Buildings/Houses/Indoor levels

Hi,

I am looking for an affordable tool to create buildings for a FPS or a TGB (similar to Torque-Constructor or Quark) for Mac. Any ideas?

 

Well it doesn't get much more afordable than Blender, and a couple of years
ago a guy who works at an architectural office gave a talk + there's a video
of it somewhere on the Blender forums about using Blender for architectural
visualisation. Alot of people complain about Blenders interface - and alot
of people love it - so it's just a case of going through the learning curve.

A more conventional layout for a 3D modeller is Cheetah3D and at around
50 Euros or so it's hard to beat in the commercial software arena.

 

I agree with Louis. Blender is a great tool and free, although it's interface takes some serious getting used to. Cheetah 3D can't be beat as an affordable 3D product for Mac that is fully supported in Unity.

 

I tried Cheeta 3D, but the lack of the hollow-function makes it less useable for creating buildings in my opinion. It's great for mesh-modelling but for setting up rooms and arches for example I find it rather unhandy...

 

blender's probably your best bet for buildings as far as cheap apps. you can also get away with using editors like reality factory (this is a pc only option though). i'd say quark but doesn't the license say you're not supposed to? if it's legal, as long as you can get a .map or .3ds file out you should be all set. maps you can convert through milkshape. 3ds files should come in i'd think. probably though you want to bring it into milkshape or blender to uv it etc. you'll need to add lights and triggers etc, in unity.

lightwave is a moderately priced option. get the lwcad plugin and you're around $1100-1200 but it's really strong for buildings.

 

If i understand correctly you mean Boolean operations ? ie the ability to
subtract one 3d shape from another - to create windows, rooms etc by
subtracting a smaller cube from a larger one ? Cheetah does have this function.
it has 5 Boolean types and you can very quickly create a cube with a hollow
interior and the use more cubes and rectangles to create windows and doors.

For a room in Cheetah you just add a Boolean from the Creator objects and
then add a couple of cubes A + B - drag these onto the Boolean - size B to be
smaller than A and set the boolean to subtract B from A.
To add a window, just add another cube C , and another Boolean - drag the first Boolean (your room) onto the second Boolean , drag the new cube C onto the 2nd Boolean and again subtract it, then resize it to be your window or door etc.

It works just fine.

 

I would personally suggest using Google Sketchup Pro for architectural stuff. Very easy and fun. The downside is that you will probably have to clean up your meshes and UV map in another app, but I would say it is 100% worth it for the intuitive interface.

 

Thanks for your replies so far. What about using Bryce as a terrain and level/building editor? Has anyone experience with using Bryce for editing houses?

 

I think like alot of people i've tinkered with Bryce but only on the high polygon
count terrain side (which it does beautifully) The tool set seems very well suited
to conceptual ideas but not concepts based on milimeters and floorplans. Daz
were offering Bryce 5.something for free in Sept 2006 so there must be some
options out there to try it without having to take a hit - for me personlly ..
the polygon count was way too high and the interface is a bit like Blender ..
not in looks/functionality but in terms of transferring your knowledge base
from other applications to Bryce .. you'll need to put the hours into the learning
curve.

 

Bryce is fine for terrains, But will probably be obsolete in Unity2.0. I wouldnt touch it for buildings. It will always have a place whipping up skyboxes. You could try wings3d also. And Equinox 3d if you are using an intel mac.
hth
AC