Are You a Student Using Autodesk's Cloud Rendering? Here's What You Should Know.

It is no secret that I am a huge proponent of Autodesk's 360 Cloud Rendering service.  Personally, I use it in the office almost weekly (if not daily).  The simple ability to send my views to the cloud and continue working without bogging down any computers is MASSIVE for me.

I have used it so much that I have created my own techniques on how to make a raw cloud rendering look similar to renderings produced with professional rendering engines (such as V-Ray).   If you are interested in my techniques check out BIM After Dark - Volume 1.

Example: Rendered in the cloud using the techniques I illustrate in BIM After Dark (Click here to see more).

If you are student, Autodesk was gracious enough to give you unlimited cloud rendering credits absolutely free.  This is huge!  I remember leaving my laptop on for days rendering a few scenes while I built a physical model (crossing my fingers hoping the machine didn't break or restart).  Throwing up 30 or 40 interior/exterior scenes to the cloud and being able to crank out floor plans, sections, and elevations while they rendered was life changing.

Well, with the release of Revit 2015 and a new cloud update, the word "unlimited" is key.  You will still have an endless supply of cloud credits at your disposal, but, you may not able to throw thirty up to the cloud and let it crank away...

Autodesk Student Community Gets Overhauled

Looks like the Autodesk Student Community received a major renovation.

Having used the Autodesk Student Community for over seven years I have to say it has not always been the most user friendly website.  In fact, it used to be very difficult to find out how to access different areas of the website.  I remember when the Education Community rolled over one million members...  

The latest update makes a student member feel like a paying subscription member.  In fact, this is the first time the student site is directly connected with Autodesk's main site.  This makes sense to me.  If the ultimate goal is to convert a free student license to a paying subscription license, you might as well get them used to the subscription center.  There are some cool show reels and links to all of the great workshops Autodesk offers for free.

Definitely head on over a take a look.  If you are a student and are not taking advantage of all of the FREE software offered to you... What are you waiting for?!

Click here to Access the Autodesk Education Community 

Revit 2014 for Students Finally Available!!!

........ In French .......

Go over to the Student Community and see if you have your language....

Oh, and don't forget... If you have issues with the activation screen to check out my post for a solution...  I had to update the HTML files again (every install seems to need it)....

How to Download Free Autodesk Software as a Student

I do get questions about how to download and use the free software offered by Autodesk to Students... Well, here is a nice video explaining the process...



Source:
AutodeskCare, Everyone loves free stuff, right? Free food, free...
http://autodeskcare.com/post/33230157617/everyone-loves-free-stuff-right-free-food-free

New Autodesk BIM Curriculum / Materials

Getting Ready to Go Back to School: Autodesk BIM Learning Resources

Building Information Modeling Tools to Help You Build the Future

Check out the newly updated Autodesk® BIM Workshop - the online learning resource center with educational tools for architecture, civil engineering, structural engineering, and construction management studies. The site is designed so students can easily drill down into a specific discipline or field-of-study to access a wide selection of videos, tutorials, and interactive learning tools.

Check out all the great learning material available to you on the BIM Workshop, just in time for Back to School!

Autodesk BIM Curriculum

This curriculum is designed to help prepare architecture, engineering, and construction management students for professional practice by exploring BIM sustainable design practices along with integrated project delivery (IPD) concepts. Students and graduates can more fluidly design and communicate, test, and plan using BIM models in an IPD framework. The BIM curriculum contains student workbooks that highlight essential concepts and learning goals and are accompanied by comprehensive learning tools, instructional videos, and datasets. 

New Autodesk Structural Engineering Curriculum

The new Autodesk® Structural Engineering curriculum was created to introduce Structural Design and Analysis to help students efficiently design, analyze, document, and build their projects. The student workbooks, tutorial videos, and datasets support key that support the complete workflow from building structures to cloud computing to analysis and documentation. 

Autodesk BIM Workshop Teaser

Cool video that Autodesk put together promoting their BIM Workshop.



Click here to check out the Autodesk BIM Workshop 

Revit 2013 - New Features - A "Light" Review

Another installment of the "Light" Review...

I have been trying to get around to my own Revit 2013 posts but the current "all-nighters", physical models, photo-shopping, structural calculations, and working at the office have really been taking up too much time...

Oh well, you can always rely on David Light's review....  Steve also posted about some nice little features that snuck through...

Similar to last year, I will estimate the Student Release date of Revit 2013 at around April 18th...  Let's see if Autodesk can beat my estimate this year too!

Anyways... let me get back to my not sleeping and you can all enjoy the virtual cornucopia of information being released about Revit 2013.

Autodesk 2010 Software Now Avaliable for Students.

I know I mentioned the release of Revit 2010 on the Autodesk Student Community long before this email (which I recieved yesterday) but now all the programs are out!


Changing the Way Students Design for the Future
As the school year comes to a close, summer is the time to download the new versions of your favorite digital design software - or try out a new product. Become proficient with the tools design professionals use worldwide, so you can make an impact on your future.
There are now more than 20 Autodesk products available for free* download on the Student Engineering & Design Community! And, for the first time ever, we're making AutoCAD® 2010 available as well.

The Student Community expands the portfolio of products you can use to develop the skills you need in design industries such as mechanical engineering, industrial design, architecture, civil and structural engineering, and the digital arts. It will also help you gain expertise in the growing industry trends of Digital Prototyping, building information modeling (BIM) and sustainable design.

Free* 2010 Software Includes:
• AutoCAD® (new!)
• Autodesk® Revit® Architecture
• AutoCAD® Inventor® Professional Suite
• AutoCAD® Civil 3D®
• Autodesk® Alias® Automotive
• Autodesk® Showcase®
• AutoCAD® Map 3D
...and more!

Autodesk Student Community

For over two years now I have been using Revit completely free!  This is all thanks to the Autodesk Student Community.  Find out if your school participates in this great community.  A network of over 500,000 students and teachers belong.

The site enables you to share your designs, connect with other students, and use Autodesk software completely FREE! (Including Revit).

Find out if your school participates.

Your school doesn't participate?  Let your teacher know and become a member!

The Autodesk Student Community

Already a member?

Join The Revit Kid.com! Autodesk Group.

Changing Text Case in Revit.

You've got a set of CAD details you imported into Revit from a manufacturer. After you've imported and changed the line work of ten or so details you realize something... It's not in all capitol letters! Or... It's in all capitol letters! How do you fix this without retyping all the text to your liking?

Well, if you are a CAD user you're thinking, "Easy! Just highlight and right click... and change case!". Sadly, thats not true in Revit. But thanks to Avatech Solutions it is that easy. Avatech has a suite of utilities completely free for your use with Revit.

Avatech Revit Utilities.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to use the Change Case Utility:

Changing Text Case in Revit.

The Revit Kid! on Facebook!

Being that this site is dedicated towards students studying Architecure and Engineering Technologies I made a Facebook group for it.

Please join and invite all your architect, engineer, and construction buddies to join!

The Revit Kid! on Facebook.

To Model, or Not to Model?

I handed in a project I did in Revit for a Structures class and received a few questions about it. Using this project as an example I would like to address one question I was asked by a few people:

"How did you model every single CMU block and the bond beam?!"

Well the answer is simple... I didn't. Click the link below to view the tip/tutorial.

Detail Components... A short run through.