Farwest, I know an architect who has built models of projects in Second Life for client walk thrus. Though it is not a game, I assume its graphics drivers are based on game engines.

Keystone Bouchard's Blog. Keystone is the name of his avatar, I can't for the life of me remember his real name.

Here is a machinima of a plan import to Second Life.

You can download and join Second Life for free. To build something, you have to own "land" in the sim, but there are public "sandboxes" where you can temporarily build for free. The modeling interface is simple enough...but is dissimilar enough from mainstream 3d modelers that it takes a bit to get the hang of it. Unfortunately, you cannot take your model outside of Second Life.

We worked with Keystone on the Marlon Blackwell Biloxi model home in Second Life - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwzGOSa22aY

Check out Clear Ink (the company he works for) and also there is a prof at Montana State who is also doing alot of 2nd life work.

Cheers
Cameron

That's exactly the muscle of it ; when a guy can project a football stadion in a few day's , then emagine what wonders it could gentle ,top of the arts --- yet you Romans xomplain ,when only designers are strong enough to say "heck the material, we got computers" . For me just ombine it with computer games no trouble as long, the house cost a third are four times stronger and realy lift a new architecture, who would cry about that ?

drunk already?

anyone ever play myst?
i think the first games were the single most influential aspect of my life in terms of wanting to become an architect. is that bad?

yes.

wrong answer!
im still looking to build the glass bubble atop a rock with a rollercoaster-like cart/tube connecting me to my underwater lair

welcome to hell

The University of Auckland has run several studio programmes centered on game engines. I think in particular they were using the Unreal engine. Other people I work with are currently using Valve's Source engine. They are using something else as well, but I'd have to check what it was.

check youtube, there is a sweet model of fallingwater in done in the halflife2 engine.

There are a few other real time engines out there like Halycon, most of them are a real pain to use, some are VERY expensive. There are a few on the horizon that just may revolutionize "real time" rendering for arch viz. I'm not at liberty to discuss this subject any further ;)

As far as the game engines I've played around but always given up as the game engine modeling tools were a joke and even if they were decent it isn't realistic to remodel projects in thier editor. There are some engines that work better with importing models but I've not invested much time in it yet. A few guys at UO built thier model in the quake engine when I was there ... or was it the build engine... dunno.... any way allowed people to walk around teh project for final review. It was sort of fun but not really integral to understanding the project.

It'll still be a while. It always comes down to the end user's computer (assuming you want someone to be able to see it on more than one computer).

Years ago I thought we were years away. I still think that.


Personally, I think video games look so horrible I would not want to see 'real' architecture in them. A good rendering or walking through a shaded preview is a better compromise.


I'll revist in a few years.

What's the Mullet got up his sleeve this time?

The game engine projects I've seen were in studios where the emphasis was not specifically 'visualisation' per se, but on using the engines as design tools.

But for visualisation, there is a big difference between a real-time rendering where you can look where you want and go where you want; and a static flythrough where you see only one, linear path. This is true even if, as some have pointed out, the graphic quality is nothing compared to even an average render.

And as for getting started, you could try Garry's Mod for the Source engine.