The TOP 10 BEST Add-Ons for Architectural Modeling in Blender!

what's up guys justin here with the cgessentials.com back with another blender add-ons video so in today's video we're going to check out 10 of the best add-ons for architectural modeling inside of blender so let's go ahead and just jump into it alright so i will add links to all of these add-ons in the notes below the video but we're going to start off by checking out an add-on that allows us to bring in perspective matched images that we can model from in blender so f-spy is an add-on that allows you to bring in an image and then set up the perspective lines inside of that image so that you can model from them very quickly in blender and so what this does when you set up these perspective lines is setting up all your different vanishing points then it's going to create an image that's aligned with those vanishing points inside of blender and so what that means is that means when you get this all set up you can just import this and start modeling from it and so when you import this in blender what it's going to do is it's going to bring in this perspective matched image you can use the perspective match image as a guide for your modeling so then you can use this to rough out the size you're building as well as adding things like details for the different windows and doors and other things like that this is especially helpful if you're modeling quick context models or if you're just trying to get the proportions of something right inside of blender really quickly so openstreetmap for blender is an add-on that you can use in order to quickly select a location import it and then create a city based on that location so what it does is it uses open street map data in order to import data for buildings to create buildings in 3d as well as things like roads and sidewalks other things like that based on this data as well so when you import this there's a free and a paid version so the free version will just bring the buildings in with no textures um the paid version will bring in buildings with textures however note that those buildings aren't going to be textured accurately using images from the real world but more as like placeholder textures but it definitely does make your cities look better so if you are looking to quickly create cities inside of blender this is a great add-on to do that all right so align tools is a free add-on for blender that lets you align things inside your models so let's say for example that i had multiple different models like this and i wanted to quickly align them well what this tool does is it's going to allow you to align things like rotation scale or location so in this case let's say i wanted to align this along the y-axis i would click on this button right here if i wanted to align these along the x-axis you would select a base or an active object and then you'd select the others and you would click on the location right here and so what that's going to do is that's going to align all of those different objects and so that can be really helpful because not only can it align along one axis you can align it along multiple axes so let's just say i wanted these all on the same plane i could come in here and i could align their z location and they're on the same plane if i wanted them lined up then i could align them along the x-axis but then in addition you can also align the scale of objects so if you have objects that have been scaled to different sizes like this you could pick one like this one right here for example and then select the others and click on the button for align scale and in this case we would click on align scale for all and what that's going to do is that's going to scale those to the same size so there's other more advanced tools in here as well but if you want to do any kind of alignment this can be really helpful alright so one of the places where you can waste a lot of time in blender is re-navigating over and over again to find different camera views so there's an add-on for stored views which is built into blender so you can find it just by looking for 3d view stored views and you can enable that and what that's going to do is that's going to allow you to save different views inside your model so if i was to click on initialize right here what this is going to do is this is going to allow me to pick a spot or a location like this one for example and click on first off i'm going to go to camera to view what that's going to do is that's going to create a camera with my current view so let's say i wanted this to be kind of an elevation type view what i could do is i could navigate to this location click on the button for save current and so notice how what that does is that saves my different views well then i can jump back and forth between them just by clicking on them right here so you can use this to save your different views so you're not navigating back to those locations over and over again and it also really helps you manage your cameras in here as well all right so this next one is interesting because it's less of an add-on and more of a custom build of blender and what it is is basically a build of blender that's built on python and what it does is it allows you to quickly bring in customizable walls and other things like that so what you can do is these are all kind of live and you can adjust them you can adjust their settings and everything else live inside your models so this is probably the best implementation of something of the style that i've seen i really feel like it's kind of the i think it's the future of architectural style modeling and blender because what it does is it allows you to just drag and drop these things in and then adjust them so there's not a whole lot of messing around with all the custom modeling but instead it almost feels more like a tool that you're supposed to use in order to model buildings so super excited to see this in the future you can download a free version of this right now to give it a try which i will link to in the notes down below alright so one of the things that can be a little bit difficult if you've switched to blender from another program is it's just a little bit different in the way that things move around right so for example in like a cad program or like sketchup what you would do to move an object is you would set a base point and then you would click again in order to move an object where in blender what you do instead is you just tap a key and then you just move things until you click again now you can use things like the snapping and other things like that but it's just disconcerting if you've come from another software there's a tool you can download called cad transform and what that does is that brings back some of those cad functions so it's a free download you can definitely name a fair price though and donate a little bit to the developer so if you do decide you like this you might want to do that but what you can do is this tool for example if i activate the move tool notice what this is going to do is this is going to bring in a snap point right here if i was to select this point right here move my mouse then click again you can see how what that's done is that's allowed me to move my object here and so you can also set this so that it snaps to different things so for example i could set this so that it snaps to vertices i could set it so that it snaps to faces other things like that or i can do a shift click in order to snap to multiple different things but then if i use this tool it's going to give me options like snapping to edges snapping to midpoints other things like that