Hexagon for Architectural Modeling - Polyloop

Chico Maracas · 22nd January 2007, 09:19

If anyone use hexagon for architectural modeling, please let me know, im sure that hexagon is a powewrful tool for free modeling, but, it gets a little bit frustrating when the parametrical job comes, i dont know if its me or anyone else have the same problem, i love hexagon so thats why i want to use it for architectural modeling too !!!!!!

Tunesy · 22nd January 2007, 11:02

I just started this small house using Hex tonight. Still a lot to do on it yet. It's fine for my purposes as a hobbyist. I don't know if it's sufficient for people who do this stuff for a living though.

Tunesy · 22nd January 2007, 21:19

In this pic it's a little further along. I'll map it and texture it when I have time in the next few days. I like Hex for this kinda thing, although I'm antsy for the new Amapi

Chico Maracas · 23rd January 2007, 05:15

thanks tunesy, i need hexagon to model houses or any kind of buildings but in a parametric way, not just proportional to the reality, maybe if you know more about amapi and how it uses parameters, meybe its better than hexagon for that type of work.

Couerl · 23rd January 2007, 06:19

If you ask me, Hexagon is not suited for doing architecture to scale like houses. You are better off getting a cheap program like floorplan (10-30 bucks) and importing to Carrara or some other program to shade and render it.
Or maybe even better would be turbocad for around 40-100 bucks (depending on the version, check purplus.com) and then you can take your 2d dxf drawings and loft them on import into 3d models in Carrara or Hexagon. Hex will bring dxf in as a single object whereas Carrara will preserve the groups so it's a bit more editable. The meshes are generally a little messy, but not too bad. Point is that in order to do something like that in Hex will take you many, many hours and to do in a 10 dollar house modeler will take 20minutes or so. Here's a few sample houses done in floorplan and imported to Carrara if you want to look. A little cleaning up and shading and maybe make the terrains and furniture in Hex and that sort of thing and you'll have a Frank Loyd Wright style prarie house in no time. ;)
http://3dsplash.com/Houses/Forms/AllItems.aspx

bwtr · 23rd January 2007, 06:43

And don't forget the Architools plugin for Carrara.

Chico Maracas · 23rd January 2007, 18:35

thank you guys !!!! i want to know more about carrara architectural tools, i will investigate !!!

rickei · 23rd January 2007, 21:47

Architools for Carrara is a pretty good plug in. the roof part is not as good as i had hoped, and the basic objects(door window, etc.) are very basic, but you can model your own custom doors and windows.

I did some houses over the rescent holidays in Hex and it took for freakin ever... and these were very basic houses... I will not do it again.

http://forums.polyloop.net/3d-work-p...tml#post116342

have you looked at Google Sketchup. it's actually quite impressive. the pro version exports to all kinds of formats.
it's pretty fun to use too!

markbremmer · 23rd January 2007, 22:46

Here's one I'm working on. I just finished the modeling in Hex and am now taking it into Carrara to texture.

Mark

Couerl · 24th January 2007, 08:10

Gotta admit the guy has skills. ;) I've done fairly detailed interiors in Hex and it's not so much that Hex can't do this, but how much time did it take and also, is it hollow or complete with interior doors, walls etc? Also, Hex's measuring system just seems more suited to eyeballing things and not really doing stuff like that exactly to scale. I'm curious to hear your observations though Mark. How long did it take and what were the obstacles and stuff. You did a real nice job by the looks of it.

markbremmer · 24th January 2007, 13:42

This is a skin only that will have photographic textures on it for a television animation. It was a little less than two hours to model. For precision, I do the same thing I do in Carrara - create my base cross sections in Illustrator and then import them.

Where Hex really shines here is being able to change the working plan quickly for dynamic extrusion for the window. Additionally, quickly being able to extract edges and then sweep cross sections for the eaves made teh detailing a snap. The other thing I really liked was having all of the clones (shutters around the windows) ALL update when I made changes to the master.

