Archilime Academy Reviews 39

Great course with useful info. Jack was really responsive with queries I had as well.

Clear, concice and very informative

I have just completed a personalised development course aimed at improving my use of Sketchup and V-Ray in architectural work, both during the design process and when presenting ideas to clients. The course focused on landscape modelling to get extra context out of my architectural visualisations. Dan was the perfect teacher. He explained everything methodically, and has a deep knowledge of the software. Zoom and screen-sharing provided the perfect platform for delivering the course, allowing Dan to quickly spot where I was going wrong and suggest ways to improve technique. The follow-up screen recording is really useful to embed the lesson. I would highly recommend Archilime Academy to anyone wanting to learn how to use V-Ray or improve their skills, no matter what level they are currently at.

I did the three-day 'Access into V-Ray' course in December 2022, and Dan knows his stuff inside out. There was one other person on the course who was a full-time visualisation expert. The course was broken down into three sections, and we went through each topic individually (Materials, Lighting and Rendering). The Zoom call format made it easy to ask questions. Having only finished the course yesterday- it will take some time for all the information to percolate and a lot of practice to learn the procedures instinctively. This is a little disappointing as my expectation was that the course would end any doubts about how to use the software. Not so. The course was recorded, so I can take my time going over it. Dan has also offered to help with any questions/projects going forward. I would recommend the course to help speed up the learning, as it would take much longer with YouTube.

I think the rating says a lot of why this is a course that everyone wanting to get into Sketch-Up and visualisations should take. From Day 1 all of the basics were taught in an interactive, positive and confidence building way which allowed me to find the skills which I knew I had from other CAD packages.This leading all the way to Day 3 where I felt more than confident enough to apply my skills to some advanced modelling scenarios. Dan is an absolutely fantastic teacher and never failed to make me feel comfortable showing and doing live edits in front of others, which for some people can seem very daunting, yet this was made to feel controlled and energising. The Archilime academy is something I recommend everyone wanting to get into this type of CAD software rolls onto as it is more than worth the time and investment you would be making. I want to thank Dan and the Team at Archilime for making this possible and once again thank you for a wonderful experience.

Ewan

Following my four-hour, one-to-one, remote tuition session yesterday, I feel deeply refreshed and have returned to my V-Ray project with renewed vigour. Dan is a great teacher – clear, patient, and encouraging. He was quick to understand what I wanted to get out of the course and to see what I most needed. He comes strongly recommended.

I had no knowledge of SketchUp prior to engaging with Archilime Academy on a SketchUp Access course. This gave me the impetus to try and learn more about 3d modelling and presenting them so I enrolled on their 3 month development programme and I have moved to a different level in a relatively short time.

If you have any previous experience using SketchUp and hope to improve your skill base and/or if you have any motivation to learn to render and present your model illustrations with V-Ray or even if you have attempted to self learn V-Ray (I did but with little success…), then I would strongly recommend that you hook up with Archilime for a 3 month development programme which for me, included 6 well structured sessions, which were planned and agreed between Dan and myself starting with an re-cap/re-introduction covering some basic modelling techniques in SketchUp, leading to modelling buildings and structures, to then re-learning how to apply materials and textures and render in V-Ray.

We covered architecture, some interior design, garden design and landscape design with the benefit of using plug-ins to speed up and streamline techniques.

Every session was well organised and at pace which was comfortably measured by Dan. We only moved forward when he felt I was ready to and his techniques and methods were perfectly presented in all of the sessions.

After completing the programme I now feel confident to use both SketchUp and V-Ray but another big benefit is that each session is recorded and sent on to you so you have the ultimate reference stream to look back on..

This programme has improved my confidence and my knowledge and accelerated my progress but the biggest plus is that now I fully understand how to use V-Ray alongside Sketchup. Converting a plain 3d model into a series of professional standard photo realistic images is very satisfying and the leap forward from just modelling is so rewarding.

So next for me has to be to practise the content that I have learned in the programme and use this to achieve the impressive photo realistic results that I was able to achieve with Dan. Should I find myself in trouble then, Dan offers to help answer questions and offer advice and guidance in between sessions and even after the programme has finished

If you are considering the course but not too sure if its right for you, then I would honestly tell you to seriously consider booking the course if you want to use and improve your SketchUp with V-Ray or just V-Ray knowledge as part of your skillset.

Thank you Dan and Archilime Academy for a really positive and fantastic experience

After completing the 3 day 'Access into V-Ray for SKP' course, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to strengthen his/her skills into producing a decent enough CGI using the software. The course material was found to be just perfectly designed in order to give more than enough insights into the functions and still not to confuse you too much with the crazy technicalities behind each and every tool.
In these three days, I have learnt a lot about materials, lighting and a dozens of tips and tricks of how to be super efficient with the V-Ray workflow.
Dan (the tutor) was really patient and very thorough in explaining very complex things with a lot of simplicity.
Looking forward to going through the course screen recordings and the manual, following a Q&A session.

Top Up Course - Sketch-Up
This was my third attempt at learning Sketch Up and although I have been using it for many years, through Dan's patience and expertise I am now "really" using it! Through our session Dan explained short cuts and processes that have really changed the way I use sketch up on a daily basis. I had been struggling to find the time to take the course but now I wish I had taken it earlier because through doing the course I have definitely increased productivity and cut some serious time off my model making and plans.
Thanks so much Dan.. I will see you soon at the next stage of my personal development!

I came to Archilime for training on V-Ray 5. Before this I have done the trial for V-Ray and watched many YouTube videos to try and learn myself, however, it wasn't working for me. I then Spoke to Dan Stones and got a course booked in. I went from not knowing anything about V-Ray to then creating beautiful designs and renders myself! I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn V-Ray with no/little Knowledge or to progress their knowledge further, this training course was amazing, I couldn't ask for a better training course!

