i'm curious too - i'm in the same position dml. i've got a copy of sketchup but....blech.

i still use it, and love it.

i love it too.

But if its your own office - who cares? Use the tool you're good with.

I am a fourth year undergrad, about to graduate and go onto grad school. I attend Georgia Tech currently and as a sophmore I took a class in Formz but the catch was that it was a class for our Industrial Design department. For our Architecture department they emphasized Viz 2005, and unreal tournament interfaces.

I think that the reason that Formz has gone to the wayside is because it lacks some of the more powerful abilities to model complex abnormals surfaces and allows for better rendering w/ the options of animation.

At present I have a good comand of 3d Acad, Formz, Viz/3dS, Sketchup. I see Sketchup as the equivelent of Formz, a quick and easy to learn 3d modeler. But if you want lights, materials, animations, and nurbs they can only go so far.

There is nothing wrong with choosing Formz as your firms platform. You will just have to teach it to every employee you have (probably) And I must warn you that if you have to move the files from Formz into 3dStudio that 3DStudio is a surface modeler and Formz is a solid modeler and the geometries will have some hickups.

Bon Chance!

I'm stilll pissed that Form Z, Revit, and Maya didn't join forces to create a fourth way solution. What's really left now: Autodesk, Desault Systems, and Bentley.

our firm uses formz, but i much much prefer 3ds. i find it's a lot more powerful. if it's a simple massing study, i can do it in a fraction of the time in sketchup than in formz

Thanks for all the input! My feeling is that 3DStudio and Maya are powerful programs, both in graphic capability and content. However, I feel that most architecture practices only scratch the surface of the these program's capability. In an academic world, I can see the benefits of experimenting with Nurbz, Blobs, and all things Gehry & Greg Lynn, but in the real world of practice I think a somewhat simplified program (like Form Z) is the ticket...

I still use Formz and most people and offices I know use it as their primary modeller...

Then again, I'm from Columbus and graduated from OSU; the city where Formz was created and the school where it was disseminated.

I learned to use formZ in school several years ago, working on my own now, I just don’t have the same amount of time as the a Render man in a large firm, to produce, therefore I used SketchUp as a 3d modeling and bring the images into Piranesi, it’s fast, the images have a soft look, much like a water color. I like them better than the very time consuming material mapping and light setting of hard wanting to be realistic renderings.
If rendering is the only thing you will be doing go ahead and get into more sophisticated software such as the ones metioned.

FormZ for life!

I still use it to model and either 3ds or cin4d to render.

i've yet to find another Mac-based modeling program with such accurate snapping and coordinate systems.

We mostly use Rhino for modeling and some people use 3DS to render. But honestly, a lot of the rendering done here is translucent with wireframes. Some critics get really mad if you approach anything photorealistic.

I used to be loyal to formZ. I learned Maya, but continued with formZ for the more rigid, orthogonal stuff. Then I made myself learn Rhino for a school project. I have never looked back. formZ's interface is PAINFUL. Sure you can get used to it, but why???

southpole-

regarding Piranesi, what do you think of it? ease of use, time spent to create rendering vs. output and strengths / limitations. i've seen it used to mixed results and would like to figure out if the lesser renderings are a product of the user or the software.

I just visited the formZ gallery on their site. It is about 5 years old. Hmmm... are they giving up? I know new versions are still being released.

it's the only 3d we use, but i have to say, i'm a chump and i just use it to render my 3d-autocad models

garpike,

the interface isn't so bad if you taylor the shortcuts. It actually becomes easier than autocad at times because all of the main commands I use only takes one key stroke.

If you are productive with FormZ, then use it. I'm into retro software.

You don't absolutely have to be using the most current version of everything.

The only reason not to is if you'll have problems interacting with other software. An engineer might accept a viz file, but not know what to do with a formZ file, for example.

Retro?! Oh man I feel older every day! I hope formZ is not universally considered "retro"!

I agree oabout using older versions of stuff, though. My formZ on my laptop is super old. 3.8 or something.

A Center for Ants-
It can be overdone very easily; I used the people, landscape elements and vehicles all the time, very easy and faster than Photoshop. The filters is an other story, you have to be careful not to over do it, it take a few trays to get what you are looking for, you can download a free trial demo http://www.entouragearts.com/piranesi.asp

my boss still uses it, but i prefer 3d max and rhino over formz.

i use it from time to time.

Been there, done that. It is all BIM now. I can't be waisting my time in the real world doing double work and excessive coordination.

I will be happy when some good rendering engines come to Rhino. It's such a pain to do conversions for Max and such. You spend so much time fixing materials and what not. Then if you do changes, you have to import all over again. Argh.

V-Ray for Rhino.

Sorry. A link might help:

V-Ray for Rhino

See the gallery.

I don't like Maxwell (the images look superb, of course, but the time is unreasonable and they'll be left behind with the new releases of Vray and Final Render), but they do have a plugin for FormZ. Considering that Vray and Final Render will be standalones now, it's quite possible they'll port to FormZ too.

I'd easily dump Max (Iuse Max and final Render) if they got a good rendering plugin for formZ. Looks like they are addressing the animation limitations pretty well:

http://www.formz.com/products/version_6_0/version_6_0.html

http://www.maxwellrender.com/gallery.htm

still use form-z for modelling but stopped using it as a renderer about 4 years ago...

complex forms are done in c4d as well, but for accuracy and speed i still like form-z, especially as i have all the tools cusotm hot-keyed or linked to mouse clicks (a really great feature that all software should have)...

for 3d sketching i use c4d and my paper sketchbook.

yea, if you 're already a strong user of Form Z go with it, otherwise get out now while you can. the only reason the acedemia world uses formZ is because its freaking cheap! get yourself into 3d studio max, 3d Viz rhino....etc. you may want to check out VUE 5, it is wonderful for landscapes and quick scene rendering. the default presets are great and its really easy to use.

NO!

I love FOrmZ>>>>> > > It kicks ass. I can generate a photoreal image in a matter of hours. I work moslty with large residential towers. Modelling up a floorplate from with a CAD plan as underlay is quick and efficent. Turn it into a symbol, copy up. Boom my building is complete, ready for presentations, city submission, design panel, and then used as Marketing rendering for sales. What I love most is that it can handle what ever you throw at it on a relatively crap computer. I have learned 3D Studio, Maya, Alias, etc All those programs just crash if I try to import an entire Cad file (uncleaned up). Then if I do import it, I can hardly navigate around without the program chunking up. In FormZ I can import a totally unclean Cad file put it on a layer, ghost it then get to work, with no slow down. Once you master making textures, and using photoshop for post production, the perks of 3d studio etc just melt away. Who needs global illumination when you've got your Burn and Dodge tool in Photoshop. HA.

So if you already have your feet wet in the program go for it.