Customer Reviews

Total 3D Home Deluxe 6.0

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This software is pure crap! Please read the email I sent to their tech support department several weeks ago, then, go and buy ANY home designing software from Punch! To wit:

I recently purchased your software, Total 3D Home Deluxe 6.0. After several truly frustrating days of trying to use it to design a home, I find it completely inadequate, buggy in the extreme, and a 'total waste' of my money, since software that has been opened and installed can't be returned to any vendor, no matter how liberal their policies.
I usually would not take the time to write an email such as this, but I MUST say something about the various, and multitudinous issues I faced in attempting to design a home with Total 3D. First off, I had several problems of a nature that can only be called 'fatal': sudden, 'unannounced' crashes to the desktop being foremost among them. Also, the backup file was quite regularly corrupted by these frequent crashes, which forced me more than a few times to start over, either from scratch, or from some earlier point that may just have well been the very beginning.
The documentation for error messages is severely incomplete, with only a very few of the most frequent ones mentioned. There is only vague 'advice' on how best to 'probably' solve truly MAJOR issues which, left unfixed, result in a completely unusable design AND file, and, again, crashing to the desktop, and some times taking down the machine as well.
Case in point, after carefully and tediously spending many hours RECREATING my file from scratch, the software mysteriously 'dropped' one of my outside walls, making the file crash-prone, buggy, and completely unusable. Is there a way to fix this type of error? If there is, its not mentioned in the documentation, or the FAQs, or anywhere on (their) website or (their) help files. (And did I forget to mention that the hapless user can 'forget' tech support - not surprisingly, (they) never answer their emails!). Walls routinely resize themselves, whereas individual rooms sometimes flatly refuse to be resized, no matter how hard you tug. Objects (such as lamps and windows) also have the disconcerting habit of moving to what they deem to be 'better' locations (especially lights), with no explanation mentioned anywhere as to why this should be so. I spent many frustration sessions trying vainly to place porch lights, which seem to have a mind of their own.
I'll stop now. Needless to say, I've had a very bad time with this software. Since I can't return it to CompUSA, and since I would definitely NOT sell it to anyone, or even give it as a gift, I am forced to salvage what I can; my various plan layouts, attempt to print them, and then go back down to CompUSA to try another product, from one of (their) competitors, more than likely the industry leader in this type of software, Punch! Thanks for nothing!

There is a limit of how bad software can be and still deserve the proud name of a Lemon, not plain ugly fraud. Total 3D Home Deluxe 6.0 is beyond this limit. This company (Individual Software) is taking advantage of the store policies that do not allow return of opened software to make money on casual one-time buyers attracted to the box. I can't imagine anybody who bought this software and wouldn't want their money back.

This product is a fraud. The box could just as well be empty. (This would have saved me some time). I have never in my life paid money for anything close to this. In fact, any decent human being would be ashamed to give this away for free.

It works exactly as described in the above review. It quits all the time silently to the operating system without warning. Just adding a shower anywhere causes such a crash. Opening a saved plan may be impossible and cause a total loss of everything.

Describing all the many bugs is pointless, since this is entirely unusable "work in progress(?)" far from beta level.

I consider myself an old hack quite experienced in avoiding bugs, using work-arounds, and finding ways to do poorly documented things etc. in all kinds of software. I am NOT just an innocent guy who wants to build a home addition and has no time to tinker with software. Everybody else's Windows systems may crash ten times a day - not mine. (now using XP Pro, but also true for previous versions). I have never seen software without bugs.

I don't expect to get great software for the price of a dinner for two at a cheap restaurant (with beer for one). However, Total 3D Home Deluxe 6.0 leaves me speechless.

Bottom line: junk.

I have been working on computers since 1975. I have seen some awful programs, including some that I have written. This is the single most crash prone piece of software I have ever had the misfortune to use. No mater what you do, it WILL crash. It WILL corrupt HOURS of work and leave you with no option but to delete the file and start over again.

USE ANYTHING BUT THIS SOFTWARE

I originally bought version 3.0 several years ago, and it was full of bugs and prone to crash..often. But still I found it fun, especially the 3d walk through. When version 6.0 came out, touting new features, I assumed they would have fixed all the bugs in the earlier version, so I purchased it. I WAS VERY WRONG!! This version is even worse. After spending hours working on a project, the program will suddenly crash to the desktop without warning and when you restart the program you will find out the house plan file you were working on is now corrupt. It may still let you view what you've done so far, if it loads without crashing that is, but it will not let you modify the file in any way. This has happened to me many many times on several different plans. I've lost hours and hours of work. Very frustrating. Some other things to mention, The import texture tool works well once, but look out, if you use several imported textures on different plans, you'll find the textures from one house file now covering the walls of your other house file. (The exterior of my house didn't look all that good with bathroom wallpaper covering the siding). And no way to fix this problem, nothing in the help files or on the web site. Adding , deleting or resizing walls can cause havoc: walls may disappear, sometimes doors will close even if you've set them to appear open or you may get the dreaded `invalid boundary' message that notifies you that your plan is forever now ruined. (Hope you saved it before you modified it.) My recommendation: Stay away from this very frustrating program, unless you like beating your head on the wall.

