Learning ArchiCAD is a pain! Any good books out there?

[Anonymous]

Hey all,

I recently have begun making the switch from PCs to Macs. One of the things I was looking forward to was utilizing ArchiCAD and C4d; two programs which I have seen, but have never used.

I downloaded the demo of ArchiCAD 10 and used it until the trial ran out and for the past week have been going through the demo of ArchiCAD 11.

I have to say, ArchiCAD seems like it has so much capability, but I just can't get my arms around the interface. It seems so bulky and distracting to me. I know not everyone will agree with me, but coming from Revit, ArchiCAD is simply, well, (man I know this will get me a bunch of insults) amateurish.

To me, Revit feels like it was designed by Mac users and ArchiCAD feels like it was designed by the chubby guy from the Mac ads, i.e. a PC dude.

There are a million pulldown menus, with overly complicated names. For example, what the heck is "Creative Imaging!" Why not just have a simple title like, drum roll please, "Rendering"? I can't adjust levels, (uh, sorry, Stories) on the fly. I have to right click and select "Edit Story Levels." There's another weird name by the way...isn't a story and a level the same thing? BTW, if I drag a story, the walls that are supposed to go up to that story, don't automatically adjust themselves to the new height..???? Maybe I just haven't turned that on in some weird menu / pulldown / dialog box. Geez!

I learned the bulk of Revit without having to use a manual for the most part. With ArchiCAD I am completely lost. The settings for each of the objects like doors and windows open up and frankly scare me. There are a million things to set, push, activate, etc. As I said, this makes for a very robust piece of software, AND THAT IS GOOD, but give what I need when I need it, not all up front in my face.

So, what I am doing here, just bitching? Well, a little of course, but to say that I'm not giving up on ArchiCAD just yet. I just haven't seen the light yet I guess. Can someone suggest a book, a good book, that goes step by step in the design of a house or a building or something?

OK. I've said my fair share, now let me have it.

[Laura Yanoviak]

deesee wrote:
Can someone suggest a book, a good book, that goes step by step in the design of a house or a building or something?

Actually, the book "Step by Step" by Tom Simmons is how I learned -- and the Tutorial provided by Graphisoft is usually pretty good (although I haven't checked out the AC11 version yet).

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tip. I saw that, but it is for Version 6 (at least that's what I saw on Amazon). Is there something more up to date?

[Laura Yanoviak]

It's been updated to at least AC10: see Archivista's website

[Anonymous]

Awesome! Buying it right now.

I will say this by the way, at least Maxwell Render, which is what I use, has a plugin for ArchiCAD, whereas Revit does not. Pretty cool.

[TomWaltz]

deesee wrote:
I have to say, ArchiCAD seems like it has so much capability, but I just can't get my arms around the interface. It seems so bulky and distracting to me. I know not everyone will agree with me, but coming from Revit, ArchiCAD is simply, well, (man I know this will get me a bunch of insults) amateurish.

yeah, Archicad is not exactly a great interface kind of program 😞

I learned the bulk of Revit without having to use a manual for the most part. With ArchiCAD I am completely lost. The settings for each of the objects like doors and windows open up and frankly scare me. There are a million things to set, push, activate, etc. As I said, this makes for a very robust piece of software, AND THAT IS GOOD, but give what I need when I need it, not all up front in my face.

That was the one thing I loved about Revit when I demoed it... it was really easy to click around and figure out (at least in 2003)

Can someone suggest a book, a good book, that goes step by step in the design of a house or a building or something?

I agree, the Step by Step is a decent book for pretty low cost. I would also recommend a call to your local reseller. Since you're based in Virginia, that puts you in AEC Info Systems country www.aecinfosystems.com (the same reseller I have, home of the Wonder Twins: Ransom Ratcliff and Brian Sykes). They are really great at support and can probably help you figure out what you need to know.

[Richard Morrison]

deesee wrote:
There are a million things to set, push, activate, etc. As I said, this makes for a very robust piece of software, AND THAT IS GOOD, but give what I need when I need it, not all up front in my face.

