ajohnson

I created this image using Chief Architect X9. Since it's been a couple years I opened the plan and will try to share what I did to create the image to the best that I can recall. The image was created 100% in Chief and it was exported with a transparent background. This is typically done so the image may be used in a variety of media such as a brochure or a website and placed over plain or colored backgrounds. In this particular case, if you right click on the image on the website and choose, "view background image" (this is in Firefox), you can see that we have used the image as a PNG with a transparent background floating over the green gradient image which was created using CSS in the web page coding. As has been demonstrated in this thread it is also possible to import custom background images such as the green gradient. As for the shadow colors, I've attached an image of what the house looks like in render view and in technical illustration view with the settings that were used. I basically created a copy of the plan, colorized all the materials to be green, black, grey and white, then set the warm and cool colors to be black and white, 55%. There is also a short video on our website about how to achieve this look. Search for video 1918. As for the grey lines, that wasn't an intentional effect. As best I can remember it could have been achieved in two ways that I can think of. 1. We've exported this image multiple times at many sizes, even as large as a billboard to go on our tradeshow booth. It is possible that when exported at a large size with a thin line weight, it was then shrunk smaller to fit the website and as a result the lines became so thin that they turned grey. 2. Chief used to have an option to adjust the line weight scale when exporting an image. This was available in X7 when the video referenced above was created and I don't recall if it was available in X9, but if it was, then it is possible that it may have been exported with a thin line weight scale which may have created a similar effect although I am unable to test it. If you examine the image on the website you will notice that there are some thicker black lines and some thinner grey lines. The thicker lines in the image occur in places where there are several lines close together, as you can see in the attached image. When zoomed out the lines bleed together and give the effect of a darker, thicker line whereas the siding and stone are single lines and appear thinner. Hopefully this helps answer your questions.