Reluctant but neccesary change to revit, 3d max or other

aadbuild · 21 Feb 2011, 02:17

HI all, I have recievd a large increase of work and I need to employ a drafts man to help. I have had a couple of enquiries from many young designers. It is difficult to find a local Sketchup user where I live so I was wondering which program REVIT or 3D max is easier to.....

A transfer my materials and textures?

B transfer components

if so any advice?

I have over 1000 textures and models and I m not looking forward to doing it individually.

solo · 21 Feb 2011, 02:39

Andrew, just curious, why do you need someone locally? I mean with Internet, web chat, conference call etc, can you not find someone that can work remotely with you?

aadbuild · 21 Feb 2011, 03:41

I do have plenty of people across the world that do Sketchup but a lot of our new work is renovation and extension work and the coordination via the net is difficult. I find myself spending more time emailing than I do working. I need to get some one to work with me in my office and also do site measures....

tpstigers · 21 Feb 2011, 04:34

Wouldn't it just be easier to teach someone how to use SketchUp? It's not that hard.

watkins · 21 Feb 2011, 08:10

I think that Andrew would appreciate a simple answer to his question, if one exists. I'm sure that he has been though all the SU possibilities (work remotely, train up the new guy), but needs someone 'local' and who can hit the deck running (clients' want what they want yesterday). There is also the question of duration, i.e., will work come in at the same rate as it is now, if not, then what happens to the new guy? I suppose it's a question of what application interfaces best with SU. There must be someone out there who is using SU with one of these applications, and successfully.

On the plus side, Andrew and the new guy could swap expertise, and so both end up with new skill.

My comments are meant to be helpful, and are made politely.

Best wishes,

Bob

thomthom · 21 Feb 2011, 10:17

In my experience it's a pain to get material and components from Revit models. And I even suffer from a major problem where curved walls in Revit comes in to SU with lots of faces missing.

Gettings SU models into Revit is much easier as Revit reads .skp format.

brodie · 21 Feb 2011, 22:11

I'm not real familiar with Revit but from what I can recall it imports SU pretty well but doesn't export that well.

3ds Max 2011 can import SU models really well. It preserves components and materials. To get back to SU your best bet is .3ds or .dae from my experience. So long as you use Standard materials in 3ds Max (as opposed to Vray or something) the textures will export as well. I think you loose components going back to SU though, if I remember correctly.

-brodie

aadbuild · 22 Feb 2011, 01:41

Hey thanks Guys, I will get the dreaded 3d max sales person out to give me a run down. Australia needs some more Sketchupers, I tell every one I know how good it is but just cant seam to convince.... I think they think because its free it is not powerful?
I have taught 2 people sketchup in my office and they love it and then they leave and start their own business.

brodie · 22 Feb 2011, 17:01

Depending on what you do, I think you'll end up finding 3ds Max a very useful tool. I primarily use SU but I will often use 3ds Max to deal with high poly objects or objects I've downloaded from the web in .max format which is pretty common for high quality models. If you don't do rendering though, you'll probably not have need for high poly objects.

-brodie

Anssi · 22 Feb 2011, 18:46

Are you only doing visualization? I have never heard of anyone doing construction documents with 3DS Max.

I have lately been getting more familiar with Revit. As to exporting to SU from Revit, I did try it on a small project and it went quite well via 3D DWG. The reason was that I had all kinds of entourage things handy for SU so I rendered the model through SU.

Anssi

brodie · 22 Feb 2011, 19:02

By the way, you should contact Richard if you're looking for someone local. He's in Sydney and is great with SketchUp (as well as Maxwell Render). http://forums.sketchucation.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6918

-Brodie

aadbuild · 22 Feb 2011, 21:37

To be honest I have never used 3d max so I dont know what it does I guess I will do a bit of reading. Personally I know Sketchup like the back of my hand. I dont intend on learning another package unless it blows me out of the water and is as easy as Sketchup.
For my business unless I employ a designere with building experience and local council knowledge I end up doing most of the work myself. I do the rough concept design say takes about and hour. I then get it check measured, drawn and modeled accurately for customer approval and most importantly quantity take off. We,ve used Layout for 2 years until my last Sketchup trainee (12 months full time now a great sketchuper) went back to Uni to complete masters in Architecture ( apparently she is showing the people at Uni how to use Sketchup to its capacity). I now have an Auto CAD drafty to help but I need a professional 3d modeler to keep up with demand who wants to work 5 days a week....

@thomthom said:

In my experience it's a pain to get material and components from Revit models.

I can easily get local revit guys but before i forked out $5k on software I wanted to make sure I can import and export back to sketchup so that I dont have to learn another software package. The componet issue is a big one as well.

@tpstigers said:

On the plus side, Andrew and the new guy could swap expertise, and so both end up with new skill.
thanks Bob I had thought of that, can never have too many skills

@unknownuser said:

contact Richard

Thanks Brodie I will contact Richard today.

@anssi said:

Are you only doing visualization? I have never heard of anyone doing construction documents with 3DS Max.
I could get away with visualisations as long as I can export DWG to CAD. the drafty I have is very quick but it would be better if I could do 2d work from 3d software. ( I am teaching him SU but its amazing how 98% pick it up realy quickly and 2% just dont? maybe I need to spend more time

I guess I only have 2 options to ...
1 find another sketchuper who can use Layout

2 find a software package that integrates well with Sketchup that is regularly used down under.

I guess there is 1 more option. Does any one know anything about human cloning...

Thanks for your help guys. If anyone knows more let me know. You guys are a big help

To give you an idea of the finished product and why I need more people you can check out the finished products here http://www.sydneydesignerbuilder.com.au/home all of these houses were designed in Sketchup , quanity take offs done and details done in Sketchup. I have plenty more but have not had the time to add them.
BTW Sketchup helped me win a design contest late last year $10k first prize

This how I explain concept to engineer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAABLx0H9j4

fuzzion · 23 Feb 2011, 16:41

@aadbuild said:

Hey thanks Guys, I will get the dreaded 3d max sales person out to give me a run down. Australia needs some more Sketchupers, I tell every one I know how good it is but just cant seam to convince.... I think they think because its free it is not powerful?
I have taught 2 people sketchup in my office and they love it and then they leave and start their own business.

I know a few SU users in Perth. Infact, from what they tell me, SU is big in OZ Arch schools now. Even UWA arch course teaches students how to use them.