[choo-chee]

thinking about substituting maya for a lighter,faster 3d app. As I do only arch-viz I don't need too much. any recommendations? I ask here because many of you use many other apps but all render with maxwell - so that's my main concern - how is maxwell combined with cinem4da, etc ?

[Nasok]

I would stay with Maya )
I like Maya

[seghier]

ARCHICAD ,SKETCHUP ,RHINO and BLENDER

[Mihai]

I think C4D has a bright future, and has a nice community around it. Lots of robust tools, seems to have great support and is stable. And also nice plugins available (not that so many seem necessary as they do for 3dsMax, because of Xpresso).

[mdfmuse]

My vote is also Cinema 4D. I recently came to C4D from Blender 3D- a free, open-source software. Blender is very good at modeling and texturing, but I always found it difficult to "wrap my head" around it. Blender doesn't use many graphic icons to represent actions you can take in the program, whereas C4D uses an icon for just about every possible action. I am more of a visual person, and appreciate the icons, which help me to quickly learn where actions are located and what the action is used for in C4D. I have been working with Maxwell v3 for C4D plugin, and can say it works well for texturing and rendering. In addition, there are websites which offer textured objects for sale which are available in both standard Maxwell (.MXS) and Maxwell/Cinema 4d plugin version (.C4D)- for instance, https://www.bentanji.com/latest

There are great plug-ins available (some free or low-cost, some $) for Cinema 4d too. Overall, for me, C4D is much easier to understand and use than my previous platform.

[seghier]

Blender doesn't use many graphic icons to represent actions you can take in the program

Do you tried this version with new interface ?
https://bforartists.de

[Nasok]

Seriously ? You guys are suggesting to Switch from Maya to Cinema ? )))) he would struggle.
Things that are so essential and easy to do in Maya are almost impossible to do in Cinema.
Cinema is great for non-textured, generic, abstract procedural motion graphics.
But ArchVis in cinema ? ) oh - good luck

I don't really like 3D Max as it is Cad based system but I would recommend 3D max. At least you have a proper modelling and UV mapping tools there. In arcViz he never need any expresso or animation stuff that cinema is all about
no offence

I guess everything is in comparison. Maybe it's a good idea to get a demo version and try doing a sample project

[choo-chee]

all opinions matter to me as I'm looking to get something that is lighter and of course cheaper than autodesk's stuff. as I've mentioned I do only arch-viz only with maxwell and since maxwell 4 is 3d-app dependent I must decide about the software Im gonna use. the de-noiser looks promising and I wish to move on from 3. however on last versions maya is slower, full of bugs and many things I don't need. looking on for your opinions !

[Nasok]

Well, then sigher is right Archicad and sketchup, my friends Architects use Revit for arch stuff.
I believe it is mainly depends on what do you need. Are you designing Architecture or visualising it ?
Do you need a proper floorpans, electricity schemes, piping and all that ? or you just need to do a visualisation of architecture.
T.

[mdfmuse]

Thanks, Seghier, for the shout-out to 'bforartists'. I did not know this existed, and it does look like it adds lots of icons to the standard Blender interface

[Mihai]

Seriously ? You guys are suggesting to Switch from Maya to Cinema ? )))) he would struggle.
Things that are so essential and easy to do in Maya are almost impossible to do in Cinema.

Could you elaborate? I don't use C4D yet but I think I'll switch to it since Softimage has been killed by Autodesk.

[choo-chee]

I only do arch-viz. no design, no planning, no way
I'm using a software called ARC+ for modelling architecture easy and fast.
Than move the models to maya so I can use maxwel and still keep some modelling done if needed.
And maxwell's plugin for maya is quite excellent but maya itself gets worse every year, however you must upgrade every few years as the plugin is being upgraded too..... (wish I could still use maya 7...from 10 years ago).
What will be easier to learn? c4d or skp? guess they have good plugins now too.

[seghier]

Of course sketchup easier to learn and there are alot of plugins which used for architectural design
But archicad is better specialy the new version 21 and with twinmotion 2018 you can create excellent visualisations
Archicad have alot of unique features and can export the designs to many render engines and softwares

[j_van_metre]

You might want to check out Rhino for Arch Viz.

Affordable software, robust forums, very good support...V5 has been out for a while. V6 is in beta and it's even better/faster for rendering from display and integrates "cycles" rendering engine from Blender. Looking forward to V6 and MW integration.

jvm

[arcmos]

Archviz interior or exterior?
Just using Maxwell or other render engines too?
Modeling accuracy?
Working style > eyeballing or cad like (exact, typing values....)?
Pipeline with other software?