Designer1

The on going computer saga... So it looks like after talking with tech support and several computer builders they say the best thing to do is just get an awesome gaming computer instead of upgrading my current alienware. My question is for all the PC owners out there who have custom built machines... is there any graphics cards or processors to avoid? Im trying to get what works best for chief because thats my computers main purpose. Ive heard that Nvidia cards up to gtx 2060 are ok and Intel i7 chips. Any experience or good/bad experience with any of these items working with chief? Ask me architecture and interior design but not computers!

Wow thanks so much Michael for the video! That was very helpful and you gave so many options to make the space better. It was hard to upload the plan because it was so big so when I was deleting as much as I could to get under the size allowable things must have shifted around like the offset walls. Yes that extra space for the shower that extended beyond the space of the stairs was stumping me too, I originally was going to draw the wall up but then thought maybe I could somehow build the wall but continue the shower space. The whole design was a bit complex so Im happy thats not a very common thing I see. I appreciate your video it gave me some ideas for using those tools you mentioned in a few other applications. Im glad I listened to your suggestion of uploading the plan to learn something new. Thanks so much!

Wow thanks for all the feedback and options with this issue. I appreciate everyones time and recommendations.

Hi Michael, Just got a chance to upload the plan. I had to delete so much because of the size to upload and with all the plants and junk I had in there it was too much. Heres the bare bones of the plan. Thanks! Example.plan

Thanks for the input everyone. Yeah I checked the bath and shower and they were labeled bath but I took off the room labels as it got too crowded for them. What I was hoping for was to utilize that new chief dropped ceiling feature where you can click on the room and just lower that space (ie the shower) and make it an easy flat ceiling fix given the regular ceilings were 10'. When you guys are recommending dropped ceiling are you talking about adjusting it through the structure tab dbx? If so when I tried that earlier adjusting the ceiling height it changed the entire floor. Is there another way to do this effectively, clearly Im not doing it correctly. Thanks!

Thanks Levis, for the example I really appreciate it a lot. Yes, this will be my first fly around so all your advice has been great!

Heres some pictures of what I was dealing with.

I think since its an older plan and glitchy when I tried that it didnt work. So when I took the picture I just raised the terrain up just for the one rendering then returned it to the way it was. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Yes the 3d mouse looks like its the way to go. I tried doing the polyline track recording set at 270 degrees but it missed the mark completely. So clearly since its my first time using that its my not knowing the tool yet and will take some time to understand it better and obviously get some better results. I really like all the examples, shows so many varieties of tools we can use!

Mick, thanks so much for the referral that has a ton of information in it and Im going to read all of it...thank you! Michael, yeah what was happening was the stairs was curving up and underneath the shower wall texture was poking through the wall. So basically if you were walking up the stairs youd have painted dry wall then all of a sudden youd see granite from that below below. Since I was unable to lower the ceiling at that time I just used the painter to paint the granite the wall color until I could learn how to do it properly. I think Im going to brush up on some chief videos on dropped ceilings on that link that Mick referred me to and also look at some terrain tutorials as these seem to be my areas I need more knowledge in. Thanks for the help and replies!

Hey Michael! I tried that idea first but what ends up happening is theres a 6" space where the garage is floating. I tried group select edit area to just lower the garage but it didnt work. I think since Im working work an older carry over plan things are working as they should. Thats why Im just trying to hurry and complete these to get on with newer chief plans their easier to work with. Thanks for the reply!

Thanks so much Mark for the input, I appreciate your time!

A few versions of Chief ago... they enabled you to create a lowered ceiling in a closet or room and add a plant shelf or something on top without changing the rest of that floors ceiling height. I have a shower thats underneath the stairs and have 10' ceilings on the entire first floor. When I go try and reduce the ceiling in the shower just to prevent conflict with the stairs its changing the entire floors ceiling height. Yes the shower is in its own contained room and so I thought it wouldnt affect the whole floors ceiling height. Does anyone know how to add the null space in one area without affecting the whole floor? I havent had to use this newer feature in Chief yet and am having issues with this. Thanks! Chad

Does anyone know how to get the slab in the garage to blend in a driveable manner with the driveway? Normally I have to do all these crazy alterations just to make it look normal and theres got to be another way.. Usually if I run the driveway into the roadway street path it nicely carves out a curb and smooth transition but this isnt the case for driveways and garages. Whats the secret to make this work properly? Thanks in advance!

Thanks Rich! Yes that is what I was looking for. Thank you!

WOW! I was just asking about 360 video and now Im wanting to look into the 3d mouse! I never spent anytime looking into it because I thought it was maybe a gimmick but after seeing your video Justin (thank you by the way!) its amazing! Ive heard there are several out there so does anyone know which ones are best for Chief? I can clearly see that using the 3d mouse is even better then the traditional methods in chief, its so smooth and fluid. Thats the next must buy on my list! So quick question... if you have your 3d mouse plugged in do you have to unplug it when your not in chief or does it work for other tasks on your computer? When I saw the many applications in the video of how you can use the painter and go around the house to make alterations this was a huge selling point. I think because if your painting and you have a traditional mouse sometimes you have to reclick the texture and move the mouse because of movement limitations within the screen. Thanks so much for all the information. I will use everyones advice on how to use the current tools with my mouse and then definitely buy a 3d mouse next. I would really love to hear your opinions on which 3d mouse is best for chief. Thanks again!

