[kasperl]

ok, read this before you vote:

i am going to design an interior for school, a house, a flat, something like that. i have no real knowledge of 3D programs right now, i can combine primitives in TS5 and that's it. now, i need to choose my program. the demands are:

1) easy to do exact locating (type in the sizes and get the exact thingy on screen)
2) somewhat easy to learn, i am not completely stupid, but not a genius either.
3) support for texturing stuff. (might look stupid, but considering 1 it's worth to mention)
4) compatible with free viewers. (i can hardly turn this in with a "free" version of something expensive going along with it)
5) "easy to get" (do i have to explain?)
6) has to run under win98SE AND XP and, if possible, RedHat linux.
edit:
7) has to be able to completely design anytihng and everything to spec, easily. not just prefab furniture or stuff like that.
/edit
now, i already have TS, so i am leaning towards that, but everything is possible.

[Carl]

you probably want a cad cam program. there are certain ones designed soley for interior decorating. but if i were you, i'd stick to TS5, since you already have it, and you've fiddled with it already.

[kasperl]

well, "have" isn't completely true, but i have obtained a working copy. and cad i get, but cad cam?

[an0n]

Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacture.

Just get one of those $5 Interior Decorator Super Ultra++ 9 CD's.

[kasperl]

no thank you.

i got one of those POS's OEM with this box, one disc. worthless, really, you couldn't do ****e. designing anything was impossible, there was a very, very tiny library of furniture, and the 3d engine looked like it was ripped from lego island.

[aldo_14]

I'm semi tempted to suggest radient, the Quake3 editor.  Probably lacks useful furniture though.

[kasperl]

well, it needs to be viewable for a complete moron too, my teacher is dumber then you can imagine.

she tries to boot a machine to show a Powerpoint thingy, and she enters the BIOS and starts screwing around with it.

[Unknown Target]

There's some homeowner's software you could use. It's part of that free program package they won't shut up about on TV.

[kasperl]

lets just pretend that i'm not from the states and have no idea what your talking about.

[HotSnoJ]

I'd suggest blender. *runs*


1) Just press the "n" key.
2)I'm not a genius either, but I figured it out. You really only need to know a few things to make stuff. "G"=grab/move, "R"=rotate, "S"=resize/scale. And to move/scale/rotate stuff in messured amounts use "Ctrl" and "Ctrl+Shift" for smaller movements.
3) It's similar to Lithunwrap only worse in UV postioning control options. But it should work just fine.
4) Version 2.25 supports exe compiling (sp?). Meaning you can make your own viewing programs. You'll need to know how to use the game engine stuff. But it should be pretty self explainitory since you can make simple viewing exe with the GUI. Version 2.23 and below cannot make self exe's, you must use the viewer within blender (still not hard though). I'd recommend the newer community builds for any rendering you may do though.
5) mirrors all over the place
6) It can run in just about every OS. (I've used it on Win98 and WinXP)
7) "G+Ctrl" moves things at 1 meter intervals, "G+Ctrl+Shift" moves things at .1 meter intervals. "R+Ctrl" rotates in 5 degree intervals, "R+Ctrl+Shift" rotates in 1 degree intervals. "S+Ctrl" scales in .1 intervals, "S+Ctrl+Shift" scales in .01 intervals. "S->X" or "S->Y" mirrors along the x/y axis, just do this in top, side, or front views and you shouldn't have troubles. Keep in mind that "Ctrl" and "Shift" do the same here as with just scaling something.


If you have any questions just ask.

[Unknown Target]

It's...uhh....crap. I can't remember the name. It's made SPECIFICALY for what you're talking about. It might be interior home design 4, or w/e.

You also might want to try The Sims

[mikhael]

Use the program you're familiar with. There's absolutely no point in learning another program for a single task.

If, however, you're absolutely bent on learning another program, CAD is the way to go. I use AutoCAD, myself.

[kasperl]

my dad has AutoCAD light.

i am NOT good at it, and the learning curve seems steeper then phyiscly possible. i think i'll just grab some more TS tuts.

[mikhael]

Dude. AutoCAD has got to be the easiest thing ever. Its got a lot of tools that I wish would be brought over into Lightwave and other 3d modelling and animation packages.

I taught myself AutoCAD in about 3hrs back when I was in highschool so I could lie my way into a junior draftsman position. My first job ever.

[Stryke 9]

How similar is AutoCAD to Studio MAX, I'm wondering? 'Cos they look quite a lot alike to me, and hell, they're even both made by the same people...

[Beowulf]

Hell -- if you don't have to dimension it, use TS. I made one of Venturi's houses in it for class (3.2). Took me a couple hours.
http://nsys.web1000.com/images/venturi.jpg


~Beowulf

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
How similar is AutoCAD to Studio MAX, I'm wondering? 'Cos they look quite a lot alike to me, and hell, they're even both made by the same people...

Unfortunately, not very similar at all. The basic design put together by Autodesk back in the day shares similarity with what Kinetix designed, but that's about it. Most of the CAD functionality is missing entirely.

[Stryke 9]

Trippy. If only it wasn't bloody expensive.


Well, if only Kazaa worked on my connection, I guess would be the real issue.

[Sandwich]

Rhino3D is easy to learn, precise, and powerful. On the downside, it costs beyond a 30-day trial or something, texturing is limited to one image per face, no mapping coords used, and it doesn't have any easy-to-use format to export to like an .exe. Supports DXF and 3DS, though.