For texturing, at least for me, I get better control in Carrara - probably operator error in this case. But sometimes I was having issues selecting poloygons and naming the shading domains. So, I simply created simple domains and now am getting far more detailed in creating them in Carrara.

bwtr · 24th January 2007, 18:41

Mark I could write a book with questions to ask about your last post. In other words, everything you said would be welcomed in a tute. With what you seem to be able to do with Hexagon would send me on the road to multiple system crashes. I have given it away until the corrective updates arrive.

markbremmer · 24th January 2007, 19:19

I'll see if can squeeze in a tutorial - some 14 hour days lately. :-/

If you have some specific questions then please ask away. I can do questions :D

bwtr · 24th January 2007, 20:27

Mark, watching the sequence of your working events as you did those buildings in total would be wow to see when you can make the time please.

Patrick210 · 24th January 2007, 20:40

"For texturing, at least for me, I get better control in Carrara - probably operator error in this case. But sometimes I was having issues selecting poloygons and naming the shading domains. So, I simply created simple domains and now am getting far more detailed in creating them in Carrara."

Extracting is so easy in Hexagon, I usually pull apart everthing in the end and shade it separately in Carrara. Seems easier to handle for me. Nice model, btw. I'm probably going to be doing a lot of pre-viz pretty soon myself for a high end landscape architect. They do a lot of hardscape and signage along with landscape for really big projects, very cool stuff. Also, have you seen this co. out of Miami? They do high end architecture pre-viz with animations also, pretty nice. They were on the cover of that Arch pre-viz supplement to 3D World a while back.

http://spine3d.com/

Patrick

Couerl · 24th January 2007, 22:03

I break it all down too and then drag/drop or do simple UV'ing in Carrara. Pretty neat site and I'm guessing they use Auto-Cad and 3DSMax or something like that for their pipeline.

I'd say that if/when Carrara would import .dxf as a vertex it would open up a pretty nice alternative pipeline for the CAD community and make shading Architectural things like this much simpler in Carrara.

I picked up an Architectural book last week and will be spending some more time doing this sort of thing this year. It's a little more attractive to me than modeling musclebound hulks and displacing raisin skinned hags. ;)

markbremmer · 26th January 2007, 16:49

If you're interested, here's how the textures are developing on the model. They're not done yet but well on the way...

mykyl1966 · 26th January 2007, 19:25

Mark, I too would be interested in a tutorial of a kind. One thing though. On your website you have tutorials and state that they can be had for $30 or more if you want premium. I cant find any for $30. Vtc lists the carrara ones as £79.95 which is today $156.80.

Is there something wrong or am I missing something.

Cheers

Mike R

markbremmer · 26th January 2007, 19:37

If you select the "online learning" link at the top of the VTC page, it will take you to the $30 version.

I'll see what I can put together for the Carrara Darks Arts on this. The texturing has taken 3 times longer than the modeling.

Mark

carrozza · 26th January 2007, 21:17

Hello Mark!
One question about your nice work: did you UV map the model in Hexagon before importing it in Carrara?
Could you show how the UV looks like? (if it's not Top Secret :-)

22nd January 2007, 09:19	#1 (permalink)
Chico Maracas Vertex Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Mexicali, Mexico Posts: 15	Hexagon for Architectural Modeling If anyone use hexagon for architectural modeling, please let me know, im sure that hexagon is a powewrful tool for free modeling, but, it gets a little bit frustrating when the parametrical job comes, i dont know if its me or anyone else have the same problem, i love hexagon so thats why i want to use it for architectural modeling too !!!!!!

22nd January 2007, 11:02	#2 (permalink)
Tunesy Cube Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 75	I just started this small house using Hex tonight. Still a lot to do on it yet. It's fine for my purposes as a hobbyist. I don't know if it's sufficient for people who do this stuff for a living though. Attached Thumbnails

22nd January 2007, 21:19	#3 (permalink)
Tunesy Cube Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 75	In this pic it's a little further along. I'll map it and texture it when I have time in the next few days. I like Hex for this kinda thing, although I'm antsy for the new Amapi Attached Thumbnails

23rd January 2007, 22:46	#9 (permalink)
markbremmer Escaping to 3D worlds... Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 176	Here's one I'm working on. I just finished the modeling in Hex and am now taking it into Carrara to texture. Mark Attached Thumbnails __________________ Mark Bremmer Beginner, intermediate and advanced Carrara tutorials are here.

