Renerabbitt

GOOD FIND! well this is just selling my consistent pestering about the trace engine needing an update. CA should partner with established companies like lumion/artlantis/thea instead of trying to keep raytrace alive. POVray is even better than our raytrace IMHO. People spend so many hours fussing with lights in raytrace when great renders can be had in a mere hour with the other rendering softwares

The simple answer is that you need a light source placed in the proper location for a polished material to do its proper reflections see image below:

Your dedication to this is appreciated as well. To try and clarify, in direct relation to your black picture/white wall scenario...a biased engine does not see in colors, it works a scene as a clay render, with objects given a material identification to be applied afterward. Reflection of surface A off of surface B is grabbed from the object ID of A, giving the reflecting surface B, the material ID A, so as to reflect the correct material. Additionally, a scene is not being illuminated by a raytrace, but rather the path of light is being calculated. Add complication to the calculation and it will take longer for a raytrace to trace the path of light. There is some serious complication when we add multiple light sources at great distance from a round, transparent, reflective, and refractive surface. Because of this complication the trace engine cannot trace all of the paths of light with accuracy in the given time so it renders those places black or white dependent on the traces current theory. We know this to be true as increasing the length of time decreases the noise, with some noise never being calculated. The reason it never is calculated, in broad strokes/laymen terms, is that the pixel being sampled has too many variations leaving no viable solution. Some trace engines allow you to change the color of a scene after a trace as a result of this workflow(colimo for instance) which even allows you to change the reflectivity of those surfaces or further illuminating the scene...and this is AFTER the raytrace, leaving the work intact. This is because the path of light has been traced, so adjusting the light or the surfaces doesn't require a new trace. Resolution and sampling is to say that 1 foot, square-cut of a photo at 4000 resolution has greater accuracy than a 1000 resolution in the way that the 1000 resolution may determine that the 1 foot square is black or white whereas the 4000 resolution can determine that 3 pieces are black and the fourth being white. In correlation with the trace engine, resolution gives greater accuracy to the trace by increasing the pixel density..giving it more options in its calcs.

By increasing the resolution of a Fixed-width image, (like switching from a crop sensor to a full frame and then stepping forward a few paces) CA effectively increases the pixel density, which means more sampling. Higher sampling will equal less fireflies(“noise”) and a longer trace. Falloff SHOULD be related to fall off of a light source. A light only projects so far, including reflecting or refracting. Try your tests with "custom" light settings, adjusting for lower attenuation to decrease the fall off. Theoretically, this should effect your number-of-bounces theory. Though I don't count on it, the raytrace engine severely lacks as a biased engine. In typical trace engines, the closer a light source is to an object the greater the interference, conversely, the further an object is from a light source the more sampling is needed to effectively “find” its geometry. This is compounded when you introduce a reflective material to the geometry, and compounded again for a refraction. The goal should be to create geometry that diffuses incoming light but serves as passive emitters(looks like a lit bulb) with the direct emitter uninterrupted by geometry(below the bulb and invisible) Additionally, surface area and poly count of an emitter adds to the complication of the trace. In the case of your traces, the flat recessed lights do well, but the distance from the glass is part of the problem(or should be by all typical logic) what happens when you make the glass a transparent material instead of a crown glass and then set it to be slightly emissive? the raytrace engine, in theory, needs a light source to figure out the complications of the glass. By setting it to be a light source, however faint, it should help reduce the complicated refractions(caustics) A raytrace after all only works with light. No light=no image Ideally a scene needs enough light to simplify the interaction with geometry without adding too much light which adds to the number of traces. Reflective and transparent material add more complication. CA forces a light into a scene when no light is present because otherwise you would see nothing. The most realistic scenes often times have the fewest direct light sources, which is the primary reason for Ambient Occlusion in most cases a couple of settings CA needs desperately: user designated sampling rates, clamp settings, direct emitter material options, invisible emitter(for varying size poly slabs) to name a few. You would really find some supremely useful info here: its not just a manual, its a rendering guide for all softwares http://www.thearender.com/versions/TheaRenderManual_v1.5.pdf

Please post the .plan

Sent you a PM as well, I live in the East Bay and am available for freelance drafting. My partner provides engineering. Also offer photorealistic renderings. Thanks!

Adding to Eric's question, are you looking to do residential plan-sets?

