Hello,
I am new to architectural rendering and I’ve been tasked with producing floor plans / elevations / 3D model / walthrough of a house, to show a client. I would really appreciate if someone can summarize the typical workflow to accomplish that. We have autocad 2008, 3Ds Max 2009. If needed we can acquire any other programs but would prefer not.

I have 3 weeks to accomplish this task. All I need now is the work flow and some guides or tutorials. I just want to achieve it. We have enough time to learn after that. Thank you very much for your help.

Wow.  How new are you to Max?  If you haven’t yet mastered some basic skills of the 3d software, I’m afraid this may be a little more work than you want to tackle.  Let’s first start with what is expected for output.  Obviously an animation, but will it be interior, exterior, or a combination of both?  What kind of detail/realism do they want?  When you say floor plans and elevations, are you referring to 3D versions of those?  What kind of information will you have to start with (CAD plans/elevations, CAD 3D, Sketchup, etc.)?

Give us a little more info about what you’ll be starting with, and what exactly is expected of you.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

Thank you for your help. Well I like to get something as impressive as possible. I like to do both interior and exterior animation. My goal is to put it also on a website. For the floor plan and elevation I want 3D of those as well.  I am thinking of generating floor plan using basic home modeling software like Home 3D architect.  All I have to start is my imagination. They just told me a 3000 sf building. I will show them some proposals of floor plan. I am thinking of learning sketchup, what is your experience with this program ? Please let me know if you need more information.

I see, so you’re going to be designing AND modeling the house.  Well, you’ve certainly got your work cut out for you.

Sketchup is a good program because it’s fairly easy to learn and use.  It is limited in the quality of output, so many people import the model into max for rendering.  But the models usually need some cleanup before they work well in Max.

There’s been similar topics here recently.  These are some links that had previously been provided.
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/yellow_house/yellow_01.asp
http://www.3dsmaxtutorials.net/modelling-tutorials/build-walls-from-floorplan
http://area.autodesk.com/for...t-to-model-it-in-3ds-max/

Search the area some more, there’s a lot of information and links to good websites.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

Thank you for the infomation. I really appreciate it. You are right I’ve seen some sketchup output in warehouse, doesn’t seem very impressive. I need something real impressive as the website will be used for sale purposes. I don’t want to spend too much time and find out that I wasted my time. are there other Architecture illustration programs out there i can take a look at. Just to see the potential before I dive into it.

If you have 3ds Max 2009, you have the tutorials that come with the software.

However, for what you want to do, you should be looking at the 3ds Max Design 2009 tutorials:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/ser...=11002009&linkID=10381717

Before proceeding with the Design 2009 tutorials, launch Max then:
1. In the Main Menu, go to Customize > Custom UI and Defaults Switcher
2. From the “Choose initial setting for tool options and UI laytout” menu, select “DesignVIZ.mentalray” in the upper-left, then click on Set.
3. Restart Max as indicated.

The Design 2009 Tutorials will now function as described.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

The only program i believe you should be looking at to run alongside Max desgin 2009 is Revit Architecture 2009. These programs talk to each other easily enough and the new FBX file format to max option works great sometimes....Revit is a modeling and documentaion program so u can easily produce your floor plans and elevations, you simply export the views to max assign your materials and hit render...It seems to me like u have a long road ahead of u considering it doesnt sound like u have any experience with 3d software…

Thanks for your time. I will definately look into the links, tutorial and revit. Yes it will be a long road but I am patient. At this juncture, I am trying to gather as much information as possible and make the best investment as far as time and money is concern. So every input is welcome. Regarding Revit, will it be redundant to learn both eketchup and Revit. The way I am going about it is have only one program for every task. I don’t want to duplicate things. For example

- Floor plan: sketchup , Home 3D, autocad, Revit etc. ?

- Rendering / Elevation: Impression, Revit ?

- Modeling: 3D Max

Will be good if a combination of 1 or 2 programs can take me to final destination. Please comment of what you think is easier / cheaper / effective way to go.

