Sketchup isn't a rendering program and normally shouldn't be used as such. It's an excellent massing program and it can easily be exported into actual rendering programs such as 3dsmax and maxwell renderer.

I highly recommend sketchup because it's a pretty solid massing tool that you can use to think of your actual designs in 3d. It's also very fast and learning it takes only you messing around with it. That's how I learned it -- well that and bugging a few great people....

All of the rendering programs such as VIZ, MAX, Maya, Form Z, Rhino, and Maxwell are pretty intuitive. Just learn the basics about actual rendering and then then more you use it them more you will realize their strength and weaknesses. In grad school and beyond I made it a goal to try to make myself familiar with many of these tools but that was mainly for my own personal interests.

Sketchup is the easiest program to use and is the most ubiqutous at many arch firms.

Rhino is more robust, is very intuitive, but it takes longer to learn, esp. w/out ACAD experience.

3Ds Max could take days to weeks to get familiar with.

And as always, if you want photo-realistic renderings with which you can add much photoshoping to for the ultimate money-shot look, these programs have their own learning curves even though they plug-in to stand-alone programs like Max. Vray is very flexible, but it has a steep learning curve. Maxwell is really easy to get the hang of, but the materials editing can be a hassle.

Seriously, sketchUp and pshop though is all you need to impress most arch firm's hiring ppl i imagine

rhino - maxwell might be the most user friendly combo, because it is a physical camera not many settings jsut say sun or no sun and go after assigning materials.


did form-z release their new program called Bonzai?

Rhino with Vray for Rhino as a renderer and Maya. i used to use Form-Z 4.0 in architecture school - the renderer lacks depth, so I would model in Form-Z then export into Maya. Maya lends itself for furniture + indusrial design applications.

BONZAI (auto-de-syss') watered down version of Form-Z has not been released but looks to be quite promising.

though I've seen plenty of good arch renderings/images from it, FormZ can render and texture but it's not nearly as good as other available software.

at this point, and i were you cryzko, i'd learn rhino (large learning curve) and a 2rd party renderer like Vray

fwiw: i fucking hate sketchup because i learned to model in autocad, formZ, and 3ds max...

... my $.02

bonzai has not been released yet

i can model in autocad..... not like super blobs morphed out dogg poop looking like stuff.... but more for production/cd's work

so if i model a form in cad.... considering that my work doesnt use morphs..... if i import it into maya, would i have issues with surfaces/wireframes?

thanks
b

anyone mess with solid works.... i guess thats the program to use in furniture/manufacturing type applications

hey cryz, it sounds like you have some acad skills, so i would take up anti's suggestion of the rhino-maxwell combo. rhino has a similar interface to autocad. it may be a little trickier to learn than the other 3d programs you named because it is capable of more, but i think you'll like the cnc capabilities rhino offers which lends itself to furniture design. rhino has the best mix of modeling and production capabilities imo.

I am personally very much in favor of 3d studio. Both because of its close link with autocad (file linking and all that), and the fact that it can produce decent results in no time without much effort (since the almighty mental ray was included). Sure, for modelling curvy, wavy stuff and animating whatever Maya or Rhino seems to be better, but those programs are a bit more complex, in my eyes.

And as far as sketchup goes: I've seen some decent output from people who used the Vray plugin. But other than that, it's a bit like comparing MS Paint with Photoshop. It's the idiots' version that lacks many important tools.

i'm messing with rhino now.... it's not bad..... just need to program the quick keys....

now what if i wanted to create an interior space. say i model the parts in cad or even the model in cad and toss it in max to materialize it.... would that be a good suggestion. i'm thinking about furthering some of my interior designs a bit and put some hottness to them.


since i can make "parts" in cad, would it be better to "assemble" them in max/viz for the larger interior projects.

furniture wish, i just want to make some teaser pics of my ideas.... even though i do sketch everything out and would end up prototyping the first edition.

having an issue importing a dwg into rhino... an error pops up something like rhdwg error

curious if i need a plugin or something....im gonna search around a bit to see if i figure it out.....

so far rhino seems to easiest to work with.

next step is to get the shop back running to prototype some pieces....

b

b welcome back - you were missed, seriously.

i would go for rhino, it's close to acad, it has most import/export options, even to illustrator and so on, reads pdf etc. and for rendering go for v-ray for rhino and it will look good and is quite easy to learn/use. It is also nice for 3d printing if that's what you want to make small scale models of your furniture and prototypes etc. and it is fairly easy to create "super blobs morphed out dogg poop" kind of stuff too, although that's not what you're afer I suppose. good luck.

There are several other 3D apps that never seem to get mentioned. here's one you could consider in addition to rhino:

Modo from Luxology - it's fairly cheap compared to other 3D apps - great sculpting tools, the renderings look good, has sketchup, rhino, and DWG import, and it's fairly intuitive and easy to learn (compared to others, like Maya, max, XSI, etc...). Plus they have free training online. It's a subD, not NURBS modeling, though... and the snapping tools leave something to be desired. but - you should definitely play around with it.

i had to save it down to 2000 dwg to import to rhino.... only issue now is that imports lines instead of solids..... i had a simple stand i did and made it 3d in cad, but import, all the edges turned to lines. i'm sure it's a setting buried deep within depths of the tools/options/wtf/figureitout/shit pulldown



thanks techno.......

Cryzyko

"ACISout" is the command you want to take your solids from autocad to Rhino


welcome to the Bright side.