[choo-chee]

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?

both. only maxwell. precise. values. must be integrated in 3d app.

[arcmos]

Well, I can just give you some of my thoughts. At the end it's your decision

MAX
Widely used program, most 3D content, most plugins, a huge community, lots of tutorials and workshops, CAD like workflow (sometimes like AutoCAD or Inventor), good modeling tools, excellent dwg import

C4D
Also widely used but not so much as MAX, growing availability for 3D Models and plugins, great community, not really CAD like, modeling ok but not special, great great support with MSA (like subscription in Autodesk), great Maxwell integration in the C4D system, bad dwg import

Rhino
Easy to learn, great for CAD users because of the toolset and handling, price, Boolean are way better as in MAX and C4D, lack of available 3D Models (Render ready)

For price comparison you need the Cinema 4D Studio Version!! Otherwise you don't have Mograph wich in my mind makes no sense.

[Nasok]

@Mihai - sure. But first, don't get me wrong, I'm not agains C4D - in fact I'm sure it's a pretty solid piece of software for what is was designed for. In the matter of ArcViz - I believe C4D is not really an option simply because it's lack of proper UV workflow. For instance. Or, Light management. Or, render layers management, or render passes management. Or colour management Or even modelling tools.
I mean, again, don't get me wrong - I've seen pretty impressive images and animations done in C4D - mainly abstract, procedural, or object based.

I believe C4D is great for motion graphics. While if he want's to do ArcViz (where he would fix UVs, model extra stuff and etc) I would guess he would need a proper toolset for UVs and Modelling (at least). I'm not saying - STAY with MAYA, but essentially if you already know maya and it's pretty "alien" interface - I would stick with it. For couple reasons:

1st - yup, Maya offers much more than he needs at the moment. But hey, in that variety of tools you've got pretty descent selection of the ones you gonna use most.
2nd - Maya is node based and, keeps history (read non-destructive workflow)
3rd - Maya is the industry standard for all things 3D. And it's cross-platform (which is a big benefit these days)
4th - Right now you're doing ArcViz, but maybe tomorrow you'll be asked to do something else.

I think that 3D Max might be an option, however:
It is also Autodesk.
It is also almost as complex as Maya
It is also quite expensive (almost the same as Maya)
And, yup, it is still only on Windows machines (No Linux, no Mac OS)

beside those, I would say 3D Max fits best.

@choo-chee - Well think this, arcmos is right - Cinema4D without Mograph makes no sense .. but guess what - you'll unlikely to use mograph in your workflow, as it is mainly for procedural animation and motion design. You can get C4D with Mograph but the price tag would be same as Maya. Sketchup - is probably the easiest to learn (unless you want to consider Modo). But I know a few people who works in Arch industry, some of them use sketchup - and everything was fine until their boss asked for a better quality images. And for sure you can push the quality with textures, but ask anyone here, without a proper geometry and UV maps -even best textures are almost useless. In sketchup your modelling and uv mapping tools are super limited.

[Mihai]

But it looks like C4D has pretty solid UV tools. Looking at their page it says (about the UV tools):

ABF unwrapping and relaxing
LSCM unwrapping and relaxing
Interactive UV mapping by projection types
UV Editing
UV mapping to automatically remove seams
UV Peeler
UVs for Caps

That looks like more than 3dsMax or Maya has....?

[arcmos]

@Mihai
You can do this too with Maya and Max. Beside that, UV unwrapping isn't C4D's top feature. There are others

[Nasok]

But it looks like C4D has pretty solid UV tools. Looking at their page it says (about the UV tools):

ABF unwrapping and relaxing
LSCM unwrapping and relaxing
Interactive UV mapping by projection types
UV Editing
UV mapping to automatically remove seams
UV Peeler
UVs for Caps

That looks like more than 3dsMax or Maya has....?

Nuh man ) come on let's not start this ) You can't compare UV editing tools in Cinema and Maya .. it's just different weight categories.
for sure Max and Maya has much more tools for editing UV maps, especially if you have a tricky geometry like characters, trees, and complex hard surface stuff which should not have visible seams. It's just not even close But it might not be the matter of discussion - he might not need all those uv tools if his "trickiest" UV mapping would be for basic geometry like walls, floors, and simple furniture.

And I agree UV tools in C4D is not something people would consider C4D .. Mograph or Xpresso - probably are

[choo-chee]

UV tools are not that necessary for arch-viz. c'mon guys it's not that hard to project tiles textures on walls etc. .....
for me, maya is getting worse year after year, slower, buggier, more frustrating for me to continue using a piece of app that has bad undo and display issues. it sucks. it's great - yeah - but was much better 5 years ago. at least for me.

[arcmos]

UV tools are not that necessary for arch-viz

I totally agree

Maxon and Autodesk offer both rentals for C4D and Max. Monthly, 3 months and so on. Beside the 30 day trial of course. Try the programs and you'll see wich one is better suited for you. Both programs have their pros and cons. IMHO you don't make any mistake with Max or C4D.

[Nasok]

Well, I don't know, for me Maya got better, and even stable and faster in some ways.
Buggs ? oh, you haven't seen C4D bugs yet ) every app has them - it's just a matter of how bad they are for what you are doing.

UV mapping is not important ?? ) guys .. come on .. planar projection .. for walls and floors .. okay .. probably .. what if you got staircase ? or, a sofa ? or, a chair ? ... curtain ?

