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mx2
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 Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:15 am Post subject: Is MAYA a viable tool for this profession? |
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A recent conversation with a younger employee still in school brought up the issue of design vs real world practicality and the incoporation of MAYA as a requirement for use by architectural students (in lieu of AutoCad). It's really an animation program but the conversation was directed to the idea that more firms are using this type of software. I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this issue. Myself, I have never been a fan of computers surrogating as architects.
mx2.5
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*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
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csintexas
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 9:00 am Post subject: |
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Isn't Maya just a rendering tool?
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Chris Stewart
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
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Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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no. it is more for CGI in movies with Char. animation.
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AAK
Joined: 16 May 2008
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Would 3DS Max be appropriate? |
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Architorture
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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the software is being used alot...but not necessarily as a design tool and not necessarily by architects themselves but instead consultants who do high end animation movies or renderings...
i used maya a good bit in school along with form z which was our main computer software in school... both were mainly used to make sexy renderings and sexy animations...
form-z was good for designing stuff b/c it is actually an architecture based program intended for designing buildings and the such... maya on the other hand was really good for doing animations b/c that is what it is made for...
i always found buildings to be tough in maya b/c it models all objects as planes instead of solids as form-z does... i like solid modeling tools b/c the world is made of solids...not just a bunch of planes....
eitherway neither program was very good at all for producing production type drawings like a nice clean floor plan with dimensions and notations or very realistic sections... you could never use either one to create anything approaching traditional 2d drawings that we expect to see to describe a building...
ultimately though i never recieved any formal training in school on the production of contract documents...luckily i had taken years of CAD in high school so it wasn't much of an effort to relearn stuff once i got out of school...and i actually think the form-z experience made using Revit easier b/c it got me used toa 3d design environment... something alot of the die hard 2d folks struggle with...
in conclusion- maya can never be a replacement for CAD in a professional office... its a sexy image maker and isn't even the best one for DESIGNING buildings... |
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mx2
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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Great insight Architorture...it's reminiscent of our BIM talks (sounds like nuclear proliferation negotiations or something, eh?)...and that was precisely the feeling I got, however schools are forcing students more and more to use the likes of MAYA for their design presentations. Of course students will use all sorts of programs for designing...which leads to me one thing I've noticed in recent years: most students can't sketch for sh*t!!!! However, when developing schemes that are mired in complex curves or the likes (think blobitecture), solid boolean commands are an impediment. Planes can allow for the "flex" in the curves...
mx2.5
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*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
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Architorture
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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oh thats absolutely true... fortunately form-z had a good boolean engine as well...
i think the big push in academia is to make stuff that looks like the flashy images that come out of the big firms and the small paper architects that fill up pages of magazines and websites... you simply can't do that with hand drawings...
although this doesn't really make for a good transition into the professional world it can help get the design mind working... unfortunately though too it can become a formulaic method for creating a sexy image instead of a good design... i believe even the shittiest design can be made to look quite nice depending on how you tweek it in a computer program...
i also worry about people's ability to draw by hand... i really prefer hand drawing alot of stuff... its just much easier than going through all the operations to make the same gesture in a computer model..
my usual method these days while working on schematics or a proposal is to put some rough forms into sketch up then print it out and sketch away at a few different options until something makes sense... then put a bit more detail into the sketch up model...
ultimately either a sketched over image or a sketch up image is then forwarded on to our presentation image expert who makes it look uber-sexy with some photoshop magic... |
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mx2
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| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 6:27 am Post subject: |
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You touched on a wide variety of great points...academia's desire to remain mired in design, rather than practicality, academia's desire to publish sexy buildings that ignorant students cranked out in 6 weeks, an alarming trend of moving away from dexterous efforts as a basis for design development, hiding crap behind flash and schtick, the benefits of hand sketching, the benefits of sketching over wireframe (or quickie sketchup models), the benefits of working in photoshop instead of rendering every damn detail in any 3D format, the contrast between sexy perspectives versus sexier animation (walk-thru's), but I am stuck on one thing you mentioned; the idea that the 3D programs, like MAYA, can or could make the design process easier to learn. I don't have a conclusion about that yet but I'm leaning towards simply having a kneejerk reaction and stating there is no way in hell computers could teach a student how to design better than if they picked up a pencil...
mx2.5
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*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
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csintexas
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| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 8:09 am Post subject: |
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To me this is like discussing whether you can learn design better by using a pencil or a pen. Neither of these teach you how to design. We still have to have teachers for that. I just can't comprehend any real difference between drawing on a smooth piece of paper or a textured one.