Does anyone know what the best tool to use for 360 exterior fly around/over is? I know if you use the line tool for the interior you can get the camera to go room to room using the camera record tool. What Im looking for is a 360 rotate around the exterior of the house and maybe different heights like maybe the camera starts at the first floor and by the time it circles back around to the starting point it might be up closer to the third floor for a complete view? I tried recording just using my mouse but it was choppy and nothing id use to showcase my design work. Any ideas for best results? Thanks in advance!

Yes, I had some designs that were ahead of the times back a few years that have design cues that are popular now. The designs are good but the interior finishes and interior design are dated so updating those and doing new renderings. I have to update my website since I havent done that in a couple years. Im pretty much complete with all the updates just doing landscape and renderings... its feels like Im eating the same thing everyday and although good the first few times Im ready for some new design treats to work on Your glass texture you spoke of in your other post, did you create that yourself? I want to customize chiefs glass because the current PBR glass just looks like there isnt any glass there to begin with. Lol

Rene, yeah I just did multi copy tool and kind of moved them around to make it a circle tree type look. Its my first time even using my custom "shade tree" and Im not sure its the best solution but can customize it with a denser shade or not. Thats a great idea for having different templates for settings, thats awesome I will have to think about how I would want to set all that up at the beginning. I just have a template for a new plan but nothing super custom like yours. Can you give me some ideas of what to think about for different lighting adjustments or scenarios you categorize each template for? Right now I just either keep it to daylight setting or a later afternoon one but have to adjust everything each time I start a new plan. When you say that you customized chiefs default lights are you talking about the lumens or color tone of the lighting? I feel like this PBR thing for me is like a new frontier. Ive used chief since 2003 and nothing really surprises me anymore since I know the program pretty well. This completely new PBR thing has that new car excitement yet frustration with trying to learn all the new gadgets. haha Graham, thank you for your endless amounts of help, I super appreciate it. I think what it came down to is the files that I am trying to finish are very old, like five chief versions ago so things are behaving irregularly thus causing me great frustration. I opened a brand new out of the box X11 file and did two trees with the standard grass and a few lights and your suggestions worked regarding the tree shadows! So thats how I cam up with the conclusion that it wasnt me not knowing or a problem with Chief just a bunch of very old files carrying forward. Many other glitches not dealing with lights were apparent too so thats when I tested a brand new file and it worked. So I will go back to trying your lighting method when I complete this backlog of older stuff. Ugh its like 50 something more houses I have to finish...YUCK! I had 60 something so Im making progress but just want to get to brand new files and brand new designs. I appreciate everyones help!

Since everyone has been so kind to help me with the PBR stuff I wanted to share something I created yesterday that might help someone. So I couldnt master Grahams lighting to lighten up the choppy shade of the PBR trees, so I found a solution that worked well for me. I got the multi copy tool and selected a 3d shrubs I liked. Mixed them in a circle configuration. Then used half of them as "reverse symbol" to vary the look. I change the density of the shade by group selecting the bunch cad block it then just copy and paste the bunch together on top. That way you can get the consistency of the shade your looking for ie: more or less sunlight. Then select your cad block and raise it up to the height of a tree, above the camera and there it is the floating shade! So obviously there are many configurations of plants, sizes and shapes but I like using these shrubs vs the 3d tree. I hope this can help some of you.

Thanks Graham! I really appreciate everyones input, advice and help, thank you. Curious, do any of you who use the PBRs try out the panorama? I just tried making my first panorama but Im unsure if it uses PBR settings or is it just regular 3d camera? I tried clicking on the picture file but it just looks like a stretched out picture and I wasnt able to tell if it was very good or not.

Thank you Michael and Graham for the examples, I can see what your talking about. Luckily with the wood floors I was able to angle the sun and get the picture just right so when the sun and lighting hit the wood floors it reduced the shininess of the wood floor. I was able to get a decent looking somewhat matte finish or at least so it wouldnt look like a shiny glass surface. Ive noticed a few times when doing exterior renderings that somehow the sun reflects the image of the house onto the grass, which is strange because the grass isnt even a shiny surface. Luckily, the quick fix for that was just move the camera a tick to the right or left and it changes the lighting a bit. Thats what I meant by ever changing textures and lighting. you can take nearly any texture and in different lighting and sunlight exposures it can differ greatly. I guess the only benefit I see to this inconsistency is that if you dont like a too shiny texture you can adjust the lighting and sun angle and change it a bit.

Wow more great examples Graham and Rene! Yes, the one texture that I really noticed was not looking realistic was the glass. For the most part it just looked like an open space without glass. Can I ask you Graham, you said you and Rene created a new texture? How does that one behave in the PBRs much better then the standard glass options in Chief? Do you remember the other post that you shared some of the examples of this new glass texture? Thanks!

Thanks Graham! I deleted the texture map but then the really cool texture was deleted and I wanted that. So what I ended up doing is using some of your recommendations on our other PBR post to change the lighting a bit and when sunlight hits the flooring it makes the floor appear to be more matte finish. So, even here in this example of flooring your right about the PBRs ever changing effects on materials in a rendering. Im just glad I was able to achieve both keeping the texture and getting it to appear more matte then shiny. Thanks for the reply!

Graham, Thanks for all the additional examples. Im finding your points and descriptions very good, better then watching some of the chief videos. I think coming from a users standpoint you use the PBR regularly and have clearly mastered the tool to get the desired results. I will try using your method of lights higher up and add a few. I think your right about adding a light per shaded tree, that would be hard to get it to look very even given the size of the tree and the shadow. Thanks for the additional examples. I feel like were all at a great tutorial!