I'm up for it, a few shots:

I assure you its Google, their cloud service does not allow live co-authoring. you'll crash consistently in google...try uploading a lot of data on google drive while an open file of Chief is running and trying to auto save..it will crash. onedrive or dropbox will not

Google drive does not support live program authoring/backups etc. it will lock a file when it is uploading/downloading as it’s owner, which takes away parent permissions from CA causing it to crash. Google drives reps cite this as a known function of drive though I can’t state my source onedrive and Dropbox work fine

I may make a new post for this but some computer advice to carry with you for the ages(and this is just 1 very simple method/path to take) Always have a secondary partition with your important files(either 2 partitions on 1 drive or 2 drives) Primary partition/drive houses the OS and programs Secondary partition/drive houses your data files/archives/media/documents Secondary drive should have periodic backups to a third drive or live backups to a cloud service ..That way when your computer goes to hell you pay $100-$200 to reformat windows on the primary drive ONLY(or do it your self by reverting back to a backed up copy etc.) Installing a new version of windows 10 is very straightforward. Your secondary partition would remain untouched (meaning all of the data you cared about saving) and it would be very easy to point your documents structure in windows to your secondary drives folder and sync back up. Then simply reinstall your software and you're back on track. A temporary solution for you...buy a TB of cloud storage and drag over all of your documents that you need to save(including chief's root folders and archives etc.) Then go to your programs list in system and note the programs you have installed and make sure you can get the installation software you need to install them new. Then someone can reformat your computer without having to spend hours on a backup and restore. You've cut that portion of the work out of the estimate. So they reformat and you start installing the programs. Personally I suggest you do this work yourself until you run into problems. Computer's are in our business, and are of vested importance in our production...its beneficial to learn their maintenance and repair procedures Regardless of a new computer system or not, backing your data to a cloud would be an easy method for transferring your work.

+1 in Northern CA

I would be interested in handling the rendering services only, I currently don't have the bandwidth to handle plan-sets as I cut down my hours for the snow season up here in Tahoe. I would be willing to take on plan-sets in the winter. Let me know if you'd have any interest as I produce high end rendering services(including furniture layout/finishes/etc. that are affordable.

Tim, I'll second Graham's opinion on this one. Although chief is written for multi core rendering the improvements are marginal when stacked against a fast single thread(I have both)...and single threaded speed helps for all other tasks that chief handles. A big recommendation from a former computer builder..make sure your motherboard supports m.2 drives and quad channel ram. ALSO, planning is the key to raytrace success. Run your raytrace on a slave computer, or run it overnight...or set your computer up to ba able to handle raytrace with only half the cores(more ram!)

Thea can do it as well

Macro People..is their a way to change color of window/door/room labels on an individual basis as the title says..cheers!

Chief to replicate the building Thea for rendering layers Photoshop to compile layers Procreate for touchups and thank you! and Thanks Graham and ACAD

A few images from a large collection I completed this summer for a Developer.

3ds files will show plants only if you use CA's 3d plant catalog. All other plants are 2d images and thus not visible in an exterior 3d platform. Try using sketchfab, you will be able to import your own background there. Their are multiple posts in regards to sketchfab export/import

Combination of OneDrive/Teamviewer/ and the main one is PlanGrid. I am the sole designer for a design-build firm and perform the occasional collaboration with a freelance designer, so my software implementation reflects my business model. Plangrid has been fantastic for collaborating with clients and field crew

Graham, appreciate your time as always, the problem I have is that by definition ambient occlusion should darken the corners of the room. Which tells me that either the AO engine needs to be rebuilt or more importantly, the bleeding needs to be addressed from a physical standpoint. Close the gaps at the corners and then test AO...if it doesn't create better depth and higher contrast in the corners then AO needs a rework as surface's aren't projecting properly. Also, environment light from Raytrace is a tricky thing, it tends to give light to areas that should have heavier shadow, such as underneath a freestanding range with no direct light. A simple work-around fix for the physical model would be to auto-generate an L-shaped 3/4" molding with a 3/4" Horizontal and vertical offset to close in the corners.

https://www.teamviewer.us/downloads/?#cta-click-remote-support PC download, PM me and I can help you get it up and running and Thanks Chop

looks like your default wall heights are screwed up..post the primary .plan

post to the services wanted forum, time available, I offer teaching/coaching as well as others, I probably am on the expensive side for what you are looking for, but by all means put it out there and see who bites...and good luck!

TJ this is a different request then what I understood of your OP. You could leave the map as an image, Photoshop the house out first, and place a model over the top and export as a new image