Dan Stone was my teacher during the one on one digital top-up course. He's been a great help on complex issues about SketchUp and Vray. I have experienced the learning method as very pleasant.

Archilime, keep up the good work! I will come back to you in the fall.

I just finished my Top Up Course with Dan and I need to say that it was so amazing! Dan was so easy to understand and I really felt that he wanted to help me with my work. I told him that I got a important project with a tight deadline and he really took that seriously.
I am so thankful for this. I had never belivied that I could go from level zero to an almost completed Photomontage within four hours! Archilime, you rule! Thanks from Sweden!

Recently participated in a VRay Access Course and it was very useful. I have been using VRay for some time but this course enabled me to refine my skills and discover some other useful tools and tips to make my workflow more efficient. Friendly and very helpful! Thanks to Dan S & the team!

I have taken the access to V-ray course with Dan at Archilime Academy. Before the course we were sent a manual with an informative breakdown of V-ray.

The 3 day course, done over zoom, was well structured. With Dan recording the sessions it enabled me to not have to concentrate on note taking and my full attention was able to be on the demos and talks. Any questions and feedback were welcome - along with a choice of following Dan up with any questions after the course which is extremely helpful and something I’ve not had with previous courses I’ve completed.

I couldn’t recommend this course more and I would definitely be interested in taking more of their courses in the future!

Thanks Archilime Academy!

I took the Access into V-Ray for Sketchup Course with Archilime and I would highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn V-Ray with Sketchup. The course was very informative and provided a solid learning structure.
The course providing a welcoming pack, course manual and a certificate. Every part of the manual was covered with any questions answered and many useful tips and tricks along the way. There was also an email after each session to answer any additional questions and links to any websites or platforms discussed in the sessions. Big thank you to Archilime for giving me a solid introduction into V-Ray with Sketchup!

I took the Access into V-ray course and was using this with V-ray Next and SketchUp.

I found the course to be well paced and incredibly informative. It was held online via Zoom (which worked well), but I would have preferred to be taught face-to-face ideally. Such a shame with the Pandemic.

Even though there was a course syllabus, Archilime Academy tailored the content to be specific to me and my needs, yet still covered all of the bases. For instance, I use SketchUp a little differently to the average SketchUp user, and so it was much less Architecture based and more Product focussed.

We used my "real-world" models as use cases and the results were fantastic. It's great to know that Archilime are on hand once the course is complete for any "after sales" questions.

A great course, well planned, and I will definitely be using them again in the future and would heartily recommend them to any modelling, rendering and retouching artist out there.

I recently completed Archilime Academy’s 3 day ‘V-Ray for Sketchup-Access’ course online with Dan & I could not recommend this company & their training highly enough. Having attended other software training days in the past, this was by far the most thorough & personalised course I have taken & with a full PDF manual, 3 days of the course video footage to run through at your leisure & Archilime’s after-care support, what’s not to love, this really has been a sound investment!

Dan is happy to fully answer any questions that you may already have or that arise during the course & despite the many tangents that we went off on, there was plenty of time to cover the course content at a comfortable pace.

Dan is also incredibly generous with helpful tips & time-saving advice, relevant to your own field of work. I am still practising & digesting everything that I learnt during this course but already looking forward to furthering my knowledge with Archilime’s other courses.

I highly recommend the Archilime VRay for Sketchup course for anybody looking to learn VRay. The course was well thought out and very beneficial for somebody who was self-taught prior to attending the course.

Dan taught the course in an an engaging way and his thorough explanations have enabled me to build on my prior knowledge of VRay.

I've just completed a 1-2-1 Topography course with Dan via zoom and it was absolutely Amazing!!!!

I can honestly say its the best format of education I've ever had and its the only way I want to learn from now on!

Dan's solid knowledge on every sketchup related enquiry is worth every penny. I did consider wading through the internet to try and teach myself in order to save money but having done a 4 hour intensive session I realise that there is absolutely no way I was ever going to cover the same ground or discover the various add ons and how to use them like I did in our session.

If I had the money I would do a 1-2-1 session every week until there was nothing left to learn!!

The things I loved about learning on zoom where;

For the entire session I was the one using sketchup with arrows drawn on my screen by Dan to guide me. With most education you are sat watching someone else demonstrating which I find very disengaging and frankly boring! When it comes to me then trying to do what I've been shown I then need guidance again as to what to do. When you are the one doing it you don't have that dead time that you as the client are paying for which means you get a lot more value for money and cover much more ground.

The whole session is recorded! So all those pearls of wisdom are captured forever rather than lost to the ether! How can any other format of education surpass that? You can revisit every element of your entire lesson over and over until you've grasped every single aspect which for me is an absolute dream!

You don't have the additional cost of fuel to get to the Archilime Academy

Finally you don't have to go home and try and transition what you've learnt on to your own computer because you've already been using it for 4 hours so it seamlessly sets you in motion.

I highly and whole heartedly recommend using Archilime and especially via zoom! Jack and Dan are great guys and exceptionally good at what they do and you won't find any better guidance elsewhere so go and book a course now!

I have recently completed the Vray course for Sketch up with Archilime.
This course was due to take place in Exeter in person over 2 days, but due to the circumstances it went ahead online spread over 4 days. Personally, this suited me better without having to travel and being able to do it on your own computer was great.
Dan was an excellent teacher and made sure you were with him and understood everything every step of the way. For quite a complex course he made it very straight forward and the knowledge I learnt will be very helpful in the future.
Having used Sketchup for a number of years I also learnt some new things on this to increase my work flow.
Jack from Archilime was also very helpful with getting me into the right course for my skills and needs. The after care they are showing is also excellent.
I would recommend their courses and would definitely return for another course in the future.