Rich_Winsor

Good call Graham. I doubled the pixel size and sure enough it picked up some details that weren't present at the lower count.

Here is a little vignette I created to explore the effects of using the Compute Caustics option of Photon Mapping. For far more info than you probably care to see on how I set up this scene check out this thread in the "Tips and Techniques" forum https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/10323-exploring-ray-tracing-–-global-illumination-compute-caustics/

So there it is, that enigmatic little check box under Photon Mapping called “Compute Caustics”. What is up with that? Should I check the box? How does it affect my ray trace? If we consult Chief’s help file we get the following information: Global Illumination – > Check Use Photon Mapping to accurately calculate bounced lighting in a scene. When unchecked, ray traces have low quality lighting effects but generate more quickly. Use Photon Mapping should be checked for all interior scenes and unchecked for most exterior scenes. > Check Compute Caustics, to use caustic photons, which are photons used in areas of focused light. Caustic photons are helpful when modeling certain effects as light shining through glass. Digging a little deeper we find this in the dictionary definition of “caustic”. Aside from the more familiar meanings of the word there is also this reference in relation to optics: of, relating to, or denoting light that is reflected or refracted by a curved surface Wikipedia expounds upon this further: In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. Taking all of this into consideration I created a simple scene where the warm glow of the late afternoon sunlight streaming thru a window highlights a pair of vases and casts their shadows onto the wall. (How do I know it’s the late afternoon sun? Because I never see the early morning sun (unless I’m recovering from an extremely long night)) This should meet the criteria of having a source of focused light (the sun) shining thru (being reflected and refracted by) a curved glass surface (the vases) and projecting onto another surface (the wall). FYI, the scene I created to demonstrate the effects of computing caustics consists of 6 elements (a window, mirror, side table, place mat and 2 vases). Everything in the scene is stock Chief content from the Core Catalogs. I did replace the side table top with one I created with a more realistic edge molding (Chief’s top had a lame 45º bevel for an edge molding). The place mat is an oval rug set to 1/16” thick and given the material of linen fabric. The vases are 2 different versions of the same vase. I just changed the sizes and colors and changed the Material Class to Transparent. To tie things together I used the Rainbow Tool (Adjust Material Definition) to get the color of the place mat and then used that color for the walls. And then there was a lot of tweaking of the Sun Angle to get the light in all the right places. So what can we learn from all of this? Keeping in mind that we are talking about very subtle effects here, let’s pull a couple of ray traces and see what we get. Both ray traces are identical in every respect save for the fact that the first one is using Photon Mapping without computing Caustics and the second one is using Photon Mapping with Compute Caustics turned on. I believe you will see that the answer is written on the walls. Without Caustics (below) With Caustics (below)

Thanks Kevin. It's a stock Chief backdrop. The trick is to get the backdrop and the edge of Chief's terrain to merge seamlessly. Although the backdrop is titled "grassy", all the grass in the shots is Chief's stock OOB terrain. I'm a compulsive tweaker. I played with the position and rotation of all the tree symbols to get the best combination of cast shadows and view of the background through the trees. Actually the angle of the sun in the backdrop doesn't match the angle of Chief's sun in the view but I won't tell anybody if you won't.

Thanks Curt. For about 140 LARGE you can make it happen. Or for about the price of an additional Chief license per month you could lease one. I didn't even know it was a hybrid. http://www.caranddriver.com/bmw/i8

Thanks Yusuf. I'm with you, in believing that Chief has way more capabilities than the average user is aware of. With Ray Tracing the problem is the time it takes to explore these capabilities. I can appreciate that the average Professional User who is trying to get a design and Con Docs out the door doesn't have the time to explore all of these possibilities. But the good news is that I do have the time and will continue to explore what can be achieved with Chief's tools so that other users can at least be aware of what results are attainable.

OK, so I can't leave this BMW symbol alone. Here I replaced the cardboard cutout 2D trees with a couple of Frog 3D trees (Sweet Birch I believe they are) and threw in a stock Chief 3D Backdrop. Starting to get some really nice interplay between the reflections and shadows. Check out the Carbon Fiber texture (Patent Pending). I think I tried about as many settings as Edison tried filaments for his lite bulb before I stumbled onto this look. I like the way the "grain" of the weave runs in all the right directions and follows the contours of the curves. This is the look that the kids today called "murdered-out" Personally I prefer something more understated... like this. Ninety nine and a half won't do.... Got to have 100% Chief

Thank you for the kind words Yusuf. They mean a lot coming from such a creative and talented Chief user. As everybody knows Ray Tracing is an acquired skill and there are many factors that go into getting good results. However I would say the one "secret" that will help to get good results is to keep the elements in your ray trace view as simple as possible. There are so many possible combinations of Materials, Material Properties and lighting effects that one can easily become swamped by the possibilities and find it hard to distinguish which changes are causing which results. For this reason I find it is most productive to start out by limiting the elements to only the most essential in the view and then experiment with changing their properties one at a time to see if the changes are taking your image in the direction you want. For this type of experimentation it also helps to limit the Image Size of the RT to something that is usually considerably smaller than the Active Window Size. This will considerably speed up the test RT's and then when you get some promising results you can increase the image size to what you want your final image to be. By way of an example the ray trace of the Palladium consists of only 2 elements (3 if you count the camera). The theater is an image that was converted to a Chief Backdrop and the symbol of the BMW. I used tiled Plan and Perspective Full Overview windows to position the symbol in the right orientation to look correct in the RT view. I did make extensive changes to the Materials and Material Properties of the BMW i8 Symbol including the paint, glass, accent colors, head and taillights and mirrors.

