CompuServe Messages

Phillip- Have you tried visual link? It takes care of everything you just remarked about (I think). Your right though, AME is cumbersome and probably wasteful. Do you just create models right in Studio then? As an architect, we use Acad right from the front end, so it is easy for me to get files from whoever did the plan, and quickly extrude it into a building, leaving openings for windows etc.. For simple buildings like these (I usually dont even refer to these as architecture), Facade (or equal) may be the answer. But what if the architect has the ability to create something more; real architecture? For me anyway, going this route is much faster than creating the geometry from scratch in 3DS. But to each there own. On some of the homes I design at home, they can get very complex (curved surfaces, etc); perhaps something like Facade is better for simple extruded floor plans, but for more artistic shapes that we architects strive to achieve, maybe AME is not so bad a modeller. This is just my opinion 🙂 Thanks for the reply- Joe p.s. Most architects use the cardboard approach to creating buildings; but there are a lot of us who creat buildings as solids; they are solids that are merely hollowed out and inhabited by people. When you use this approach and AME, you can come up with some pretty interesting designs. But using a cardboard approach can greatly inhabit the creative process, because of its great limitations. BUT, 95% of the buildings you see are the cardboard type; it is very rare that one of the "real" designs can actually get built. So I do understand you rational.