SmartDraw is pretty easy for a floor plan, but lol @ 3D

In the end the easiest thing to do is get a floorplan from a builder and photoshop it. Then at least you can go through their display homes and see what their shit looks like and use your imagination for how you'd make it different.

Go to a display village, like the one at northlakes and look at a few builders homes. Metricon have nice homes but I've heard a few horror stories, Coral Homes are good value.

If you're planning to build start reading this forum for tips http://forum.homeone.com.au/

last edited by thermite at 08:57:20 02/May/12

but lol @ 3D

I concur...as someone who is currently getting into doing 3D design work - it probably isn't something you'll just pick up overnight as an amatuer. And I'm guessing it will be hard to find a decent package for free. Unless it comes built into a Linux ISO.

The Mrs and I learnt google sketch up in a weekend for our house plans (the draftsman we hired to make the final plan for the builder charged us less because we used real measurements on them too!)

Anyways I was decent in 3d studio max from my CAD days and the mrs had never used a 2d or 3d cad program before.

Long story short is the mrs picked google sketchup up faster then I did because sketch up uses some weird ways of doing things that arnt like other 3d programs. I was trying to use what i knew from 3d studio max, maya etc and it held me back.

So i would suggest using google sketch up and take the turotials at the start then click 'more tutorials' this takes you to google and there is a few easy ones like building a chair that teach you loads.

My mrs is now a google sketch up master!

I did a pretty detailed home design in Blender once, but it's not exactly a user friendly program.

I drew up the plans for my back deck on paper with a HB pencil
HARDCORE

Best idea (which i think is the first reply) is to get a design from an existing house and modify it.

not just because modifying is easier, but normally when you go through the process of dealing with a builder they'll have a price for a house plan, but if you work off changes to that plan then you can just work off how much more/less expensive those changes will make to the house.

It also means that for large proportions of the house they'll know exactly what they're doing and that really helps when it comes to when they build it which helps for both them doing it right the first time, and how quickly the house comes along.

Last time my parents used OwnIt homes. These were the best builders out of four block up builds they've done. So i'd have to promote them both for the build time (on schedule/ahead of schedule) and their post-build support (ie issues afterwards like the exhaust hood on the stove and a few other bits) was quite excellent. The post build inspection before the keys are handed over is huge too - they covered the house with red stickers - giving it measles with every little bump and scratch or scuff that had been picked up and they fixed all of those before they handed the keys over.

Anyway have fun.

I drew up the plans for my back deck on paper with a HB pencil
HARDCORE

Hardcore would be an 8H.

tread carefully with concepts about designing a house.
See who you know as far as architects go, or approach a technical college about getting it done on the cheap.
There are hundreds of building codes/regulations as far as housing goes.

Sure you might have some awesome ideas about overall layout, but in my opinion, filter them through someone who works in that sorta space.

whatcha doing with metalwork thermite?

autonomous eh? would be awsome to make a remote controlled version :-D

thats a great little project youve got there. would be nice just to fit a starter motoro to the mower as a start...

Hrm... the lack of hopper is a shame. Should make something it can drive over to drop the grass into and then keep driving :)

http://sketchup.google.com/

However couldn't recommend more you 'obtaining a copy' of autocad and teaching yourself that. CAD is every industry standard so you may as well learn that shit. I can also give you some pointers as my wife has taught me heaps about it and she knows it back to front.

I even did this up for a mate of mine: http://casa.nowuckingforries.com/BasicCAD.pdf

Download The Sims 3, missus spend hours designing people and houses.

visio lol

last edited by focal at 10:42:46 03/May/12