pgjacob

Those look nice! I have gotten somewhat realistic pool water in Chief. But I thought I'd try Vray out. Thanks for your images!

Well, since I got no replies I ventured out in VRay for rendering vs. Chief. VRay (by Chaos) allows powerful rendering with less of a learning curve. They also have great video tutorials. One of the tutorials was dedicated to realistic pool water. Five days into the free trial (Vray for Sketchup) I am hooked. So less work in Chief, just getting the 3D structures set up, and import 3DS into sketchup and update materials, lights, etc. (I guess I could learn how to build the structures in sketchup, but I still suck at using the sketchup tools...) There is a big difference in the photorealistic quality as seen in the images provided, and I am nowhere near to learning all the techniques in Vray. https://youtu.be/3xI1vXRFz4g Here are two animations of the same scene. One in Chief and the other using VRay.

Hi All I am trying to render pool water. I have tried different things but I just can't seem to get it to look right. The first two supplied are from "pool Studio". To me these look fairly realistic. I like the transparency and color. The last two are my renderings. I know it has a lot to do with the pool plaster material, texture, etc. But I just can't seem to get a good pool water. I have gone to the Sketch Up Club for good images. Just looking for tricks and tips as I have been doing alot of pools lately.. thanks in advance melissa

Hi All I am using distributed objects for plants in garden beds. Due to a slope of the elevation, I find it easier to use a polyline solid for the mulch material to level out the bed. But when I add a distributed object area for plants, the plants lower themselves to the terrain, so they are buried a little in the mulch. I can't see how to raise or lower the the distributed object area (in yellow in pic). I tried a garden bed but it still seems the plants are submerged a bit. Thanks melissa

PBR is physical based rendering. One of the ways Chief shows the 3D images. You have a choice when displaying your camera view as standard, PBR, Vector view, and many other types. PBR is one of the newer ways chief allows users to see their work in the most realistic format. Closer to what you might see in the result of a ray trace. Hope this helps.

Thanks Gene. That makes sense. And I am learning the more surfaces on the object the slower my computer. I now understand all those squares. I attach the PBR, vector and standard render. And thanks for the image for the Hill Country. Yes, that is true! I need to remember to add this type of artwork in!

HI All I am ray tracing a scene with a 3D plant (from sketchup) and the shadows are showing squares rather than the actual shadow of the plant (1 pass image shown below). I have purposely moved the sun around to cast shadows to the back of the image as I have found manually manipulating the sun gives much better RTs than using natural sun angles (at least for me). I attach the skp file and what the plant looks like in the object info window of CA. Any ideas how to get rid of this square shadow? I uncheck the ray casted shadows in camera tool pre-ray trace, and it looks better but still ray traces with the square shadow. Thanks in advance, melissa Blue Flax Lily.skp

Thanks to everyone's help! Just about endless what you can do. I am playing with Dingbat fonts in DaFont (some are not uploading in Sketchup) but enough are that amy kind of polyline solid can be created and then subtracted.

Wow! This is exactly what I needed! Thanks so much. I have Sketchup and will try there. And I see you can import fonts from e.g. Dafont.com. Melissa

I am trying to create an address sign using a square polyline solid and REMOVING text from the square like in the attached image. I know I can subtract other simple polyline solids, but how do I subtract a letter or number? Chief Architect tech support had no solution. Thanks in advance Melissa

Nevermind, it is the door. Not sure what is wrong with the door, but the knob worked on other doors.

