Seeking your advice/thoughts on the value to a client of 3D renderings in understanding the design suggestions of an architect, asking for variations, and in decision making. I have recently purchased rural acreage with wonderful views to the west of cascade mountains in Oregon and will be having a (contemporary-modern) home designed over the next few years. I will most likely be purchasing Home Designer Pro to explore my ideas of floor plans etc. and use that along with screen captures of things that appeal on Houzz.com and etc. as a means of conveying my wishes and ideas to an architect. This thread is the opposite direction: What software and tools does an architect have to convey to a client what they have heard and how they are "translating" that into a design starting with SD and on through CD phases? I have built one prior home, and been involved with lots of remodels and have some familiarity with process; I'm also fairly computer literate and enjoy learning about and using a range of software. At one point in my life I was a serious amateur photographer so have a pretty good visual sense.
I have spent hours learning from this forum and others, and have a beginning sense of some of the range of different rendering approach (3D; ray trace that Premier does; etc.) http://castleview3d.com/lifeshouldbe3d/2011/06/02/whats-the-difference-between-a-3d-render-and-a-raytrace/ It seems to me that while these outputs can be quite useful that there is a potential danger in assuming that just because something is "photo realistic" that it is actually accurate and true. For example, tt seems to take a lot of skill and knowledge to do a good daylighting "analysis" and to use it as the basis for making decisions. My tendency will be to use these things with a grain of salt and give more significant weight to the experience (and perhaps intuition) of the architect or designer-builder I end up hiring that they are confident that a particular aspect of the design "will work well.".
I have the potential for great western views, but being in the high desert there are significant challenges with having a lot of glazing to enjoy that but still be able to deal with the solar gain and potential glare from late afternoon to sunset time in summer. Overhangs and etc. to work with such is one thing to model with software.
Chief Architect Premier in the hands of a professional who understands its capabilities can be a great assist, and obviously most of you on this forum are at least moderately committed to it as your major tool of choice. But some of you have also used and perhaps continue to use SketchUp Pro and I am impressed with what is possible with this software. In particular Nick Sonder (http://www.nicksonder.com/projects/services.php) a Truckee CA architect makes a somewhat persuasive case for the advantages in clarity, consistency, cost savings, etc. of working always from the same 3D model for all other views and output that is done via SketchUp Pro. Please recall that I am looking at this from the client point of view, so my ? is what differences do you think a client might experience working with an experienced architect A who is quite competent with CA Premier versus architect B who works with SketchUp Pro? I know this is a completely hypothetical question but perhaps you have some insights.It does seem to me that the two softwares as design tools work in significantly different manners, and perhaps this gives some insight into who an architect is based on whether they are strongly committed to one or the other of these tools; versus the architect who is ambidextrous and loves both of them
I will be choosing an architect based on a wide range of interaction and criteria, but one area I have already explored with some is electronic communication (I do not live proximate to new home site) and will also want to see both "blueprints" of typical job, but also the electronic renderings that were given to client. Wherever possible I will then see live the actual home.
I like one comment made by someone on this forum, which was to model your own current home in CA and create a ray trace, and compare that to high quality live photo taken in the actual house to see the differences between the ray trace; a live photo; and actually being in the room. I will only be able to do this in a much more limited way in HD Pro, and will only do it for say my current office with eastern and southern windows and with the windows on the east having a 2nd floor balcony deck that provides significant shading to the office windows on that side.
I hope this is clear enough for you to make some input, and hope that it is a topic of interest to some of you. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and helping to cut my learning curve. Of particular interest to me are your thoughts about the strengths and weaknessed of HA Premier in comparison to SketchUp Pro.
Thank you all, good points many of which I have considered already but take on new meaning when shared by professionals and in the context of other points they are making.My overall focus is NOT the software someone uses, but since this forum is mostly focused there that is what I have inquired about. I do agree that just because someone can offer a good rendering does not mean that it is a good design OR that it is a match to what I as a client have in mind. I look at the blueprints of the spec house that I live in that has many varied ceiling heights, open floor plan, and borrowed views and light infiltration from adjacent rooms and know that those 2D outputs would give me very little sense of what the actual house might look and feel like. Any 3D output, or hand drawn isometric would give me more a sense and is that aspect that I am focusing on in my questions. It seems like SketchUp as well CA Premier offer good options, indeed floorplanner.com where I have begun to play around offers me some good preliminary sense of interactions amongst rooms etc. One architect that I is high on my short list exclusively uses SketchUp Pro for his design work (as well as some hand drawn sketches with client during schematic phase) and I realize that Nick Sonder is probably at an extreme end of scale in his capabilities with SketchUp. Again thanks for all of the input, it truly is helpful, and since I am likely to purchase HD Pro it is not only because it is very good program but the forum adds so much value to the software to have a great community that cuts ones learning curve (even though I know HD forum is not this one which is focused on CA). I don't want to edit a file that an architect offers to me, but potentially being able to use it in my lower end version of program in same software family and therefore use my own camera views of it or simply orbit around it seems to me a great advantage to me to get a good feel for things. And yes I agree that sometimes paper and colored pencils and blobs of color and tonality are great tools as they are wonderful shorthands for the emotional tone that is wanted as a response or mood for a particular space within the home.