When I started out my journey as an interior designer, I had only learned AutoCAD, that too barely. I had wished that colleges taught and focused more on teaching software rather than hand drafting. Yes, I am personally an old-school person. And I loved drafting with my T-scale, and other tools.
But when I entered the professional field, I realized that it wasn’t as necessary as it was made out to be in college for four years! They could have finished it in just one year and should’ve focused more on the new software that was booming in the market at the time. Because THAT is what was going to be useful to us to crack a decent job.
What I learned during my Internship
I am glad that they at least taught us the basics of AutoCAD in college. The very basic. A major part of the software I learned during my internship in Ahmedabad. I was fortunate to have the best colleagues and boss there. They were very supportive and helpful. I believed I had become the master of AutoCAD. My working speed was almost godly. Colleagues used to watch in awe as my fingers burned up the keyboard.
My first Job
After college, when I started to look for a job in Delhi, I realized the limitation of knowing just one software. Due to limited skills, you could get only limited kinds of jobs. That’s when I realized the importance of learning forever, no matter what stage you reach in your career. DON’T STOP LEARNING.
So, while working in Delhi under a small firm, I would learn Sketchup at night from YouTube. I had heard a lot about the software from my friends and mates. I knew it was the easiest of the 3D software out there. Others were much more complicated and may require joining an institute to learn.
I learned the basics of SketchUp pretty quickly. I would demonstrate my designs to my boss in the office in 3D. Those weren’t rendered results, but they were decent enough to help me visualize my thoughts and ideas behind my designs. My boss was impressed!
When I started my Practice
Then for a while, I stopped learning again as I didn’t have any guidance about what render plugin I should use. I had heard of Vray. But I had heard of it being used along with 3Ds Max only. 3Ds Max is not a simple software like Sketchup, though I learned it too a few years later and delivered superior quality renders with it to my clients in many projects.
But after years of struggling with creating 3D models with Max, and rendering with Vray, I realized that it’s not only very time-consuming, it also requires a very good system configuration. And with the urgency that the clients required the 3D in the projects, it was getting impossible for me to carry on with the software.
Introduction to Enscape
So, one day I was just having a chat with my friend on Instagram, and he told me about Enscape for real-time rendering with SketchUp.
And once I started using it, there has been no going back. It gives me the comfort and ease of modelling with SketchUp, and quick renders to deliver to clients on an urgent basis. I don’t ask for a 2-day timeline anymore for rendering out one scene. I can do modelling, and render within 5-6 hours for a room.
If you’re also an interior designer who deals with 3D modelling and rendering themselves? Which software do you use? And how has your experience with it been so far?
Let me know in the comments below!