Easy way to create a modern 3D architectural walkthrough?

[SpliFF]

It's been awhile since I messed with map design in Doom and Half-life but now I'd like to do an architectural walkthrough with a modern 3d engine (less dated graphics). Basically I want to create a building with glass windows, tables, couches, etc and be able to walk around it and save the walkthrough as a video file in any standard format.

I have a few possibilities in mind. I own Fallout 3 (G.E.C.K), Crysis, Far Cry, Far Cry 2 and GTA IV. All of these games have modern rendering, physics and prefab models for furniture and modern indoor environments. Being able to push objects around, sit down, open doors, etc would also be nice.

Alternatively there's Blender, though I've always struggled with its interface. I've read it has some kind of 3rd-party project that assists with walkthroughs.

Has anybody here ever tried creating maps using the above programs or other free tools? I don't want to buy anything, just use free software or what I have already. Any recommendations?

[Hobo Joe]

Mapping is fairly simple with Hammer, can't really speak for anything else though, as it's the only one I've used.

[Machete234]

Maybe you could do it in the Unreal 3 engine
Its because you said it has to look not dated.

[aegis]

I want to create a building with glass windows, tables, couches, etc and be able to walk around it and save the walkthrough as a video

Sims 3

[Pressure Line]

Preamble: I do things like building structual plans for a living

I once worked for a structual engineering company, worked with a really neat program called ArchiCAD, I think there is a free version (has export and printing restrictions iirc)




Pretty easy to use, took me about a week to get the hang of it. The renderer is pretty good, and it has some furntiure prefabs (its even fairly easy to make furniture yourself, its pretty much an all-in-one suite) and a whole host of architectural prefabs (doors, windows etc)

Has walkthrough options, i have no idea how easy it is to use, all i ever used the renderer for was to take a few glam shots of the BK restaurant I did the drawings for.

Probly easier to try and torrent it, but as i said, there is a student version you can try.

[SwiftSpear]

Spiff: You're description of what you're doing is a bit vague? What exactly is the purpose of this exercise? Different 3D engines have different pro's and cons in terms of working with them. Working with a game engine you're unlikely to be able to find the kind of textures you really like if you're making a mockup for an interior space or something, but the architexture should be robust enough, and it's nice to be able to walk through your creations in a method that sort of resembles something with real world rules.

CAD software and/or modeling suits will be easier to create things that "look" the way you want them to, but they are more abstract in their realizations, you can't "walk through" them.

Have you looked at Google Sketch? for rendering of buildings, houses, apartments, whatever, it tends to be a really powerful 3D suite.

[Das Bruce]

Mapping is fairly simple with Hammer, can't really speak for anything else though, as it's the only one I've used.

Hammer is horrendously outdated. It's not a bad tool, but neither was assembly a bad programming language in its day.

[danuker]

The architecture visualization Blender file is among the game demos, I think.
Look on the right column:
http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

[Redd]

Have you looked at Google Sketch? for rendering of buildings, houses, apartments, whatever, it tends to be a really powerful 3D suite.

i agree, this is ideal for sketch up

second life is also used quite a bit for architecture, but that can be a long haul learning to build and use the tools.. on the other hand, you can control lighting as you work, it has a built-in video capture, and it's essentially free

here's an example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=529-RNsnAnc
and stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWOFvrE_6ho

[SpliFF]

Thank you all for the replies.

@SwiftSpear I'm not certain why you found it vague but I'll try to rephrase. I want to model a building and walk around it in 1st person perspective. I'm not using the model for construction purposes, only to show build how a space would look if you walked around it. I'd like to record some of those walkthroughs and place them on the web as video.

I have building plans as a starting point and the idea is to build and scale the architecture and then furnish and decorate it. I want to use a modern engine so I can

a.) Get fancy with the lighting (including dynamic lights), and
b.) Push things around in real time, and
c.) Use animated surfaces

CAD software typically isn't up to the task, and I suspect Google Skechup isn't either. That's why I specifically mentioned games. Sims 3 might be a good tool for this but I don't own it and the project doesn't have a budget (and I wouldn't play it).

@danuker: Thanks for the lead on looking in the game demos, I'll definately do that.

[Pressure Line]

I may not have been clear, ArchiCAD has tools specifically designed for creating walkthroughs (caveat: i never actually used them so i dont know how hard it is to use) and i think it can output the results more or less directly as a .avi (not 100% sure on that one)

but i dont think you can move stuff around, and i'm pretty sure it doesn't have the possibility of animated surfaces.

[SwiftSpear]

Once again, for the most part, 3D game engines and the mapping suites included with them are fairly restricted by their included texture libraries. You usually have not too much problem creating cool spaceships or decapitated towns or whatever other game universe locale that is highlighted in the title, but you might not be able to make a blue painted wall, or a red couch, or whatever specific object you really want to include, simply due to the nature of how those types of games work.

What I'm saying is... if you want to "show how a space would look if you were to walk in it", modern 3D game engines will probably be able to get the shape and size of the space, give you some objects to place around, but they won't give you many tools for creating the color or atmosphere of the space unless it happens to fit into the universe that the game is already tapping from. Game engines are ideal for the creation of creative spaces with very few definite perimeters, you make use of the tools provided to make SOMETHING that looks cool, as opposed to making something that accurately reflects a real world space or a real world design. I'm sure you can MAKE the space you want to make, but you'll have to work with the texture sets provided which will give you very little control over things we care alot about in the real world, like paint color, flooring material, type of wood, and other things like this that designers obsess over.

[aegis]

sims 3 allows custom colors and patterns

[SwiftSpear]

sims 3 allows custom colors and patterns

does it allow first person? It's not entirely robust with the amount of customization that can be done either... it will make a nice looking house though.

[aegis]

there's a mode made for taking video, just take out all the people

the strangerhood (machinima) did a pretty good job with sims 2


a more serious game engine like unreal 3 might be well suited for this, I think you can use the UDK for free

[Neddie]

Source?