Now Dennis, are you trying to get me in trouble? In today's overly PC culture, using attractive young women in your images can be a slippery slope. I'd hate to offend anyone with the crass use of eye candy to enhance my images. Not to mention that hot and sexy are highly subjective terms. That being said, is this what you had in mind? Took the Bimmer to LaLa land. "And those Hollywood nights In those Hollywood hills It was looking so right It was giving him chills" All Chief all of the time.

Took the Bimmer i8 (from the BMW Manufacturer Catalog) out for a spin last night. I'd have to say these are some very nice symbols with a dozen materials that can be changed entirely or have their properties altered. As always 100% Chief output.

In the Rendering Techniques Options dbx you need to uncheck "Opaque Window Glass.

Here's a quick stab made by creating custom muntins for the window Lites. It's a bit of an tedious and not too precise process but you can get pretty close to what you want.

Looks to me like the magic number is 2/3. Try using Transform Replicate to reduce the original by that amount.

I think this could be a karma issue. Chief could be getting even with you for championing the cause of other vendor's exotic render engines. Seriously I don't think I've seen that one before but it's hard to tell because for some reason the text in the dbx's in your screencast videos doesn't display cleanly for me. Not sure what causes this as I am using the highest quality video settings and I haven't experienced this behavior with other posters videos. (see thumbnail).

LOL! I have to admit I was having a Pygmalionesque moment while I was converting her image to a transparent background. By way of perspective this is what the front porch looked like after the owner had "cleaned" it up before we had a walkthru to check out the property. As is customary AAA issued the Homeowners Insurance Policy Binder sight unseen. After they sent out an agent to view the house first hand they told us the binder was good for 30 days but after that they were going to decline to issue the policy. Fortunately I have a pretty good relationship with my agent and he agreed to let me get the place squared away before they pulled the plug on me. I thru up some plywood sheathing and sent him this picture and AAA issued the policy. Sure the house is a little rough but the entry doors are plumb and square and seem to be top notch quality. You have to start somewhere.

So, here is my humble dream, my vision if you will for the front porch, entry and foyer of our modest farm house. This is a 100% Chief generated Ray Trace image. No artificial additives or ingredients. Everything in the image is stock generic Chief content from the Library Browser with the exception of the beveled and leaded glass in the door and the young lady which are 2D images I added to the User Catalog. I let this one cook for 100 passes which took a little under 2 hours. I threw just about everything at this image. Photon Mapping, Caustics, Ambient Occlusion, you name it. No Bloom or Focal Blur however as I wanted a nice crisp image to draw the viewer in.

image #2 looks like a tough neighborhood. I'd try crossing over to the other side of the street. Seriously, care to post a plan and we'll have a play with it.

Actually things like power lines are a bit problematical in Chief. They aren't straight lines and they aren't really arcs either. They are catenaries. Perhaps we should request a Catenary Tool. It would work for everything from clotheslines to suspension bridges.

It used to happen quite a bit and then it seemed to be rectified. Seems to be happening again but to a lesser degree. The one thing you can be sure of is that the more time you have into composing the perfect response, the greater the chance it will evaporate into the ether when you hit the post button. All I can say is save yourself some aggravation and hit the copy button before you hit the "Send" or "More Reply Options" buttons.

I've had a play with that. I posted this image (or a similar one) in the "Show your Goodies" thread many moons ago. As I recall it went over like the proverbial lead balloon.

As with anything in the Library Browser you must know what Chief chose to call it if you hope to ever find it. The winning search term is "power pole".

Dare I say it?... ...cool like a yeti eating frozen spaghetti.

What's wrong with Windows 10? Do you mean besides the fact that it is the most intrusive invasive inflexible autonomous software to be unleashed upon the general public to date? Between software like this and "cloud" storage we might as well just pack up all our sensitive personal information and sent it straight to Bill & Melinda. If you want a computer that starts and stops when it feels like it. Updates itself with whatever it wants whenever it wants and takes it upon itself to reverse changes you try to make to it then Windows 10 will be just the ticket for you. And who at Microsoft thought that adding an additional step to the shut down procedure was a productive improvement? BTW, Windows 10 Home is an extremely egregious offender.

Hey Chop, I feel your pain. I had a similar experience. I wish I could tell you that I was in total control but truth be told I was just trying to make sure that all the surfaces of the P-Solids matched the wall and window surfaces. The Vector view hadn't been clean and I wasn't too optimistic that it was going to get any better, but when I brought it up it was clean so I did what anybody would do. I pulled a screen shot to prove it and posted the result just like I knew what I was doing.

That's outright creepy. If I wasn't afraid of spiders before I will be now. By the way, is it bad luck to walk under a giant spider? Apparently the city paid $400,000.00 for the spider and a mural which was included in the 12 million dollar budget for the parking garage. Pretty pricy for some public art but I like it better than a lot of the bent up, rusted piles of scrap metal that are passed off on us as art.