24th January 2007, 13:42	#11 (permalink)
markbremmer Escaping to 3D worlds... Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 176	This is a skin only that will have photographic textures on it for a television animation. It was a little less than two hours to model. For precision, I do the same thing I do in Carrara - create my base cross sections in Illustrator and then import them. Where Hex really shines here is being able to change the working plan quickly for dynamic extrusion for the window. Additionally, quickly being able to extract edges and then sweep cross sections for the eaves made teh detailing a snap. The other thing I really liked was having all of the clones (shutters around the windows) ALL update when I made changes to the master. For texturing, at least for me, I get better control in Carrara - probably operator error in this case. But sometimes I was having issues selecting poloygons and naming the shading domains. So, I simply created simple domains and now am getting far more detailed in creating them in Carrara. __________________ Mark Bremmer Beginner, intermediate and advanced Carrara tutorials are here. Last edited by markbremmer; 24th January 2007 at 14:12.

23rd January 2007, 05:15	#4 (permalink)
Chico Maracas Vertex Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Mexicali, Mexico Posts: 15	thanks tunesy, i need hexagon to model houses or any kind of buildings but in a parametric way, not just proportional to the reality, maybe if you know more about amapi and how it uses parameters, meybe its better than hexagon for that type of work.

23rd January 2007, 06:19	#5 (permalink)
Couerl Polygurbs Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Denver Posts: 1,301	If you ask me, Hexagon is not suited for doing architecture to scale like houses. You are better off getting a cheap program like floorplan (10-30 bucks) and importing to Carrara or some other program to shade and render it. Or maybe even better would be turbocad for around 40-100 bucks (depending on the version, check purplus.com) and then you can take your 2d dxf drawings and loft them on import into 3d models in Carrara or Hexagon. Hex will bring dxf in as a single object whereas Carrara will preserve the groups so it's a bit more editable. The meshes are generally a little messy, but not too bad. Point is that in order to do something like that in Hex will take you many, many hours and to do in a 10 dollar house modeler will take 20minutes or so. Here's a few sample houses done in floorplan and imported to Carrara if you want to look. A little cleaning up and shading and maybe make the terrains and furniture in Hex and that sort of thing and you'll have a Frank Loyd Wright style prarie house in no time. ;) http://3dsplash.com/Houses/Forms/AllItems.aspx

23rd January 2007, 06:43	#6 (permalink)
bwtr Brian Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: South Australia Posts: 2,096	And don't forget the Architools plugin for Carrara.

23rd January 2007, 18:35	#7 (permalink)
Chico Maracas Vertex Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Mexicali, Mexico Posts: 15	thank you guys !!!! i want to know more about carrara architectural tools, i will investigate !!!

23rd January 2007, 21:47	#8 (permalink)
rickei Respect the Dawg! Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: USA - Conway, South Carolina Posts: 791	Architools for Carrara is a pretty good plug in. the roof part is not as good as i had hoped, and the basic objects(door window, etc.) are very basic, but you can model your own custom doors and windows. I did some houses over the rescent holidays in Hex and it took for freakin ever... and these were very basic houses... I will not do it again. http://forums.polyloop.net/3d-work-p...tml#post116342 have you looked at Google Sketchup. it's actually quite impressive. the pro version exports to all kinds of formats. it's pretty fun to use too!

24th January 2007, 08:10	#10 (permalink)
Couerl Polygurbs Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Denver Posts: 1,301	Gotta admit the guy has skills. ;) I've done fairly detailed interiors in Hex and it's not so much that Hex can't do this, but how much time did it take and also, is it hollow or complete with interior doors, walls etc? Also, Hex's measuring system just seems more suited to eyeballing things and not really doing stuff like that exactly to scale. I'm curious to hear your observations though Mark. How long did it take and what were the obstacles and stuff. You did a real nice job by the looks of it.

