Renerabbitt

No worries, if I recall looking through your plan file there were a few strange things going on, in particular soffits that could be created with walls/wall definitions, and wall definitions with no framing layer that just needed different color fill and line wight colors to create the look you were trying to achieve. This is just from recollection, something to check out..

If you would like to just pick out a sample plan from chief architects site and run the same settings I would sample it for you, I have a single xeon 14 core

I spent about a year with artlantis but the workflow was very inefficient IMHO

It actually was run using Thea's biased Presto AO engine, which is screaming fast because is uses both the GPU and CPU and any node computers you have as well. For most of the types of renders we do, it is the best option. I believe rendering went for 16 minutes on this scene. As you delve further into it all, you figure out the tricks to speed up the render times. Windows are duplicated and turned into invisible light sources, you can re-light or repaint a scene after the rendering is finished as it runs individual calcs for each light iteration independently of the rendering. The list is very long. ..and yes items like the bed and comforter I would import from an outside source, using chief as a placemarker. If you ever have any interest in seeing me work a scene we can do a screen sharing so you can check it out. Just let me know

Thank you both, appreciated feedback and responses

Thank you and cheers!

I use Chief with two separate computers so I may have a few suggestions. 1. My primary suggestion would probably be the easiest for collaboration, though you will never be able to work on the same file at the same time in this manner. Run the application from a server workstation through a screensharing application. One computer, one file, one at a time. 2. work in layer sets tailored to set all changes to a specific layer and instruct the struc engineer to do all structural modifications with Cad lines until the final locations are put into place before modifying foundation etc. Joe carrick is an excellent resource for this, you can search his posts for relevant info. 3. if you setup your drawing page and show drawing page on the .plan file you can set off set reference points to the page sheet and snap new measurements using this cad point. Import measurements on a separate layer for better workflow. All in all I think layer set management is your best collaborative solution

Yes that's not what chief is intended to do, I shot your scene through Thea Render, with no post processing, took a little over an hour to do. You also need to use better models... bed you used is a very low poly count, as well as the curtains, and the fan isn't material mapped appropriately, neither is the bed frame. If you wanted it to be photorealistic it would probably take an additional 10 hours for a seasoned designer. Final Obj ID Mat ID

Or you could hire someone who does renders...Jintu, Graham, and myself all perform such a service.

Thank you MTL, your first image is a tricky one as it involves a glass fixture. Glass is very difficult to render when it is next to a light source as it involves reflection, refraction and caustics. Best solution is to convert the glass on the fixture to a "General Material" then turn transparency up to somehwere between 50-80 and emissivity up to create the look of light bouncing around in the glass. Second and 3rd images are simple, I made a tutorial just for this subject here:

Raytrace, post processing and Photoshop tips: Creating a realistic lighting effect for can lights Here we have a scene provided by the user mtldesigns For the purpose of this tutorial I will be using Photoshop CC. Time to complete: 1 minute or less per light. 1. Choose the Magic Wand tool and select the can light 2. Change your foreground color to a grey RGB 194,194,194 works well in most instances 3. Using the rectangle selection tool, right click and hit "fill" 4. Your can light should now be grey. With the can light still selected, go to Filter/Render/Lens Flare 5. Click on prime and drag the slider to about 130-180% and center the target at the center of your can light 10. The inside of your can should be looking pretty nice now. Deselect your can light(or select the entire photo) and switch to the paint brush tool. Use a feathered or soft brush and set the brush size to something slightly larger than the height of the can light. Center on your light and hit just once(typical). You may need to play with this to get it just right 11. The finished can light should look something like this. Not even trying to be quick it took me 54 seconds to complete one can even with a couple of re-do's on the paint brush tool

Just to confirm(and also because I can and it's fun), photometric light analysis shows that all of the "light bleeds" are in location of low luminosity, which would confirm the environment-light theory

Showing up very late to the party here but "enable environment light" in raytrace settings often times produces the light bleed effect which I'm guessing was the culprit as it is not a material setting or a photon issue and is present around areas that typically have shadows...A very common problem with environment light at its default of 1.

Raytrace, post processing and Photoshop tips: Inserting a photo background into your scene Here we have a simple bathroom that has an overexposed exterior light Using a material ID mask(see other tutorial below this line) We are going to inject a photograph of the existing exterior. For the purpose of this tutorial I will be using Photoshop CC. Time to complete: 15-20 minutes. 1.Create a duplicate layer of your background and name it, for the purpose of this tut my name will be Bathroom1. Open your Material/Object ID mask and copy and paste into your document. 2. Copy and paste your photograph image and name it: 3. Order your layers so that the photograph image is below Bathroom1. 4. On the Material ID layer, use a select/color range/ to select the window from the material ID mask and then switch back to Bathroom1 and delete the selection.Your Photograph should show up in the window. Switch to the photograph layer and resize to fit as you please by holding down ctrl+t and maneuvering the image handles. 5. Copy and paste the Photograph image and name it reflection. Move reflection layer up the hierarchy so that it is above bathroom1. Adjust the opacity on the layer to around 50% so you can see through to Bathroom1. Use edit/transform/flip vertical and then locate the image so that it in line with the reflection like so: 6. In the Layers Tab next to the opacity slider the layer should be set to "Normal." Switch that to "soft Light" which will produce this result 7. Using a large feathered brush as an eraser, erase your reflection layer until it lines up with the original ceiling reflection. 8.. For this particular project I used similar methods to replace the rug and images in the mirror. The final product was done in about 15 minutes Before: After Here is the corresponding Photoshop File in case you would like to inspect the layers I created for this image Bathroom_Window-1.psd

I'm located in Lafayette in your neighboring city, I can work remotely after normal working hours, please contact me if this schedule is something that could work for you.

Reduced to 18,000

Sharing some shots from an ongoing project, about 80 hours in. Given a set of 2d plans, it's come a long way with multiple color schemes etc.

If you set your smoothing angle to 0 in the open symbol dbx does it fix your problem? Curious why you are modelling this in sketchup, these doors are a simple animal and would be much easier to build in the program

Yeah just throwing a guess, your index of refraction got changed, or crown..I can't remember the verbiage chief uses, Graham you probably know?

Apologies Chopsaw I had to step away from my desk and you are correct, I have noticed some tearing now that I look closer. Dpi changes the sampling rate of the print job, meaning the size of the boxes that the PDF print server samples or "slices" and then stitches together The problem here IMO is that we have a downsampled vector image being printed at a large scale. Curious if "send to layout as an image" would help, and also curious if the line weight of 1-1/100 mm is too small. maybe setting it to something larger would help the print engine

I don't have any of the tearing issues that you have on your plan, may want to look into your graphics settings again. What DPI are you printing to in PDF? and what size paper?

You have your walls checked as foundation walls which don't allow the align tool to work with the floor above

Send me the plan kbird and I'll do a render from Thea for you.. help you out for your clients.. gotta keep the Rep up save the camera views you want and I'll get you a couple renders back, shouldn't take more than an hour

Of the models I've created using Chief, this one is my favorite. Please post a picture if you use this, I'd love to see your work! High Poly Count La Cornue 1908.calibz Low Poly Count LaCornue 1908 Range.calibz

Here's another method, I enclosed the space under your driveway making it a room, set it to have no ceiling or floor and then dropped the room to the level of your driveway. Then dragged a railing and set it to have no room definition. Placed it on top of your retaining walls. PEFLEY_REMODEL_8-7_RAB.plan