Customer Reviews

3D Home Architect Deluxe 4.0 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I just installed 3D Home Architect Deluxe and I want to warn anyone else from buying this product. It is a worthless upgrade and I have actually chosen to downgrade back to 3DHA version 3. First of all, the new functionality provided in this product is nothing to write home about. There are more plans, and a copule of new visualization modes, but other than that, it's the same product. The big problem is that the 3D mode is INCREDIBLY SSLOOOW. The programmers of this product obviously failed linear alegebra miserably as it can takes 15 seconds to paint the 3D screens on a Pentium III-500Mhz machine, regardless of the options. It's much worse than version 3. So bad in fact that it makes the 3D view totally useless for editing (one of the features I found very useful in the previous product). The final reason to avoid this product is stability. In the 20 minutes that I used the product it crashed on me at least 5 times.

I purchased this product based on the recomendations on amazon. However, after using it myself, I'm convinced that the recomendations were probably posted by marketing staff and not actual users.

If you're buying this product for the first time buy version 3. If you're upgrading, save your money and don't.

Tim

Reading over the other reviews was surprising for me because there are so many bad ones. I've installed the program on NT4, Win2KPro, and Win98. I've probably spent at least 50 hours actively using it and it never once crashed in either Win2KPro or Win98. The 3D engine crashes my NT4 box every time, but if you stay away from the 3D it works fine. It will depend upon your video driver more than anything else.

The other problems people experienced seemed to have more to do with their expectations than the product itself. I sat down with a friend who has an architecture degree (but isn't yet a licensed architect) and lots of AutoCAD experience. We tried to develop a design in AutoCAD and, of course, made lots of progress, but I couldn't have done it myself. Even with him at the helm, the going was very slow. I bought this product to try to speed the process up and put it in my own control and it performed admirably.

I think it would be very hard to design a highly detailed home with it, and there's no way it will replace an architect if you actually need the level of design an architect can provide. However, if you're designing a relatively simple home and you mostly want to work on floorplans, windows, and furniture placement, it's just the ticket. Very easy to use, maybe a little clunky here and there, but certainly functional. The 3D views are useful but nowhere near video game speed and quality.

It's not going to be very useful if you're doing something more sophisticated. It's not very useful for interior design in terms of colors and textures. The roof capabilities are very limited. But none of this was very important to me. It does the other things very well.

I have been using 3D Home Architect since version 2. I just recently decided that version 3 was just not cutting it anymore and started looking for another product. Luckily, I found that 4.0 was coming out so I bought it as soon as it was available. I love it!

It has a great wizard for those people who want to be more creative with theri design but still has a huge number of plans that you can copy or modify. For really industrious people, you can do everything down to the wiring from the ground up. It is much easier to change materials and do interior decorating, although that can sometimes be confusing. This is probably because I tend to install and use immediately without reading directions - until I screw something up. I accidentally reset a bunch of colors and somehow all of my furniture defaults to being bright red :) That's what I get for not reading the manual first.

Also, the view is much better graphically. Instead of being blocky and primitive, you see everything in applied material view which in previous versions was slow and restrictive. Of course, you'll need a serious machine or else this could be very slow. I have an Athalon 733 processer and 256MB of RAM. There are views that are faster but I like to see everything as close to the real thing as possible. The possibilities are endless with this new version. And considering the performance improvements and how much better everything looks, you won't be disappointed. ...

After using version 3.0 Deluxe from 1998 I was excited when I saw there was finally a new version of this package, but I was disappointed when this version arrived. There seems to be few new features and several really annoying bugs. The 3D textures seem to have been increase but this takes far longer to display. Problems include: Can't change ceiling and floor Height in rooms; Can't define the Hinged side of Doorways; Lost Support Pillars from Ver 3.0; Still limited control over roof; Internal dimension lines randomly measure from the outside or middle of the wall instead on the inside; Room sizes in m2 are wrong; Can't print on A3 format; Text with Arrows doesn't work, Can't create half height walls. Other issues: Stairs, still limited possibilities; Can't place plants or other objects on Concrete Slabs; Would be nice to be able to show slopes on Land around the house; Would like to be able to create windows in the roof; In 3D mode, it would be nice not to see through windows and doors i.e make windows opaque; if you change the colour of an object in one room, all the similar objects change as well.

Hopefully they bring out a patch release to this soon. In the mean time Version 3.0 would be a better buy as you can pick this up for (less).

I've tried MANY of these home design programs, and I must say, this one has always been the best. Every product available for this has glitches and things they won't do. You CAN easily create split levels and half height walls with this product, though, if you define the area and then click on it and change the floor and ceiling heights. You then have to save and exit or it'll show them all funky in 3D view half the time. The one glitch is that you can never get the correct roof, so, I just ignore the roof, which can be worked out percisely later on a higher end CAD program, which is no good to quickly design a house with, however.

