers>mesh editing>extrude).

 

It seems you're on the right track here, x-ref your buildings into the final scene is okay, you can also use the assetbrowser. I'm sure there will be more nifty max-tips for you at this forum, so it's gonna be fine.

 

Good luck,

Dennis

[Sawyer]

Here is one trick I learned for large site work:

 

Take your site plan and rough everything in first so you can layout your buildings. Then do a save as and draw your building on the footprint from the site plan. This will keep the same world space location and you can x-ref your buildings into the site plan (use x-ref scene) and then you can keep all of the building plans seperate.

[Sketchrender]

Thank you very much, I will post updated views as I go, it going to be nice .

Thanks for the advise.

I wish somebody would bring out a book purley for arch viz on 3d studio max , that I would buy.

there is a field big enough for it.

I find the film , and animation guys never quite get the accuracy part of the job.

you have to work in it for while , as you have to model every aspect of a buoding and not just what you see it is going to be a working model from start.

 

anyway if you know of a book.

I'd be gratefull.

 

maybe discreet?

 

phil

[mike_sul]

one of the logistics nightmare i have in 3dsmax while using standard lights is if the project is very large in area ... then setting a light for sun which will cast a shadow becomes a problem. if u select a shadow map type. the map resolution is too high for our system setup to handle. and is you use raytrace then the bias even if place at zero at times create shadow offsets ,,,

 

any idea how the overall lighting is managed in very large setups ?