While it may be a little premature at this point, it should be encouraging to remember that you can pretty easily customize the interface to be as simple as you wish. If there are too many items on a tool, you can remove the extraneous stuff, and add it back in at a later time. I agree that the out-of-the-box interface is fairly daunting. As you get more familiar with it, it will seem less so, and even USEFUL to have all those choices handy.

[Erich]

I found the interface a bit overwhelming initially as well. The work environments posted on the Archicad East website at:

http://www.archicad.ca/?p=54

greatly helped make sense of things. You should check it out as well.

[Anonymous]

Tom Simmons "Step by Step for ArchiCAD 11" began shipping about a week ago-You can find it here:
http://cadgarage.com/archicadbooks1.html

Greg

[Andy Thomson]

deesee wrote:
To me, Revit feels like it was designed by Mac users and ArchiCAD feels like it was designed by the chubby guy from the Mac ads, i.e. a PC dude.

It was, only he is not chubby.

[Karl Ottenstein]

deesee wrote:
To me, Revit feels like it was designed by Mac users and ArchiCAD feels like it was designed by the chubby guy from the Mac ads, i.e. a PC dude..

It's funny to hear you say that! To many of us, Revit feels so totally-PC with its text dialogs that contain long, scrolling lists of settings/parameters. ArchiCAD feels more Mac-like with its mostly graphic interface, including pet-palettes, etc. (Some palettes, like Solid Element Ops, and the new tool setting palettes that appeared with AC version 10 appear to be more Revit-like, as GS has gone the route of scrolling lists. Argh.)

The complaint about the menu names is valid and is only one suggestion from GS marketing. The menus are 100% user customizable via the Work Environment, and it is easy to take your customized WE to any other computer.

Cheers,
Karl

[Andy Thomson]

Erich wrote:
I found the interface a bit overwhelming initially as well. The work environments posted on the Archicad East website at:

http://www.archicad.ca/?p=54

greatly helped make sense of things. You should check it out as well.

I am glad you found these helpful! I feel I owe an apology for the shabby state of the PC WE though*, it needs another go'round. We will repost these again soon, to be sure all add-ons load in the right place and that we can accommodate a range of display resolutions.

*Most of the contributors are mac users.

[Andy Thomson]

Erich wrote:
I found the interface a bit overwhelming initially as well. The work environments posted on the Archicad East website at:

http://www.archicad.ca/?p=54

greatly helped make sense of things. You should check it out as well.

Glad you found these helpful - we will be posting a revision soon, with better resolution ranges (not everyone has 1680-wide displays yet), and fixing some of the add-on issues.

I would say the look and feel is mostly mac, but the wide range of disparate popups (especially during loading) is aggravating, unaesthetic and generally very un-mac-like.

[alexdantec]

I need a manual too!... What is the anwer??? what is the name of the book???

[Laszlo Nagy]

The French Archicad User Guide (Online Help) can be found here:

https://help.graphisoft.com/AC/25/FRA/#t=_AC25_Help%2F001_ACHelpIntro%2F001_ACHelpIntro-1.htm

There is the Graphisoft Learn portal where there are some free learning resources:

https://learn.graphisoft.com/class_catalog/category/17701

(you will need to register and log in to see them and do them).

There is a course called "Getting Started with BIM", which is a free 5-hour long course.

There is another one called "Archicad for CAD Users", which is another free 5-hour long course.

[alexdantec]

thx for the reply but...i m asking for a book...paper...sure...without web or youtube

[Karl Ottenstein]

Almost no software vendors publish paper manuals/books any longer ... things change too quickly and too many trees would be wasted for books that become out of date within a year.   The manual that Laszlo gave you a link to does not require that you be online ... just download it once to your tablet/iPad or computer for reading offline.  Offline searching of an electronic book is way more powerful than trying to find something in a paper book, too.

[alexdantec]

hello, wich one? ...manual that Laszlo give me

there are 2 links in his message

[Laszlo Nagy]

I am not aware of any up-to-date book. If you search for "Archicad" on Amazon you will find several books but they are all older:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=archicad&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=PKWLRMDC91RO&sprefix=archicad%2Cstri...