Students where drawing wacky unrealistic buildings long before computers came along. Their output is governed by what their professors expect of them. If the teachers expected Greek temples they would be producing Greek temples. Blobotecture is not a product of technology but one of culture.
I do think it takes more skill to produce a hand drawn image than a computer drawn image but I don't think architecture is primarily fine art although there is nothing wrong with drawings being fine art.
I think a lot of the training has always been towards producing nice looking drawings so it is natural to use the tools that are going to produce the best looking results. My only question is that maybe we need to spend less time on pretty pictures and more time on architecture. It could be that these programs require so much time that a large percentage of time on any project is devoted to producing output rather than design.
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Chris Stewart
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
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| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 9:40 am Post subject: |
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Nice Chris.
MAYA?
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JonBailey
Joined: 18 Oct 2007
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| Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 6:06 am Post subject: |
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3ds max is usually the practice standard when it comes to architectural visualisation.
it is said revit, 3ds max, and bently are combining into one parametric modelling platform from autodesk, with 3ds max being a more 'cut-down' more architectural based software for architects--with most of the animation software being cut-down.
maya is a nice rendering software, however i have found 3ds max to be easier, and produce better renderings --with the help of VRAY
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Jon Bailey
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 8:47 am Post subject: |
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I found Rhinoceros to be able to do what maya did and well as have the accuracy that CAD needs. i first started using it instead of mech desktop because it was better at more kids surfaces and solids editing.
and it has many more render engines than MAX and is more easy to use where as with max i would still need to use autocad and with rhino i am able to do everything in it as well as to send out to a format most any program can handle.
unique roof calculations are always fun
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Architorture
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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mx...
i guess i didn't mean to say that computers could make better designers i just think that the digital environment might give students an opportunity to do an extent and type of design that may be more expansive than in a hand drawn world...
blobitecture is the obvious example of this...regardless of the 'style''s validity as 'architecture' it is definitely a design experience that would be much more difficult by hand... in hand models it might be just as easy if not easier though...
i agree that computers won't make a bad designer any better...it probably could even make them worse since it could act as a crutch... there were plenty of accomplished renderers in my class at school who were making models of crappy design ideas...
where as there were also those who couldn't figure the computer out to save their lives and yet they had great ideas that could still be read even within a horribly rendered computer model |
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mx2
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| Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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I dabbled with Rhino as well and found it to be really a very good middle of road (between Cad and Revit, for example)...
I agree that good ideas come thru regardless of medium used to render or draw, as long as the final graphic gives the impression of the crucial elements needed to understand the program and concept.
Which is basically my original question...are any of these tools VIABLE for Architecture? Is it doing us a service or vice versa...and yes, it begins with academia. I had designed a complex curved building (two intersecting curved tubes that tapered) by hand...it was difficult and yet I had enough to convey the idea. Whereas I have seen not only students, but professionals as well, render the heck out of crap (I've done it myself on some crappy jobs) and make it look very sexy and "sellable"...
For me, it's just another tool which is only as good as the person manipulating it. Do these new digital tools truly give us new boundaries? I'm on the fence...
mx2.5
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*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
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JonBailey
Joined: 18 Oct 2007
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 5:52 am Post subject: |
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I think that these new tools definatley give us a broader range of what we can and cannot accomplish, however the tools are only as good as the person using them.
These are viable options for architecture, because the more tools that we have to work with the more we can express our ideas that were once inconceivable.
These programs also have more to them than their rendering program, and this is what I find more useful. Rhino is a very useful tool, especially when trying to find a relationship between formal scripting languages and architectural forms. Maya and Max also do this, if you are using Mel or Max script, however some just use these programs to 'form find', which I believe is the entirely wrong way to use these programs--creating contextualess architecture. Using these programs to become influenced by a script can directly put the problems of the context into the architectural forms themselves, based on real data.
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Jon Bailey
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