Barton_Brown

Thanks for the 'heads up' on rapid mode. I just installed the 500 GB 840 EVO on my system last week and was unaware of 'rapid mode'. It made a huge difference in performance - as reported by the 'Samsung Magician' application (and I was happy with the performance prior to knowing about Rapid Mode )

I think you will continue to get the 'light flares' as long as photons are on. That said, it you add sufficient additional lighting to the scene, it will do a good job of swamping out the flares. By additional lighting I mean actual lights, not just increasing the ambient light settings.

Scott, This is one of those $100 nuggets (maybe more) for me that you recently talked about. Thank you for pointing out this feature! Our Bonaire house is a work-in-progress so I'm regularly looking at the plans to decide where planters might best fit, or whatever. Of course, the plans needed to be metric but I'm too old to be really fluent in metric and tend to need to convert everything back to imperial before my mind really visualizes the distances. A few mouse clicks in the dimension defaults dbx and now my CDs show both!! A major +1 for you on this.

Yes CA takes advantage of more than 4 cores. I have a 6 core Intel processor and utilize a Windows gadget that shows CPU usage. For ray tracing, all six cores get fully loaded (when the CA 'optimized for ray trace' option is set). When doing something within CA that loads the system all CPUs also become active. I don't have any direct experience with AMD processors but would expect all cores would also be utilized.

Rod, If you can wait a little longer, you might want to wait for Gen 6 (Skylake). http://www.pcworld.com/article/2683392/pc-confusion-to-linger-on-intels-quick-jump-to-skylake.html

Bryce, you may have seen it on TV as there was a short news segment as well as a local newspaper article. My uncle and brother both liked the jump. The only part that somewhat worried my brother was the flight up to 10,000 feet (I think). The plane was jam-packed with people - 10 other jumpers besides the two tandems. I recall he mentioned he was concerned about having a safe exit if there was a problem with the aircraft. I found this sort of amusing coming from a guy with a commercial pilots license, flies a private plane, is building a kit plane, and who flew for four years as a navigator in an F-4 Phantom in the early '70s.

Hi Scott, Yes, I am saying that having 'photons on' causes the flare problem. I believe that with 'photons on' the ray trace engine is looking for 'bounced photons of light' as well as direct reflections. While the 'photons on' setting creates a more realistic lighting effect, it also has this annoying flare artifact. Maybe X7 will eliminate it...

Scott, do you typically ray trace with the photons option ON or OFF? The 'roof' solution typically doesn't have much effect on reducing the flares for me, but turning off 'photons' does.

It was my uncle's first jump - so was a tandem. My brother also did his first tandem jump with our uncle. This was a 'big deal' for the sky diving company, as one might suspect, especially after someone leaked to the local newspaper that a 100 year old was jumping. The company owner did the honors for my uncle. Both he and my brother's partner were excellent. Landed so softly that they both did it standing up. My brother said the impact was about equivalent to stepping off a 1 foot high wall.

Since this thread is already off-topic... My uncle lives in Arroyo Grande and has for fifty years. Last July he celebrated his 100th birthday by going skydiving.

Joey, I have a curiosity question. What part of Windows 8.1 do you hate? I stay in the desktop mode, have it basically configured just like Windows 7 and previous Windows OS's - works great for me. I especially like Windows 8 because is handles multiple monitors much better (on PC has three monitors, the other has two). From what I've read recently, Windows 10 is what Windows 8 should have been. The funky 'modern UI' stuff now display as re-sizable windows when in desktop mode and for those that want it, the start menu is back (never used it so didn't miss it). Also, Windows 10 is supposed to finally scale correctly even for the UHD monitors. Oh, and technical preview of Windows 10 was released last Tuesday.

My signature shows my most recent computers. One desktop is home built, the other is HP. I've been happy with both approaches. Purchased the HP in June and have been VERY pleased with it. The liquid cooling is quiet and the six cores add a little extra pop for ray traces. This model also allows overclocking. Don't own a MAC so won't comment on that OS. Windows 8.1 in desktop mode works great. From what I've read recently, if you have Windows 8.1, you will get a free upgrade from Microsoft to Windows 10.

I'm guessing from the way the image appears that you have photons and caustic turned ON. Try turning them OFF, that generally reduces the light flares. In my limited experience, this typically happens more when the room lighting is somewhat low. If you turn up the ambient settings a little that might also help.

In Corvallis, Oregon I get 57 Mbps download on Comcast cable. In Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean I get 10 Mbps download via DSL through the local telephone company (I could get faster but my current plan is 10 Mbps for $88/month).

OK, I tried to replicate your niche - now I'm really curious since I obviously failed... care to share your secrets? Yeah, I know about the pass-through window with a polyline solid on the back, but it seems there is more than that going on in what you showed...

Todd, sorry but the link doesn't work, at least for me...

Joe, care to elaborate? I'll start with an ignorant guess that this is a 'window' symbol? edit: just read the 'niche' post - now I understand your posting without much reference... My question remains - will CA allow you to save this as a window symbol? I know, I should make one for myself and try it to see what happens...

Steve, pretty tricky on the back area - hadn't thought to add an 'additional room' . Your roof area over the main bedroom is also much cleaner. I modified too many of the room heights, should have changed just the main bedroom, or just the front towers, I modified both. Ross, go with Steve's version, much neater.

Steve, go for it! I too was seeing a lot of window conflicts. I don't see how the hip/gable combination in the back is even physically possible. Attached is the front view. Notice the jumble of hips in the roof, certainly not the clean hip in the sketch (the benefit of sketches, they can violate physics). I can send the plan that I have modified if you want. I will also check on Steve's version - maybe it is all finished!

Oh, forgot to ask about the 'middle roof' in the back. They really want two types of roofs on the same wall?

Ross, A couple of questions (see attached) 1) in the sketches, the front view shows the garage side wall as being a gable roof/wall, the back view looks like a hip?... 2) in the front view, the two 'towers' in the front, are these roofs expected to be lower than the main roof? If so, they can't be much lower with the windows on the right..

I'll give it a whack, no guarantees...

I'm not using a Mac so can not verify this, but on a Windows machine the step would as follows if I wanted to import a .dae file: 1) download the .skp file from the warehouse 2) open the .skp file in SketchUp 3) In SketchUp I would 'EXPORT 3D model' in .dae format 4) import model in the .dae format into Chief. This of course means you need to install the free version of SketchUp on your Mac...

Bingo! Well stated.

Actually, both sinks are low, it is just that the material on the right sink countertop is different. The cabinets were originally spec'd at 34 1/2" with 0" countertop which left an air gap that you are seeing. Adjust the cabinets as shown in the attached image and you will get what I think you want. Oh, one last observation, the right sink should be centered in the cabinet.