ericepv

Substance Player is a great tool for something like this.

I can probably help, I sent you a PM.

You should be able to set this in your defaults - Edit/Default Settings/Dimension

Bruce - I believe the two remaining lines you see are the window opening in the wall, I don't know of a way to remove them. Perhaps tech support will have a solution. - Eric

Yes.

The Draw Order tool appears at the bottom of the screen once you have selected an object After you click on the tool, use these buttons (place your cursor over the tool for a description of it's function) to move the selected item to the front or back of your plan.

Instead of using a soffit, put an interior wall and in its place(you'll have to create a 12" wall) and then create the opening by placing a doorway.

If adjusting the draw order view doesn't do what you need, put the window into it's own layer which you can then turn off in the plan view.

If it's not the battery. try giving it a good cleaning. Dust buildup in you mouse/trackball can cause these problems.Just pop the marble out of the device and spray some canned air to get rid of the dust.

I sent you a PM.

In addition to adding a roof, make sure you aren't using Photon Mapping.

I can probably help you with this. Please email or call direct, my contact info is in my signature. - Eric

I've found it takes a lot of trial and error to get everything just right using the 'Scale' and 'Offset and Angle' tools in the 'Texture' tab. For the marble tile you are showing, have you tried Substance Player? I've used it a few times for tile and wood patterns, works great!

Kate, I'd love to see some of your ray traces.

All good points Kate, but the basic principals in the videos still apply. I've fund that the time it takes to produce a nice ray trace has gone down the more I learn (and that part never stops)..I hope you're charging appropriately to cover your time.

Katie: While X13 may offer an increase in ray trace speed (with the proper video card), you can still get really nice results with the current release. Here's one I did in X12: Yes, ray tracing can be frustrating and time consuming but it can be less so if you follow a few basic rules: Learn how to properly illuminate your scene with added lights and sunlight rather than ambient light, too much of which can make an image look flat; Experiment with Ambient Occlusion to learn how the settings affect the look of your rendering; Customize your material properties to enhance the look of surfaces; Do sample ray-traces of only passes on a smaller size image to more quickly see the basic result; There are several videos in the knowledge base which go into the subject in more detail but after that, practice is the best way to improve your results. Eric

A floating staircase for a custom built home:

Another way to do this is to edit the line color in the 'Active Library Display Options' tab although this will affect every object in that layer group. If you go this route, you should create a unique layer for the object in question.

Using the 'Adjust Material Definition' tool (the rainbow button), go to the 'Texture' tab and there you can use the 'Offset and Angle' section to adjust the pattern positioning.

A recent rendering project for a builder:

Try reducing the interior ambient light (this is done through the Technique Options DBX), too much tends to make the image look flat. Then put in some additional lighting. Here's a good article from the knowledge base that covers the basics https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00777/working-with-light-sources.html

Sounds like you should have a talk with Chief tech support. I've always found them to be very helpful.

For the water, here's the path (this is in X12 but X9 is probably he same): Chief Core Catalog/Materials/Landscaping and Roadways/Water. I've attached the bump map. I also recommend that you switch your material properties back to the default settings for water. In any case, please post your result. - Eric

Also, be sure to have 'Reflections' checked on your camera DBX.

It's probably in the material properties. If you don't like the reflection, try redefining the material properties to 'General Material' and then lower the specular value. I think what would work better would be to use a bump map. For the pool in this rendering, I used 'Water 3' from the core library and kept the default proprieties setting (Transparent/Water/1.33) and then applied a bump map (setting of 0.01).