I whole-heartedly agree with all the reviewers who have given it a 1 star.

One of the Most Un-Intuitive software ever built. UI sucks. Help sucks. For example, there are a bunch of buttons / labels that have no mention in the help. TYpe the exact same thing that a label is saying, and you find nothing.

These folks have just thrown in a bunch of "features" to hype up this nonsense of a product. You can't even change the units of measurement, can you beat that ?

Let me quote just Some of the many many outrageous things :

1. No way you can change the units of measurement, no way to specify your "scale". This is so basic for any charting tool.

2. The manual forbids you from building plans using just walls, you "have" to use "rooms". And once you do, you cannot delete the walls of your rooms. You can only make them "invisible" but they keep coming in your way whenever you try to fix a door or a window etc.

3. Create an elevation for one of your rooms and then switch to aerial view, "gaping empty gaps" show up on your walls now.... yeeeks.

4. You cannot resize your roofs or customise their angle of elevation in different places.

5. They dont even support spiral staircases...

Well, I have been struggling for a few days trying to make some sense out of this product and produce an useful diagram with no luck, even though I am an experienced developer myself :-(

the list goes on.... These guys must be put in jail for wrapping up this total piece of trash in this beautiful box with wonderful claims...

My computer crashed multiple times. Frustrated I looked for online reviews to see if it was my computer or the software. Well..it is the program...this is a joke. Don't even bother.

I cannot believe I bought this piece of garbage. I got a wild bug up my backside, ran to the store and bought what I thought looked good. I WAS WRONG!!! This product is garbage.

It constantly crashes. I cannot make the most basic of walls. ALL measurements are by click-and-drag. You can NOT add/customize window trim, door trim, baseboards, etc. They show all kinds of different household accessories on the box, but the faucets, light fixtures, etc., are all VERY crude. The walk-through 'feature' is horrible to use. I should note that is on a single room- every time I try to set two rooms next to each other, the software crashes OR tells me 'invalid wall'. Yet every time I try to click what may be a common wall to edit (it), the software crashes, so if there is an error, the software won't let me fix it.......

There is a 'snap to grid' setting- even though I have it switched off, there are several pieces of furniture that constantly move themselves, while other pieces in the same room stay where I put them..... ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!

I thought these were odd errors that only I must be experiencing, yet reading others reviews I see they are all far too common. If Individual Software and/or CompUSA does not agree to refund my money, I will be pursuing action through our attorney general.

I have NEVER been so displeased with a software purchase. I have a modern computer, with 3.0 GHZ processor power and 1GB of Ram, running XP SP 2. This POS crashes every few minutes, randomly. To the desktop. No explanation, no "sorry, we crashed", just one minute the software is there, the next it's gone.

FURTHERMORE, the only reason I bought this was that I had made a floor plan using the "3.0" version of this product. I put 3.0 in quotes because there is HARDLY ANY DIFFERENCE between the 3.0 version and this "6.0" version. I was having a few problems with the 3.0, so I figured this would have been more advanced and better handled modern systems. WRONG!! They added a pitiful "Photo Object" feature, where you can insert a digital photo into your home picture. Sound cool! NO! This object acts essentially as flat screen that will turn around to face you wherever you are looking at it. You are not making a 3d object, you are putting in a 2d surface that spins around facing you, with no interaction between it and the lighting or other features of the rendering. Oh, the "6.0" version of this nasty software doesn't even have as many objects (desks, chairs, beds, etc) as the "3.0" version!

FINALLY, I can't even USE my old files, because everytime I try to save them after loading them in "6.0" I get that lovely crash to desktop.

DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE EVER!!!!!!!

I am designer & programmer w/25 years experience. This software does NOT work. It is a waste of your valuable time. I agree an empty box wouldn't have made me as angry as this. This is SO BAD it is my first ever posting of a review in over 25 years of programming.

I GIVE UP WITH TRYING TO USE VERSIONS 6.0 AND 7.0! I GOT TIRED OF LOSING PROJECTS HALFWAY INTO THEM. I TRIED TO GET HELP FROM TECH SUPPORT IN WHICH THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHY THIS PROBLEM WAS HAPPENING. IM GUESSING THEY USED VERSION 6.0 TO ONLY ADD A FEW NEW FEATURES TO CALL VERSION 7.0 AND DID NOT FIX THE BUGS. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT TO ANYONE.I HAD GIVEN THIS PRODUCT VERSION 6.0 5 STARS IN THE BEGINNING BUT, AFTER SPENDING COUNTLESS HOURS WITH SO MANY PROJECTS I HAD TRIED TO WORK ON AND HAVING THEM JUST DISAPPEAR I AM EDITING MY REVIEW TO 1 STAR.