Live Home 3D: House Design 4+

Effective and addictive

I had not done any 3D modelling before and I found this tool powerful and easy to learn. The reviews of some cheaper or free 3D tools were very mixed, so I bought this to design a house refurb. I was able to get into much more detail than i had expected. I have improved significantly my design as a result of the great 3D views generated. The lighting effects are especially good. You can even define your geographic location, to get the sun in right place at various times of day. You can render 3D videos, which is great fun. There is a wide choice of materials (though many are a bit garish; not so many subtle earth tones) and you can even import your own finishes (say from a photo). It is very stable with no glitches to date.

This is a great package, but there are some limitations. The model is based around flat plots and uniform storey heights. You have to do some work-arounds for design on multiple, uneven levels (such as my hillside project). You need the pro version if you want more than two stories. The remove roof botton does not seem to work. If you want to see in, you need to delete the roof and reinstate later (not difficult)

Overall I am very pleased. Top tip. Dont rush in like me. Take 20 mins to go through the training videos -very helpful.

Very good with small niggles

Bought this to rough out a floor plan for a self build house to give to the contracters. Bought the basic upgrade as this is a one off. and maybe this is the issue. Ground floor height is global so when I tried to add a seperate garage it can only have same height walls as the house. Also, I want to create timbers at an angle but there are only 90 degree options. I can talk that through but it lets the design down. Finally some of the furnishings are very odd! Other programmes offer ikea and other furniture you find outside the USA! Overall, these are minor complaints for a super pirece of software at a great price.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your feedback! So far there's no support for buildings with different wall heights on the same plan, we plan to add this later. As for placing timbers at an angle, please use Type & Representation dialog to rotate items to the desired position. Regarding the furniture, we are also working on adding new collections - e.g. you can check out our Scandinavian Style Furniture.

Professionaly made, for professional use.

I have been using this for quite a while and I am very suprised by how wide the range of colors and objects (etc) is. Once you get the hang of it, this app can actually be fun to use! Both the 3D and 2D view is super outstanding and no problem this could be an app for professionalists.
One tiny, very tiny problem: When I was ready to make a second project, I realised that the first one will never able to open up until I had the full version. So at the next update, could you maybe think about decreasing the number of objects, paints (etc) to a smaller amout and add the ability of having at least 2 projects in the free version instead?

But still this is an absolutely great app and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone looking for something similar. Thank you for making this!

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your feedback! We've decided to allow one project without limiting the number of objects because this lets users design their home completely in most cases even with the Free version. Limiting a number of objects would render it useless for any practical task.