First of all forget sketchup altogether, if ur working for an architecural firm where u have clients who change the design every 5 min your gonna be screwed....People might disagree but Sketchup is a great program to use but its not accurate, hence the name SKETCH....
Secondly, to model a complete building in max in less time it takes to model in revit, you would have to be a pro. For example to model a very complex roof in max it would take u atleast a few hours....If its done in revit it would take less than 5 min… Just about every component in Revit is parametric. So if u need to adjust a whole level of doors and windows for example u simply select one and adjust its properties and everything gets changed...Revit also has an endless library of components from doors, windows, railings, plumbing, landscaping, furniture and structural framing....

I have only been using Revit and Max for 18 months and i have already pumped out heaps of renders and movies for residential and commercial buildings....The workflow i undertake with each project is as follows:
The entire project is modeled in Revit. It is then brought into max and the materials, cameras and lighting are setup...It is then rendered...Post work can be adjusted in photoshop and adobe premiere.... JOB DONE…

If your gonna take a professional approach to your work, you have to expect to fork out i think atleast $5000 for a revit license and probably the same for a max license.....
Also on top of that ur gonna need a supercomputer, something like a 64bit system with atleast 8gb of ram to be producing quality renders in shortest time as possible…

Very good input.  I really appreciate your suggestions. I will definately consider this. Price will not be a problem if we can get by with Revit and 3D max only. The job needs to done. However, we don’t have so powerfull computers. We may need an upgrade. What’s the minium RAM required ?

Debo 27 August 2008 07:12 AM

First of all forget sketchup altogether, if ur working for an architecural firm where u have clients who change the design every 5 min your gonna be screwed....People might disagree but Sketchup is a great program to use but its not accurate, hence the name SKETCH....
Secondly, to model a complete building in max in less time it takes to model in revit, you would have to be a pro. For example to model a very complex roof in max it would take u atleast a few hours....If its done in revit it would take less than 5 min… Just about every component in Revit is parametric. So if u need to adjust a whole level of doors and windows for example u simply select one and adjust its properties and everything gets changed...Revit also has an endless library of components from doors, windows, railings, plumbing, landscaping, furniture and structural framing....

I have only been using Revit and Max for 18 months and i have already pumped out heaps of renders and movies for residential and commercial buildings....The workflow i undertake with each project is as follows:
The entire project is modeled in Revit. It is then brought into max and the materials, cameras and lighting are setup...It is then rendered...Post work can be adjusted in photoshop and adobe premiere.... JOB DONE…

If your gonna take a professional approach to your work, you have to expect to fork out i think atleast $5000 for a revit license and probably the same for a max license.....
Also on top of that ur gonna need a supercomputer, something like a 64bit system with atleast 8gb of ram to be producing quality renders in shortest time as possible…

3 weeks to design, model, texture, furnish, light and animate a project? Unless you are very experienced in arch viz and already have a team with a software and hardware infrastructure in place...it ain’t gonna happen. Or, at least, not at a high level of quality.

I spent several years as a supervisor at a viz house, and to complete a project like the one you have described in three weeks I would have assigned at least 3 people (maybe 4) to meet the deadline. Modeling and animating the project will actually be the easiest elements to complete. The bulk of your time will be spent furnishing the model (both interior furnishings and exterior landscaping), lighting the model, and rendering. A fully furnished interior scene can easily take 20 mins per frame or more to render. For example, modeling, furnishing, lighting, animating and rendering 5 rooms of a condo project took 4 people nearly three weeks to complete, and that was utilizing a 60 CPU render farm. Granted, not all 4 worked on the project for the full span, but there was at least a week and a half when all four were fully tasked on the project.

The fact that the project hasn’t even been designed yet is going to kill your deadline. You need to sit down with your client and work out a more realistic deadline, or, in the end, no one will be happy.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but as things are, you are asking for a lot of grief.

As a final note, at this point, don’t waste your time with Revit. It takes way more than 3 weeks to get to even a basic level of productivity in that software. The $5500 you spend on Revit would more productively spent on setting up a basic render farm.

Max Design 2012, Win 7 Pro 64, 6x2.8 Xeon, 12 GB RAM, Quadro 5000