I was going to get 4.0, instead of 3.0 which I currently have because 3.0 won't let you print the 3D views on some computers unless you alter your windows display settings, which is annoying. You can also export the views to a paint program and print them from there, but that is also slow and annoying.

However, what makes me give this program five stars is the way you can easily move walls around, quickly pop in furniture and change windows, furniture and cabinets around while in 3D view (apparently lost in 4.0, alas), you can design a PROFESSIONAL house in MINUTES! with this thing. The time saved results in enhanced designs, since you have more time to do design work. I pop in the furniture BEFORE I even design the room now. Other programs take HOURS. Those people who complain they can only get an ordinary house out of this thing, are limited by THEMSELVES, not this program.

The slow 3D rendering many people are mentioning is sure to be caused by the enhanced views available in 4.0. The best solution would be to offer BOTH enhanced (slow) and funky (fast) as some other programs do. Hopefully they'll work it all out in 5.0. In the meantime, I'm sticking with 3.0 thanks to the other reviewers: 3.0 has extremely fast 3D rendering and I can't stand slow 3D rendering, as they say 4.0 has.

I wanted to use the product for two purposes: furniture placement in a newly-purchased house, and some redecorating/remodeling plans for the same house. I strongly recommend going through the "Cabin Tutorial" first -- I have used these types of programs before and thought I could use this one without any instruction -- It's just not that intuitive, though. The manual and the on-line help features are only so-so. However, an e-mail sent to technical support got a quick and useful response. The software has extremely limited choices when you're trying to do even rudimentary interior design -- VERY few fabrics, way too few furnitures choices (although you can change the dimensions of the furniture it does have). I don't think there's a way to put in a wall that is not full height. After the tutorial, I thought the features I needed were relatively easy to use, but I suspect this product might be better used for "ground up" construction ideas than for redecorating/remodeling.

This new version has lost some key editing capabilities that were present in version 3. They are:

1) While in 3d mode, you can no longer edit objects in your design (windows, doors, etc) regarding size and location. 2) While in 3d mode you can no longer preselect your view position (accomplished via the "view angle window" that would pop up in version 3 and provide a non-rendered preview of your viewing angle)as your starting point. This means you must now repetitively click and rotate your design in small increments until you get your position. And, you must start this over every time you leave 3d and re-enter it. 3) While in 3d mode, every scene is rendered. This is unneccesary, and wastes time in conjunction with point 2 above. 4) The material library is hard to work with, as to making default material choices stick, and to making changes within your own design. 5) You still can't add skylights.

My advice - Buy ver 3 if you can still find it. I am returning version 4, and will continue to use ver 3 until a better choice can be found.

I started using this product with v1 and quickly realized I wanted the full v3 which was also available. I then upgraded to v4 when it came out. I'm not sure what systems people have that claim it's full of bugs. I run a very old (win 95) and slow (150 MHz) system with only 48 MB of RAM. The only thing I find cumbersome is the 3D rendering, it's slow but it's never locked up. Since I find most of my planning involves the floorplan itself, this doesn't bother me.

The feature that really sets v4 apart from v3 for me is the ability to customize kitchen cabinets - they can be open, shelves, drawers, doors and any combination. They don't really tell you how this feature works but I finally figured it out. Since I really focus on kitchen features, this ability to move beyond pre-fabs really impressed me.

I also like the ability to design split stairs (stairs with 2 flights to the same landing and a third flight going on up to the next floor. Again, not well documented but you can do it. The only thing I dislike is the inability to totally control the shape of the landing - you really have to watch which flights you create first.

Designing my dream home is a real hobby of mine. This program allows me to experiment with features I find in commercial plan books. I can put elements together like I want. It's then possible to copy a plan and change a couple of elements to see the effect.

I give it a four because of the stair landing shape limitations and I've learned to add the basement after you're sure the exteriour walls are fixed.

This program is so full of bugs that space doesn't permit a full explanation. The program continually locks up my computer in 3d view and I have to press the reset button to restart Windows 2000. When I start it up again the dimensions are in metric not English! There is no way to restore this but to uninstal/reinstall...

If you have version 3.0, stick with it. I've returned this bug-ridden program for a refund. It's a waste of time and money. I'd give it "0 Stars" but the form won't let me...

This program is the best !! Do the tutorial in the beginning, which is fun and doesn't take long at all, and you are ready to go !! I upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0 and haven't noticed a difference. I have read some reviews on here that say 4.0 is full of bugs and less options, I myself didn't notice it and I have been dealing w/3.0 and 4.0 for two years now. Some of the things the people listed as 'missing' in 4.0 version....I have in mine !! I have seen alot of comments that state they are unable to do certain things on theirs also, this is not true, I was able to do all of their 'complaints' in mine...you have to know what your doing and you can always email the website for help at any time. If I could complain about anything, it's the roof building part (cannot do certain roof designs), but you have to remember what you paid for this program too. Don't get me wrong, liked 3.0 just as much, either one is a great purchase !! You get so much for your money, way more then I expected.....Have fun and good luck :)