Quote - Maxxxmodelz this is all your fault
Now ya made me curious as to how to make
parametric and generative architecture & stuff.

So what software does one use to make
parametric and generative architecture & stuff ? Max n Plugs,CAD ?
For CGI.

 

It's truly fascinating and addicting stuff, isn't it?  I've only begun to scrape the surface of what's possible myself.  My brother, who just recently joined Rosity, is taking a Level 2 Advanced modeling course for Graphic Design, and it's all based around parametric modeling for everything from Architectural structure to 3D printed sculpture.  Some abstract stuff too.  Really cool stuff I'd never seen done before he showed me, and quite like yourself, I was "locked" into the mindset that triangular meshes or trunicated vertices were the work of the devil.  I always though you needed perfect quad topology for any modeling process, if you wanted to model correctly.

However, my brother has totally changed my approach to modeling certain things, and taught me that keeping everything parametric, right up to the point of render, or whatever the end result may be, is not only efficient, but powerful.

Unfortunately, not every modeling application works with this procedural workflow in mind.  My brother's class is working on 3dsmax, which I've been using since version 3 myself, So I'll start by talking about that real quick.

The reason they are learning on Max in their class is because the entire modeling architecture and workflow in 3dsmax is, and has always been, designed in a  parametric nature.  You model things not only by adding and cutting edges and edge loops with direct polygon editing tools, but also by manipulating a mesh with various parameter-based modifiers, which are stacked on top of each other in a fully editable and procedural modeling workflow.  The "modifier panel" in 3dsmax, with all its secondary functions and interoperability; like instancing geometry, referencing geometry and sub-objects, parameter-linking between modifiers and geometry and so on, is what gives the app some mad CAD-like powers, and is a great benefit and a  great time-saver for hard-surface modeling in particular, and kind of unique to 3dsmax.  A lot of people who started on 3dsmax, like I have, simply don't want to use anything else.  Then again, others can not grasp the "stackable" workflow of the modifier panel, and would rather a different approach.

Also, with 3dsmax you benefit from a really vast community of very good modelers and professionals who create some interesting scripts and plugins for it as well that just take the possibilities of parametric and generative modeling to new levels:

Check these out for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUQTDIaBvRc

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/superflow-elements

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**If you're interested in doing things like this in 3dsmax, I can put you in touch with my brother.  He's been my coach and teacher recently, and is involved with some high level, complex modeling for sculpture and other areas of fabrication.

But it's not JUST 3dsmax you would need.  RHINO has an awesome plugin called Grasshopper that uses generative components to model some intense, and very complex mathematically based architectural stuff, as well as things like contemporary, "primitive shapes" clothing, etc.  See here:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/

But if you just want to get your feet wet, and explore different ways to model using all kinds of different subdivision surface tessellations, then there's some free apps out there that are just amazing for this sort of thing.  See here:

http://code.google.com/p/topmod/

You can really create some crazy things with Topmod, just by exploring different remeshing/tesselation techniques:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/topmod/pool/

As you can see, a lot of those shapes would be very difficult to achieve if you were only working with 4-sided quad topology, and nothing else.

There's other apps that can be made to work similarly.  Wings3d can expand on it's excellent subdivision surface tools by using a suite of free plugins for it called "Manifold Lab".  You might wanna check that out eventually, but those tools are a little hard to get your head around, and require their own specific sort of workflow that is different than the way Wings3D does things natively.

I think Blender might have a few tools that could help too, but I'm not familiar with it, and haven't seen or heard of many people doing much parametric or generative type of works with it.  I've seen some cool sculpture stuff done with it, but not much architecturally that appeared to be of a parametric origin, like some of the examples I've been showing.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.