scottharris

With a computer that supports real-time ray tracing (GPU), you can make renderings in seconds – of course that is after you build, decorate, and light your model. If your computer does not support real-time ray tracing (GPU), you can use the CPU; it takes minutes to hours for a render. Attached are two GPU render examples and one CPU of the latest Chief Architect X15 Silverton Sample Plan. Chief Architect models can be exported to external renders - like Twinmotion, and achieve additional fidelity with the renders.

Levina - I opened your plan and took a 3D view. I'm seeing terrain.

Levina, can you post the plan?

Thanks Gene for the info!

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

These are great cutaways!

Tom, Rene, Robert - thanks for the comments!

Thanks Jim!

Hi All, I’m working on a new plan with a parapet roof. Below is my draft detail. Comments ? Or can you share your detail? Thanks!

I do prefer the CPU ray trace for exteriors; except when there's glass on glass. PBR does take adjustments to the settings. These are a baseline that I start with. Also, examples - CPU, PBR Day, PBR Evening.

With the CPU ray trace, when glass reflects thru glass – as you have with the lower glass railing in front of the windows, those sparkles will not disappear. If you use the PBR ray trace, we have a denoise option that removes the sparkles. The settings for the PBR exterior ray trace will be different than those used with the CPU ray trace.

You might try using the ‘hole in floor platform’ tool and then place a skylight from the library.

Attached is a simplified “materials & objects” plan (X15) I use for each of my projects. I bring this forward into each new project and then update it to reflect the materials or other items (like cabinets, islands or vanities) I want to render out for layouts or just to render the individual object. The cameras are saved to make it relatively easy to update and obtain the view I’m after. Hope this helps. Kitchen-bath-materials.zip

Have you downloaded the “Vehicles No.1 Recreation” catalog?

Does this get close? It's a CAD Detail in the our sample plan (Silverton)

If you are after a ledger where the wall rests on the concrete stem wall, you can do that with a Pony Wall. were the upper wall is 6" wide (12" high) and the lower wall is 8" wide and the remainder of the height. This way your floor truss can rest on the concrete. You will likely need to manually place the plate or a CAD box for the plate. This example below is using a stick frame wall.

You can take a wall elevation, and then remove the option "clip to room"; then drag the clip lines to encompass all the rooms. See attached example of two rooms

For exterior renderings, I have found better results using the CPU raytrace v. PBR.

You could use the "edit CAD block" tool and resize it.

Annaleisa, does this setting work?

Costco often has good buys on Lenovo laptops. We often buy from there. I noticed there’s a 4060 version for $1,699

Drawing exterior walls clockwise can keep the outside layer on the outside. If you draw them counterclockwise, once a room is formed, the walls will auto adjust to the outside. So, it may not really matter which way you draw them.

What if you set your schedule’s minimum number of rows to One, does that solve it ?

Here's a better view with a shapped top on the divider. The divider was created using the solid tools.

To create the divider drawer box, create it using solids; or, place a drawer box from the Library ("cabinet specialty storage" / Rev-A-Shelf library), use the solid tool / partition tool, convert that grouping to a millwork symbol – and you should have what you need.