But, what ever floats your boat man - arcmos is right - try the trial and see what works for ya just don't forget to write a few lines here once you come back to maya ))

[dk2079]

I have to join this discussion

Have been using Rhino since 2000 for shape modelling and designing so it was a straight forward choice that I will be using it for rendering when I bought maxwell in 2007. (still studying architecture back then)

I have never looked at anything else yet, which for me, is also due to most of my clients actually providing Rhino files for rendering. Having nurbs in the background is much more flexible for all kinds of rendering tasks.

However Rhino is not that straight forward to use imho
It starts to shine once you have your aliases in place and ditch the toolbars, they are terrible.. the autocomplete in the command line helps though.

Furthermore the texturing tools (it even has UV unwrapping) are quite advanced; there are cutsom objects that you can use for mapping which I use often.

The thing is, Rhino is CAD.. all the tools are extremely precise when I am modelling in eg. in Maya my hands seem tied together
the texture display is quite solid, so you can use all standard scale/transform tools on the projectors and align them with great precision and good visual feedback.

And Rhino is super stable .. sometimes it stalls for a while, but I have so few crashes even with huge files.

What bugs me sometimes is that the camera implementation is really basic, no lens shift or serious perspective correction, but I get over that by using smaller lenses and setting up lens shift and region via FIRE.

Rhino also opens tons of file formats, for archviz if you get .dwg and need to work on line drawings to model stuff, that will do a good job..

I am happy to answer more questions I you should have any.

I also have a license for modo and a houdini indie, but it just takes ages to setup the archviz stuff I need in comparison to Rhino.. and the houdini plugin was dropped

and for any super fancy assets I use 3dCoat to create UVs and textures directly in 3d...


cheers,
daniel

[mdfmuse]

Well, obviously each person has very different likes and dislikes when it comes to modeling software . For those who are still interested in Cinema 4D (Mihai- I know you stated you were interested), I have been using it for a while and still enjoy the way it is set up very much. I love the easy icon-based layout of the program. I love the great integration between Cinema and Maxwell Render (Cinema 4D plug-in). The included Cinema 4D render engines (physical render and standard render) produce really great-looking output for quick 3D sketches (or even finished products- though neither is a ray-tracer per se- that is why you can use Maxwell plug-in!). The Cinema workflow seems logical and easy to follow. For instance, want to deform an object? Just add a deformer into the scene and make it a child of your object- all available deformers are grouped under one icon for easy access. Want to add a specific texture or other attribute to an object? Just assign a 'Tag' to the object- lots of tags are easily accessible. Yes, the UV functions may not be the most cutting-edge, but I have found Cinema's approach to UV's to be easy-to-follow and work with. Also, Maxon has a new BETA software out (BodyPaint) which will probably change or add functions to the existing UV set- Maxon tends to release new versions of Cinema 4D around August of each year- so just another month or so. I also have found the community of C4D users to be very involved and helpful.

There are different 'levels' of Cinema 4D available via the Maxon site (www.maxon.net) which sell for different amounts and offer different levels of functions, depending upon your needs-
- Cinema Broadcast: Create dynamic broadcast-quality graphics
- Cinema Prime: Geared toward graphic designers looking to add 3D to their toolset
- Cinema Visualize- Geared toward architects and designers
- ETC.

Here are some outside resources to enhance some functions of Cinema 4D- well worth looking at if you have an interest in Cinema 4D:

Free video tutorials (so you can get a feel for how to model in Cinema 4D):
- http://nikomedia.at/category/tutorials/cinema-4d/ (this guy produces very educational videos with top tips on C4D usage)
- https://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/#all (you can also sign-up for free for a comprehensive beginner's course on learning C4D)

Add-on script which enhances the available functions in Cinema 4D (ie: makes fairly easy workflow even easier, more logical, and faster):
- http://www.c4dstuff.com/products/hbmodellingbundle
Here is a screen-shot of some of the included functions:

HB_Model_Bundle.jpg

The author is about to release version 2.2 any day now, with further features. Follow the website's purchase links; I found it for sale for between $78-98 USD.

Great plug-in to achieve easy and creative lighting setups within Cinema 4D; product is called Nikomedias Scene Rig Pro- sells for only 10 Euro:
http://nikomedia.at/category/shop/

Excellent quality 3D objects, most textured and available for Cinema and Maxwell: www.bentanji.com

Hope this helps anyone who might be interested in using Cinema 4D and Maxwell.

[Nasok]

@mdfmuse

Maxon has a new BETA software out (BodyPaint) which will probably change or add functions to the existing UV set-

- um just a quick note BodyPaint been in cinema since 2000

[choo-chee]

my conclusion for now is that I need to start a company that will produce a software that integrates 'em all....damn.
no perfect solution.

[mdfmuse]

Nasok wrote:

"@mdfmuse
Maxon has a new BETA software out (BodyPaint) which will probably change or add functions to the existing UV set-
- um just a quick note BodyPaint been in cinema since 2000"

Yes, Nasok, I know BodyPaint has been available within Cinema for a long time. What I was saying in my post is that Maxon has released a new beta version of BodyPaint, which is an upgraded version with new ways to do things. They have rewritten the code and functions for BodyPaint to bring it more up-to-date.

[Nasok]

Sure, why not BodyPaint might be a great support for ArchViz ... right ?