24th January 2007, 18:41	#12 (permalink)
bwtr Brian Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: South Australia Posts: 2,096	Mark I could write a book with questions to ask about your last post. In other words, everything you said would be welcomed in a tute. With what you seem to be able to do with Hexagon would send me on the road to multiple system crashes. I have given it away until the corrective updates arrive.

24th January 2007, 19:19	#13 (permalink)
markbremmer Escaping to 3D worlds... Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 176	I'll see if can squeeze in a tutorial - some 14 hour days lately. :-/ If you have some specific questions then please ask away. I can do questions :D __________________ Mark Bremmer Beginner, intermediate and advanced Carrara tutorials are here.

24th January 2007, 20:27	#14 (permalink)
bwtr Brian Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: South Australia Posts: 2,096	Mark, watching the sequence of your working events as you did those buildings in total would be wow to see when you can make the time please.

24th January 2007, 20:40	#15 (permalink)
Patrick210 Pixar want to hire me! Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Florida, USA Posts: 549	"For texturing, at least for me, I get better control in Carrara - probably operator error in this case. But sometimes I was having issues selecting poloygons and naming the shading domains. So, I simply created simple domains and now am getting far more detailed in creating them in Carrara." Extracting is so easy in Hexagon, I usually pull apart everthing in the end and shade it separately in Carrara. Seems easier to handle for me. Nice model, btw. I'm probably going to be doing a lot of pre-viz pretty soon myself for a high end landscape architect. They do a lot of hardscape and signage along with landscape for really big projects, very cool stuff. Also, have you seen this co. out of Miami? They do high end architecture pre-viz with animations also, pretty nice. They were on the cover of that Arch pre-viz supplement to 3D World a while back. http://spine3d.com/ Patrick

24th January 2007, 22:03	#16 (permalink)
Couerl Polygurbs Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Denver Posts: 1,301	I break it all down too and then drag/drop or do simple UV'ing in Carrara. Pretty neat site and I'm guessing they use Auto-Cad and 3DSMax or something like that for their pipeline. I'd say that if/when Carrara would import .dxf as a vertex it would open up a pretty nice alternative pipeline for the CAD community and make shading Architectural things like this much simpler in Carrara. I picked up an Architectural book last week and will be spending some more time doing this sort of thing this year. It's a little more attractive to me than modeling musclebound hulks and displacing raisin skinned hags. ;)

26th January 2007, 16:49	#17 (permalink)
markbremmer Escaping to 3D worlds... Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 176	If you're interested, here's how the textures are developing on the model. They're not done yet but well on the way... Attached Thumbnails __________________ Mark Bremmer Beginner, intermediate and advanced Carrara tutorials are here.

26th January 2007, 19:25	#18 (permalink)
mykyl1966 Box modeling Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 278	Mark, I too would be interested in a tutorial of a kind. One thing though. On your website you have tutorials and state that they can be had for $30 or more if you want premium. I cant find any for $30. Vtc lists the carrara ones as £79.95 which is today $156.80. Is there something wrong or am I missing something. Cheers Mike R __________________ I dont believe everything I think.

26th January 2007, 19:37	#19 (permalink)
markbremmer Escaping to 3D worlds... Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 176	If you select the "online learning" link at the top of the VTC page, it will take you to the $30 version. I'll see what I can put together for the Carrara Darks Arts on this. The texturing has taken 3 times longer than the modeling. Mark __________________ Mark Bremmer Beginner, intermediate and advanced Carrara tutorials are here.

26th January 2007, 21:17	#20 (permalink)
carrozza NURBS Booleans are your friend Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Italy Posts: 106	UV map Hello Mark! One question about your nice work: did you UV map the model in Hexagon before importing it in Carrara? Could you show how the UV looks like? (if it's not Top Secret :-)

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