archicad or allplan ?

[Anonymous]

Hi, i am a new user of archicad, learning by myself. I have just finished a detached 3 storeys house. It need work on photorealism but i don't know any redering programm. I ask to buy the archicad but they suggest to me to buy the allplan programm, as allplan has bought the archicad. What programm is better on photorealistic projects? Archicad seems to me more easier in use. Can i make good photorealistic project with that? Any suggestions?
Thanks !!!!!

[Anonymous]

Several years ago when I started a new job I had to learn Allplan, because this firm worked with it. I found it to be a very difficult program to learn and work with. Six months later we made a revolution and migrated the whole firm to Archicad. I have never wished to go back to Allplan any more! I had a colleague at this firm who had worked on Allplan for two years - I taught her Archicad and she also confirmed AC was much easier to use! She works on AC and Autocad today!

It is very stupid to buy a new CAD program just to make some realistic renderings! Especially if you already have a decent renderer in AC! You got the wrong advice!

There are rendering programs which are much cheaper than Allplan (Art.lantis)! There are many free ones too (Indigo)! There is also ArtLantis demo, which could do the job!

To the question whether Allplan had a better rendering engine than AC - who cares? You already have AC! If you have to spend a pile of money for rendering, spend it on something decent like Maya and VRay!

[Shivang Rajvir]

Yes you can use ArchiCAD for Photorealistic Rendering.

LightWorks rendering can serve your purpose.

But my experience with both the software says you need to work hard to get good quality.

another option in Artlantis which renders ArchiCAD models very nicely.

[Laszlo Nagy]

The fact that Nemetschek (the developer of AllPlan) has bought Graphisoft (the developer of ArchiCAD) does not mean that these two are not still competing products, being constantly developed. It is normal that one company offers several solutions in the same field, especially in this global consolidating business environment: Nemetschek offers AllPlan, ArchiCAD and Vectorworks. Autodesk offers AutoCAD Light, AutoCAD, Architectural Desktop (I don't know if it is still called that) and Revit Architecture.
So one should investigate all options and pick the one serving his purposes best.