Hi All I created a custom doorknob and it will not place in the door correctly (it lands next to the hinges...). I cannot adjust the offset. I have attached the object. Any ideas? thanks melissa emtek exp.calibz

Hi All I am wondering if you can create a new material from polylines. I have made many new materials from images. But in this instance I would like to make a series of metal circles to use to "paint" a hemi-sphere. I could find an image to use to do this, but I want the circles to actually have real holes so light can shine through them. I have attached an example of this for a light. I am able to create a series of holes using a circle and the 3D molding polyline, multiple copy them and add to the library, but material is not an option. This may not be possible... thanks melissa

Using everyone's help made the sconce. Not perfect but good enough... Having this software is driving my builder nuts but I don't care.... it is too cool Rigby.calibz

In my search for faces and revolving, I found this rather comical video:

HOLY COW! This is like Chief Architect PLUS Sudoku. This is going to be fun! The subtraction thing is awesome! And trying to figure out the chamfer (new word for me!) object will be like a puzzle, of which I am a huge fan. Thanks to everyone AGAIN for the help and pointing to the help articles. And I was able to export an individual object, it just says "Export Library" and I didn't know it would do just the one I highlighted. Melissa my chamferred cylinder.calibz

Hi All I am creating custom light fixtures and many have a domed shade. I actually used two bowls in the CA library for one of the shades (one for outer color, one for inner color) but was wondering how I could use the included shapes to do this as well or just CAD objects. There is a half sphere available but I want to hollow it out. Is there a way to "subtract" a smaller half sphere within a larger half sphere (create a hole?) to do this? Some of the domes are not completely spherical, so I would like to edit their shape a little and then hollow them out. Trying to do something like the sconce pasted in here. I also attach a CA plan with the light fixture I created using the bowls (I don't know how to export one user object separately....) Thanks melissa sommerton.plan

Works perfectly! Thanks as always Graham. melissa

HI All I have either imported a sketchup light or created a new light in CA but always have to add a point light to this object separately. And I don't know about you, but sometimes it is very difficult to click on the point light in a plan and move it around... even if I have only lighting displayed. But I though about adding in the light BEFORE I convert the object to a symbol. But alas when I place this new object (assigned it to the electrical layer) the point light is not there. Is this just a necessary evil of creating custom lights, you have to always put in a point/spotlight in with it? I even tried to group the the point light and object and couldn't... Any tips? thanks melissa

Hello All Got an answer from Tech Support and it works for me: The problem is that the attic walls in question need to be refreshed. To do this: 1. Turn on Automatically Generate Attic Walls in the General Wall Defaults dialog. 2. Go to Floor A in your plan and delete the attic walls in the area of the Casita. 3. Select Build> Floor> Rebuild Walls/Floors/Ceiling - or just press the F12 key - a couple of times to rebuild walls. 4. Create a new camera view using Physically Based Rendering in the Casita to see the results. 5. You can turn off Automatically Generate Attic Walls again at this point if you wish. I hope that this information is helpful.

Yes, exactly what I see. Hopefully tech support will find the bug and correct it. Thanks for everyone's help melissa

Thanks, I figured that had something to do with it. I admit I am not good at roofs at all. I just move the edges around alot until it looks right....if I created a cleaner plan, I probably won't see it. So I guess fixing my roof inadequacies with polyline solids is the price to pay (for now). Hopefully my roof creation will improve with time. This house has a pretty complex roof plan. I started it a long time ago and it is just easier to keep it rather than start all over with better technique... Thanks again for everyone's help.

I tried ballooning and didn't seem to help. I did reverse the wall direction and that worked but screwed up the wall. Fortunately I only care about the appearance rather than the actual structure.... so I can use polyline solids to also fix. It's just a pain. But would like to know the cause so I could not replicate it in the future. Hopefully I will also hear back from tech support. thanks melissa

Ok, I purged CADs and plan is still 50+MB. But looks like Kitchen Abode has replicated, so I am glad it is not just me! I also sent in a ticket to tech support.

plan is too big zipped. And when I cut the area out of the larger plan to make a smaller plan of just the area in question, the problem goes away... So there is something structurally I have done that can be removed to make this dark area go away. I just need to play with it a while and see. If there is a way to share a larger file (50MB+) or "excise" the "offending" area more accurately, then I can try that. thanks melissa