Renerabbitt

Sure post it again here

the poly/face count of items you are importing can be VERY large, and CA is not suited to handle high poly count models, though it can do it. When you paint an object it rebuilds the scene. Recommendation would be to put all imported items on layers that can be turned off as they hog resources when CA tries to rebuild the scene. Also you can paint your items on a blank plan, add them to the library, and then add them to the scene. You should pay careful attention to the face count of the objects you are downloading from say 3dwarehouse...anything above 10,000 faces gets to be a large resource hog that kills CA. You can also reduce face and poly counts in 3rd party software to make them more suitable for CA

I'll do the i7 a bit later, and post...these Xeons are a steal on ebay, they pull them out of servers and sell them for 1/5th the market price. Next step was going to be buying another and putting it on a multi mobo like you said. I run it in a mini itx, its an ASRock X99E-ITX/ac LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard. Curious as to why my 1070 8gb was so much slower than your 1060 6gb...I am pushing 4k resolutions, maybe that has something to do with it?

Here are mine, about what I thought: Thought I would add for anyone interested: motherboard $249 Ram $100 Case $50 M.2 Drive $220 CPU $500, ebay refurbished server GFX used on ebay $350 Power Supply $80 Water cooler-$100 All in~1650 before taxes passmark per dollar ~2.3 not bad

Here's an example plan file and image, you can dig around in the plan file and possibly find what you need..there are a lot of different methods that could be used. this method required auto generate roof and then manually editing, along with pony walls with exposed brick as well as walls with a layer of drywall over the brick. You would also need to play with settings to achieve a multi story flue if that was needed Chimney Example.plan

Before you go starting over, you should post your .plan file

Sorry, didn't subscribe to this thread...if you quote me then I get a notification. Though you used the exterior 1080 defaults I think you may have had your resolution at something far bigger than the 1080 resolution...My exterior of grandview at 32 passes only took 23 minutes at 1080 resolution with aspect ratio locked, which makes me feel like your resolution was much higher. Try doing a saved camera with saved raytrace settings and upload the plan so we can compare apples to apples.

Stepping the wall default bottom heights have created a ton of problems for me in past when I was trying to tackle this same problem. D. Scott Hall has come up with a few good ideas but they sometimes have their drawbacks as well for what my typical intended use is; I don't find any of the available solutions that great. For the last project I did, I used pony walls as you did, with my lower wall definition having a layer of drywall at the interior side and check "align wall at inner surface." I then put p-line solids on their own layer, removed from schedule, and created the curbs so that 3d framing views would show correct. It's still a work-around, but with none of the problems in the floor DBX, snaps, elevations etc. came up with this method....I feel like its a lot less work than breaking your wall surfaces and messing with default wall top and bottom heights.

If you turn off Compute Caustics does that problem still exist? ..and what new problems occur.. You can google caustics or do a search as we all have gone over its intended use and drawbacks. Laymen terms it makes the trace engine compute light refraction through transparent materials...1 light in a glass globe adds an untold and large number of light particle traces

I haven't looked to confirm but I believe so,,,simple test would be to move one texture file from a known model and then open the model in chief...it will most likely be pointing to the texture file in C

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.