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Adrian: Without seeing your plan or knowing your system specs (Chief Version, video card), it's hard to say exactly but In my own experience, I've found that two of the most important parts of producing a nice rendering are lighting and materials. My tip for lighting is to use ambient lighting sparingly (if at all) and focus instead on adding your own lighting. Experiment with sunlight settings (go easy on the intensity) and be sure to turn on shadows. Material properties are also key to creating a realistic look (check the Knowledge Base for some articles and videos on this). There's no magic setting, you just have to experiment to learn how each setting effects the look of your rendering. Like the old saying about how to get to Carnegie Hall, practice! Once you get the hang of the basics you can get a really nice rendering from Chief. Here's one I modeled and rendered in X13: Hope this helps - Eric

What do you mean by 'curtain cove'?

For anyone who is struggling with PBR, take a look at this video from the Knowledge base: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/2426/physically-based-rendering-technique.html These videos provide a lot of great tips on how to set up for the best results. The ones on lighting and materials are especially helpful; https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/103/ray-trace.html

Without seeing your plan, I'd say it's because glass is reflective and the amount of reflection will depend on the lighting inside and also the angle of the sun setting. Take it easy on the ambient light settings as well, too much makes a scene look flat.

I made a few adjustments: Camera settings - Turn off Bloom, Set Ambient Occlusion to 25%, Set lighting for 'Default Light Set' Rendering Techniques - In Std tab set Ambient to 0. In PBR, set 'Camera Exposure' to .15, 'Daytime backdrop Intensity' to 25. This should get you started. From here, you can adjust the lighting, sunlight and shadows and also work on your material properties. Hope this helps -Eric

That's my best guess w/o seeing your other settings, can you post the plan?

Go to 'Rendering Techniques Options' and in the 'Physically Based Rendering' tab (his looks like a PBR) reduce the 'Daytime Backdrop Intensity'. I find that a setting between 200 and 500 works best. Also, make sure your sunlight 'Intensity' (in the 'Adjust Sunlight' DBX) is set for a lower value (usually 5000 - 15,000 works well).

In the 'Terrain Specifications' DBX, adjust 'Subfloor Height Above Terrain' (in the 'General' tab). Set it to the level of your garage floor (probably -12 to -18").

If you just want to add tile in the area you circled, you first need to add wall beaks then specify the wall material for just that section. Another method would be to use a Material Region (Build/Wall/wall Material Region).

It could be several things but hard to say without seeing your settings, can you post the plan?

Mine does that sometimes as well, it's the cooling fans like Michael mentioned.

Although it seems to be a seamless solution, Chief does not recommend setting the documents path to OneDrive. I've been told by tech support that there is a chance (although probably a small one) that data could be corrupted if there is power spike or something similar while the data transfer is taking place. This would be great option to add in future versions.

In addition to my external BU drive, I also manually save my project files to OneDrive. I didn't know that there is an auto sync option, how does that work?

I've never seen that in the object DBX, are you referring to the 'Option' tab in the 'Symbol Specification'?

I have some that I've found in other online libraries (Azalea, Arb's, Burning Bush, Cypress, Hosta, etc...) but as you mentioned, file size can be an issue with some of them. What exactly do you need?

In your default settings, select 'Camera Tools' and make the change in each selected camera type.

In the 'Camera' DBX, make sure you select 'Light Set' rather than 'Automatic', same in the 'Adjust Lights' DBX as well.

If you want to hire someone to help with this, post in the 'Seeking Services' section not 'Offering Services'.

Glad that worked for you.

Gene: Check out this article from the knowledge base: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03142/replacing-a-cabinet-s-standard-shelves-with-rollout-shelves-or-drawers.html - Eric

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I do this type of work frequently and would be happy to discuss your projects, PM sent. - Eric

Try reducing the sunlight intensity and also the ambient light settings (too much ambient make the image appear flat). Then experiment with some different sunlight tilt and direction settings.

Without looking at the plan, my guess is that you have selected opaque Window Glass. In the .Rendering Technique Options' DBX, be sure to uncheck 'Opaque Window Glass' in the 'Standard' tab..

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