Sweet Home 3D: Design a House

Yesterday we began exploring features of Sweet Home 3D -- a free 3D home design program which does rendering, animation, etc. The program has an active developer community and a lot of extra models you can download for free.

Sweet Home 3D: http://www.sweethome3d.com
Sweet Home 3D Models: http://www.sweethome3d.com/importModels.jsp

Our goal over the next couple of days is to design a house with at least one bedroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom.  You are welcome to create additional bedrooms, a family room, a garage, a workshop, or whatever.  Just have fun with it.

When you are finished, take some "photos" (renderings) of different rooms and/or angles to put on your portfolio.

Other web sites with 3D models

The following sites offer also some 3D models at OBJ, DAE, 3DS or LWS formats supported by the furniture import wizard of Sweet Home 3D:

		Google 3D Warehouse (a big choice of models at DAE/Collada format)
		Resources.blogscopia (free well designed models shown also here)
		ArchiBit Generation (various well designed models)
		Flying architecture (various models with regular updates)
		Kinnarps (office furniture)
		Free the models (furniture tested in Sweet Home 3D)
		Kolo (bathroom furniture)
		Creative-3D.net (a lot of importable furniture, but monochrome)
		Klicker (a few chairs and trees)
		Model3D.biz (various models, but a few models can't be imported)
		Baumgarten Enterprises (a few interesting models, generally for industrial purpose)
		3DPlants.com (a lot of plants but without colors, except for the Plant of the month)

OTHER USEFUL DOCUMENTATION:

Create Multi-Story Homes:   http://www.sweethome3d.com/multiLevelHouseGuide.pdf

Creating Sloped Roofs/Ceilings/Etc:   http://www.sweethome3d.com/slopingCeilingGuide.pdf

Plug-Ins & Extentions (Haven't checked yet):    http://www.sweethome3d.com/pluginsUserGuide.pdf


This video tutorial does a pretty good job of showcasing the tools in Sweet Home 3D -- although it's a much earlier version:

Sculptris: Introduction to Organic 3D Sculpting

Sculptris is an interesting approach to 3D model creation -- sculpting.  Sculptris is a free program (download here) which helps you create models that you can import into other programs (like Bryce, for example).

Today we will be creating an organic shape with Sculptris.  Mostly we will be exploring the different tools, settings, and options -- but you will be turning your project in.

Begin by opening the Sculptris application from your desktop.

When finished, you can save an image by clicking Options (I don't know why) and the Save Image.

Here's a video tutorial (not by me) for beginning Sculptris -- although I will demonstrate at least this much during class.  I am providing it so students who are absent or need a refresher can watch again.

Tomorrow we will be attempting a head (monster, human, or otherwise).

Bryce: Importing External Models

As we learn object modeling in Rhino [which we will begin after Winter Break] we will be saving models to be used in other programs (like Bryce).  Fortunately there are also web sites which sell and/or give away external models which you can use to build your 3D projects.  For example, let's say you are trying to create a medieval scene with a knight on a horse, but you don't know how to "build" a horse.  You can download a pre-built horse and place it in your scene.

So where can you get 3D models?  Well, there are many in your L: Drive already.  You can browse through those models [most don't have good descriptions] and experiment a bit.

There are also many websites where you can download models:

• TurboSquid: http://turbosquid.com/ 
• Daz3D: http://www.daz3d.com/