but then there's other functions in here too like things like rotational tools where you can set a base point click again and then you can set the way an object rotates so what this does is this really kind of gets you back to that cad functionality then there's some other cool like buried functions in here so for example they don't talk about it much but there's a tool in here where you can move an object so if i click and then move my mouse like this if i tap the up arrow key what that's going to do is that's going to create an array of objects between those different points so you can use this to quickly create things like arrays as well so definitely worth a look it's definitely worth checking out to see if it fits inside of your workflow so when you're doing architectural modeling a lot of the time you need to be able to show different dimensions to show exactly what size different things are going to be so there's a built-in tool called measure it tools that you can enable just by going in here and just searching for measure it right here and enabling that what that's going to do is that's going to pop up a window over here on the right hand side under your view functions you can use in order to show dimensions so you can see how for example i've already got some dimensions in here but this allows me to measure different things inside a blender so let's say for example that i had an edge over here that i wanted to show the length for so something like let's go with this one right here well what i could do is i could go into that add measures and i could click on the option for segment and what that's going to do is that's going to add a measurement of that segment inside my viewport so you can use this to display different measurements in here so you can also adjust the styles of these measurements so for example i wanted this to be a different color i could just come in here and i could adjust that so it's dark so that it's light whatever you want it to be so you can also use this to use measurements for things like faces to see those or to add different labels as well so let's say for example that i wanted to add a note about this vertex i could click on label and what that's going to do is that's going to give me an option down below and then whatever i type in here is going to be labeled inside of my model so i can use this to add notes i can use it to add dimensions other things like that all right so another great tool that's built into blender is the ant landscape function so to find that what you want to do is you want to come in here and you want to type in the word landscape that's going to find the add mesh a n t landscape tool and you want to enable that what that's going to do is that's going to add this tool as a mesh option inside of blender so if i do a shift a mesh you can see how there's now an option in here for landscape and what that's going to do is that's going to give me options for different kinds of landscapes in here so you can set this to be like billowing ground you can set it so that it has like canyons other things like that really quickly in blender you can also adjust things like your different heights so this is going to adjust as you go so you can set like how steep things are and other things like that there's actually a lot of control of the way things do like fall offs and other things inside of blender so there's a ton of presets but then there's also a bunch of functions in here to make different things so if i was to select the river option for example you can see how this is going to give me a terrain in here with a water plane so the water plane is going to do is that's going to act as water wherever it intersects with your model so what this does is this allows you to add quick random landscapes into your models without having to go in and do all that noise work yourself so this next add-on is designed to add some more cad style tool sets to blender so this one in particular comes with a tool set for things like line drawing snapping as well as other things like construction lines for example so you can create guides inside a blender that don't actually interact with your geometry so that you can mark like locations of windows and other things like that and so this has the ability to add those construction lines and it also has the ability to do line drawing in here and one of the things that i really like as someone who also uses sketchup is it gives you the option to split faces up with edges so if you're used to that more like sketchup style editing where you're going in and editing the faces with different points and lines and things like that this is really going to kind of add that functionality in so this add-on is available for seven dollars inside of blender and it just kind of again makes it adds some of those more precision style tools that you would use for architectural type modeling so i will link to that in the notes down below and you can check it out all right so finally there are a couple built-in add-ons for blender for creating things like walls and other things like that so if you go to edit preferences and inside of your add-ons you look for archimesh and archipack those are both built-in to blender so there are free versions of both of those there's also a pro version of archipack which offers more features but basically what these tools do is they add objects inside of blender that allow you to create things like walls and windows other things like that so archipack for example is going to give you the ability to add walls which you can then come in and adjust the length of the different wall segments as well as adding different segments to them so you can make your walls kind of turn corners or create those more complex shapes in a very precise sort of way so not only can you create walls but archipack also has built-in windows which are automatically going to place on the walls and cut openings so that's going to be really helpful for adding things like those different windows and then archimesh is going to have and archipack has some functions for this too it's going to have some tools for building things like cabinets so what it does is it allows you to customize things like widths and lengths and other things like that and so it's a little different than what i showed you earlier with homebuilder um i think homebuilders probably a little bit more easy to use but you're going to have the ability to customize those things and then archipack has tools like tools for creating different roofs and other things as well so it's really kind of automating that wall door window um roof creation process so this can be a very powerful tool for creating architectural style models inside blender all right so i will link to all of these add-ons in the notes down below as well as some videos on this page i'm getting more in depth on a couple of these as well but leave a comment below let me know if your favorite one made the list or if you think there's something that should be added on here as always thank you so much for taking the time to watch this i really appreciate it and i will catch you in the next video thanks guys

Channel: The CG Essentials

Views: 24,337

Keywords: blender, blender 2.82, blender 2.8, blender modifier tutorials, blender tool tutorial, the blender essentials, the cg essentials, thecgessentials.com, justin geis, justin geis blender, blender 2.9, blender 2.91, blender architecture, blender archipack, blender archimesh, blender architectural modeling, blender architecture models, blender architectural models

Id: khG7ADakkcY

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021