CompuServe Messages

Dear Steve: Hi! Just thought I'd be another voice from the dead of nite… Although I'm a proficient AutoCAD user (nine years experience teaching AutoCAD 2D & 3D to Architects and engineers in the US and UK) I can't whole heartedly agree that AutoCAD is the only place to make your 3DS models for Architectural animations… If you have a product like ASG (or Archibus) or one of a dozen other 3D architecture apps that make architectural floor plans in 3D (and draw walls, windows, doors, furniture) then its great to use AutoCAD to develop interiors… But I like to loft the outsides of my buildings in 3DS from 2D Elevations created in AutoCAD. (Actually there is a very nice little product called FACADE which will do this inside AutoCAD – i.e. develop 3d elevation panels from 2D elevations). Once the elevations are in the 2d shaper, I assign them and loft them on a thin path to make solid facades. That is because I find it hard to make very nice looking (detailed) elevations in 3D in AutoCAD without resorting to some very repetitive 3D commands (extrusions, surfaces, on bad days a little ame). And making sure all the pieces are on the right layer (so they become independent objects that you can assign materials too without working magic in 3ds — EEK) If you don't have a third party application or an existing library of 3D furniture (door and window routines that create headers and sills) then even some of your interiors might be easier in 3DS… I've heard from Architects/interior designers who say: My ACAD models are too big, render slow, have two many faces. I hate arranging my AutoCAD drawings by innumerable layers that are useful only for conversion to 3DS. I hate using Select Face and Create Face Detach to liberate my walls so I can apply materials to the darn things. Why buy 3DS if I have to create my models in AutoCAD? There are a number of 24 bit rendering applications that create animations in AutoCAD (ARE-24 for example). My AutoCAD Furniture doesn't have smoothing groups so it looks ugly in 3DS. 3DS furniture (from a variety of sources) has different materials already applied to it so it looks better, the furiture also has fewer faces which matters when you have 200 chairs …. I don't like having to create 'working plans' just to create an animation. Anyway – I have worked both ways so I don't have an extremely strong preference, I just thought I should point out some of the hassles. (In the 3DS Applied book I put in one tutorial on interior design, and one on creating architectural models from elevations created in AutoCAD). Sorry to butt in… N.