Archicad the best solution?

[Anonymous]

Greetings all,

My partner is currently studying interior design, and has begun tackling courses involving room and furniture design. Being a 3d modeller in the past, i know what a viscious learning curve any software in this realm carries. Primarily she needs to be able to design interiors, inculding kitchen cabinetry etc, and my wish is that she be able to output quality 3d renders of her environments with as great ease as possible. I am far from impressed with auto-cads native renderer.

Her college recommends archicad for students doing architectural design, but have little recommendation outside this software. Hence i'm here to ask, Is archicad a suitable solution for an interior designer - or has anyone a recommendation where else to look? I have been unable to locate anything of a professional level that seems focused towards interior designers.

Any suggestions, or direction would be fantastic

Charles

[Brett Brown]

Have a look at Chief Architect

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, i've looked at home design and cheif architect a few months back and the render output on them was very average. i feel i'm at a point where i need an architecturally sound starting point, then a 2nd program to ship out the model to to add furniture, textures, lighting etc for best quality render output?

So would it be best to start with archicad and then once finished modelling an interior, send it to something else for adding furniture - even 3dsmax or something? is this heading in the right direction, or is there a more compatible 3d program?

[Anonymous]

Hi!

What about SketchUp? There is a lot of free components and there are two versions, free and pro.

Regards :

Antonio.

[Dwight]

If you need the most professional renderings with the most varied and complete entourage choices, AutoDesk's 3DS Max remains the dominant product.

It is also the most difficult to use.

Archicad users mainly export to Cinema 4D and Artlantis.

Cinema is beautiful - AND a modeler capable of NURBS.
Artlantis is simple and quick.

Archicad's library and other sources of furniture objects should meet your student friend's needs unless they are seriously into that Louis XIV with the brocaded dingle balls stuff.

They should start with Archicad and Artlantis.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply, i was happy with the artlantis rendered images in the samples somwhere on this website, i've used 3dsmax quite a lot for a long time now, however i'll definately check out cinema and artlantis..

I am after professional renderings, however functionality and ease of use is important too, for time saving. I'll sample artlantis + archicad tonight, as well as look into cinema4d - already using 3dsmax to assist with rendering her current project modelled autocad.

thanks again

[Dwight]

Your nickname reminds me of:

"I saw a man walking with a three legged pig. I asked "How does your pig have three legs?"
He said "This pig saved me from a house fire AND pushed me out of the way of a speeding bus. A good pig like that you don't eat all at once."

[Anonymous]

"Spider Pig, Spider Pig,
Does whatever a Spider Pig does"

D'oh

[Richard Morrison]

Walkingpig wrote:
Her college recommends archicad for students doing architectural design, but have little recommendation outside this software. Hence i'm here to ask, Is archicad a suitable solution for an interior designer - or has anyone a recommendation where else to look? I have been unable to locate anything of a professional level that seems focused towards interior designers.

Any suggestions, or direction would be fantastic

Charles

Depends on her focus. If primarily residential, I would encourage you to take another look at Chief Architect. It has, by far, the largest library of residential furnishings available. The rendering you may find to be much improved, as well. However, you can always export the model and render in whatever program you like, such as Artlantis or C4D. The BH&G Home Designer Pro software may be a better value for what you need, though. (Same program as Chief Architect, but dumbed down a bit.)

If her focus is commercial design, then Archicad (perhaps the new START edition) could be the way to go.

[Richard Morrison]

Walkingpig wrote:
i feel i'm at a point where i need an architecturally sound starting point, then a 2nd program to ship out the model to to add furniture, textures, lighting etc for best quality render output?

BTW, isn't your partner supposed to be the one doing the school work?