Rich_Winsor

Moe, you're giving me too much credit. I'm basically an image guy. I'm just using Chief's tools to get the image results I want regardless of how it would be built. Are you talking about increasing the depth the tray ceiling is recessed into the ceiling? If so, sure, I can make it look like that.

You need to take your 2D image of the art work and use it to create a new material in your User Catalog in the Library Browser. Right click on User Catalog / Click on New / Click on Material Once you have the material you need to apply it to something. In this example I used a Polyline Solid 72" x 42" x 1/2". I set the Psolid into a wall niche that was 72" x 42" x 3" deep and changed the material from the default Concrete to the new material I made from the art work.

You know, I considered that but when I thought about it if I recess the trey, then what I am in effect making is a tray ceiling. No matter how you spell it, the usage of trey/tray can have grey/gray blurry areas of interpretation. In any event, in an attempt to offer some help to the OP, I went ahead and had a play with recessing the trey. FWIW, Chief's tools seem to be functioning as expected for me but this case is very uncomplicated . Funny thing is If you tilt your head just right, the ceiling bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain "Wings Joint" logo. BTW, God bless those nice young ladies.

Info straight from the horse's mouth. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/blog/computer-for-design-and-gaming/

Well, I declare! Is nothing sacred? Glenn recommending the Rotate Plan View tool? Now this shakes everything I was ever taught right down to the core.

Real simple 3 button (set/up/down) system to program the limits. It also has a nice feature where the speed of the door opener is regulated so that it slows down when it starts and stops a cycle. When you close the door it starts slowly for about the first foot or so and then briskly continues on down until about the last foot of travel where it slows down again and nestles down on the weather seal like a butterfly with sore feet.

I wasn't picking on you, just trying to figure out the process. I may be over-sensitive to this issue as I just installed a pair of similar fixtures on my project so I can see where the light actually shines. To completely digress I will give an unsolicited testimonial to Genie for their new wall mounted garage door openers. I just installed the first garage door (as seen in the pic) with the wall mounted opener and it's a WAY simpler and more efficient system. Installing the unit literally involves tightening 3 set screws onto the torsion shaft and lagging one bracket to the wall.

Hey Joey, I got the free version of TM but I have never gotten around to playing with it yet. Not to be a nit picker but I was curious as to why the light shining from the fixtures over the garage doors seems to be displaced up and to the left of where one would expect it to fall on the wall and doors? Just wondering?

I often use Chief to illustrate non-building world items. Looks like this was back in X8 days when I designed a pair of hood hinges for my pickup.

Well I must be doing something right as that plan is titled "Flat Head Screw". I just wanted to add a spot of realism to some hardware I was modeling. Apparently Mr Phillips felt the same way you do.

You do know that you can control the image size and the duration of the ray trace in the Ray Trace Options DBX? These settings must be made before the ray trace is started, and once started can't be altered other than to stop the ray trace. You can set the ray trace to run from 1 minute to 24 hours or you can set it to run from 1 to 999999 passes. If you really need a million passes you can set the ray trace time to no limit and it will run until you stop it or your machine melts into a tiny puddle on the floor.

In this case why would I want to..... On the other hand something like this....

Hi Levina. What the little green guy is showing is the effect the backdrop can have on the model. In that plan we have the model (in this case the saucer) and no other objects. The saucer has a 100% reflective surface but there is nothing else in the plan to reflect except what might be in the backdrop. Everything that is showing on the skin of the UFO is a reflection of what is in the backdrop. It's interesting that the reflected effect wraps all the way around the saucer like a Spherical Panoramic View even though the backdrop is flat. Anyhow, in the situation you describe the challenges will vary depending on the type of view you are creating. But whether it be an overhead or street level view the process involves getting a good quality photo of the existing situation from the viewpoint you want and then recreating that viewpoint in the camera view in your plan. As Glenn mentions above (nicely done BTW) it helps to have an image editing software program to tweak your backdrop image to suit your needs. Once you have an image you want to use for the backdrop open your Library Browser and right click on your User Catalog. Then go to New and then Backdrop to add your image to the list of backdrops you can choose in the camera specification DBX. Of course there are many other considerations to deal with such as matching the sun angle shadows and how much, if any, of Chief's terrain to include and how it blends into your backdrop image. Good Luck, hope this gets you started.

I will volunteer my thoughts on backdrops in ray traced renderings. Backdrops in PBR's behave entirely differently and can cause unexpected effects on the outcome. Backdrops certainly make a difference in ray trace quality but have very little effect on rendering time. They are after all just image files. The higher the quality of the image you turn into a backdrop, the better it will look in the rendering. To have a backdrop or not will depend on your intended results. If it's just the view out of an unimportant window in an interior scene, maybe a backdrop will just be a distraction from your intended focus. In other cases the background is everything. As below. Plan View corresponding Ray Trace

This topic lingers like an unwanted virus. Do a forum search for GDW (Garage Door Wizard). After numerous resurfacings of the topic I have no idea where we stand on the availability of the program from the creator. PM me if you are interested in a free trial. GDW Test-2.calibz

I believe @lbuttery has worked on this kind of project. He might have a lead for you.

Looks good to me Glenn. I don't know about the others but I'll give ya a +1 for the effort. What really caught my eye however was the "close but no banana" reference. Is that a Southern Hemisphere thing? Maybe with smoking so out of favor the trusty old "close but no cigar" in no longer acceptable.

If you don't want to roll your own (so to speak) Chief has some distressed and rustic materials available in their Bonus Catalogs. You might have a play with them and see if you can find something useful there.

Or maybe a good reason to upgrade to a Windows rig..... OK OK, just joking, lord knows you Apple guys can be touchy.

Seems like a lot of work for a God awful effect. If it's for a faithful representation of the existing condition, yeah, spatter it with MR's. If it's for anything else, ditch the effect. JMHO

Like this? I may have misunderstood the question.

Very impressive. Did you model that door in Chief as well? Looks like you are definitely in good hands as far as the fabrication goes. The Live Oak Estates are really our inside joke. They are actually a pair of 480 sq ft one bedroom, one bathroom rental units that we are now passing off as an exclusive gated community.

Nice Job JB. At 20' I'm assuming that gate is going to be a slider. Will you need to put a horizontal bar near the top for the rollers to ride on? It can detract from the intended design. While no where near as ornate, I too designed a 12' x 7' entry gate for the duplex on our property. It turned out pretty nice. Hope you have a good metal guy to bring it to life.

??? That's the tire symbol you made. BTW, that EPDM rubber material ray traces very nicely.