CADustin

10 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

 

Pretty sure that is a known limitation with STL files Dustin.

 

"STL file format cannot store additional information such as color, material, facets, or triangles. It only stores information about the vertices and the normal vector. If you want to use multiple colors or materials for your prints, then the STL file format is not the right choice."

Hey Chopsaw!  Good catch.

Yeah, I kinda vaguely remember STLs not carrying material data but sorta hoped SolidWorks has some other export options that can carry it or had some sort of clever system in place that Chief can read.  Either way, mats need to be assigned for Chief to break an import into material layers.  I've never dabbled in SolidWorks, I'm pretty curious about it though.

Chief works with material layers when importing, so when you make something to import you need to apply materials for where you want chief to see them before you export.

I'm not familiar with SolidWorks workflow but in 3ds max I need to make a specific material for the cab, countertop, hardware, etc.  I then need to apply the materials to the correct locations on the model then export/import should show the material layers in Chief.

I'll dig into SolidWorks tomorrow morning if this is still kinda confusing and help out more.  Also, if you post your model I can show you how I do it in 3ds Max if that helps at all.

9 hours ago, NeilofOZ said:

Have imported a tile Image, but getting no where with use of this material.

Have seen a video many times, but it does not make it clear on info required, I can the fill the chosen area wirh the image but only as a single image, not as tiles.  

Have attached 3 pics showing location ( Entry ) and screen shots of Pattern/Texure, tiles are 600 x 600.

Hey Neil, looks like you have your "Scale" in the texture Panel set to 0mm on both the X and the Y.  Scale is the size Chief makes the material show as before it repeats on itself and setting it to 0 makes it behave as if "Stretch to Fit" was active so your single tile is being stretched to fit the surface you apply it to.

Try setting the "Scale" to be the dimensions you'd like the single tile to be and see what you get, if that's still not working let me know and we can try some more solutions.

Yup yup!  Thanks for the heads up KBird.  All the files should be on the first post of the thread.

For the tile builder, you're looking for...

Chief_Architect_Tile_Builder.sbsar  

If you see it and it says "Unavaiable" then you need to sign into ChiefTalk to enable file download.

If you still can't find it, let me know and I'll investigate further.

Glad to hear you use it, a brick builder is very much on my list of things to get done.  The second I get a manufacturer catalog or a material update with brick assigned to me, I'll flesh one out and get it posted.

Yeah, the image input takes the image you give it and slices it up into the tile layout you select.  I'm unable to make it remove the grout or add more surface area though so your best bet is to either find a better continuous image (counter tops work great for this kind of stuff) or edit the image via photoshop or something else to take out the grout.

I'll also add "Terrazo Material" type to the todo list for next time.

On 6/13/2023 at 12:35 PM, chiefusercheri said:

Hello! Today I started using Substance Player for the first time and I am needing assistance on importing tile images'. I understand how to upload a screen shot of the specific tile from the internet but once I upload the image, it does not project onto the tile. I need help understanding how to do this or a suggestion of another option to use for uploading exact tile images' from the internet. In this case, I am trying to create a simple 12"x24" tile pattern with an 1/2 offset. The tile that I need to this with is exact and I must resemble the exact tile. Online, there are no images of the tile being displayed in this pattern so that option is out. Please help!! 

 

Thank you 

Morning gang!

Today an update went out for the Tile Builder that should fix this.  Get the latest tile builder from the Substance Player thread and use the new ~Image Input RAW Material Type instead of the old ~Image Input.  This should maintain your image color at the cost of using the color picker and inverter (which we don't want for this.)  If you do find that you need more color controls, the old ~Image Input option still functions the same way.

Hope this helps!

Small update to the tile builder, gang.  You can get latest at the top of this thread, as per usual.

-Added a new material selection "~Image Input RAW" that bypasses the color picker so you get the true color of whatever image you drop in.

-All controls should work with this material type normally EXCEPT the color picker and the inverter control.

-Feel free to post any problems you find here or e-mail me at dustin@chiefarchitect.com, this update is small but it has a lot of capability to get into a weird state.  I think I got most of the oddballs but just in case, don't be shy if you find anything that needs fixin'.

-Also tinkered with 1:1 Large Tile for better checkered tiling.

-Various under the hood clean ups.

These guys are also on the list but we'll shoot them another e-mail as well.

Also, as always, users asking for Chief-able catalogs carries a lot more weight than if we reach out so don't be shy about telling them what you want.
 

Hey Joe, I'm pretty sure we reached out to these guys a couple times but still no bites yet.  I'll put them back on the request list for you though.

If it helps at all, I did add a Masonry and Stone builder recently at the top of this ChiefTalk thread.  It's not specific to the system paver products but it IS a generic collection of paver options that might help you out.

On 3/31/2023 at 11:34 AM, Ange822 said:

Good afternoon - Just coming across this thread now! Wow I have really been missing out on this great feature / program!!

Any chance their will ever be be "builder" for stone façade / cultured stone type of materials? I know Chief already has some manufacturer catalogs with quite a variety but sometimes it is hard to find exactly is needed for a project. 

 

 

 

There is a very good chance this will happen eventually, it's high on my personal list. 

The builders are just collections of materials I've made for other Chief catalogs, all bundled up together after I have enough of one type.  So, eventually, after I've made enough stone materials, I'll be able to plug them into a builder and we'll be good to go.

Glad you enjoy the tool!

Sure thing.  The wood builder already has one, I'll add it to the list for the other ones.  

Morning Jeff, I'll make sure Douglas Fir is on the todo list but until then, you can get your 1.5" cuts with the builder by adjusting your scale in Chief.  Since it's just an image getting spat out of the builders, there's no real way for me to control the size you make your boards so to get your 1.5" cut glulam...

-Make your wood pattern using the 1" strip the color and species you want, I'd bump it to 1024x1024 as well.

-Just export the "Base Color" image since we won't need any maps since we want the glulam to look like it's been sanded smooth.

-Make a material with your image in Chief and count the number of boards in the image (it's 36 for the 1" strip) and set your scale in chief to be the number of boards * 1.5" (36*1.5= 54")

-Rotate Material if necessary...

Hit me up if you run into any snags.

On 12/9/2022 at 5:15 PM, BlissBunny said:

Hello! as tiles are going very large format, and you let me know the solution for not having huge grout lines when going up to 24x48? It wasn't clear how to do this. Thank you! 

Sure thing, the secret to get thinner grout lines is to increase the image resolution from 512x512 to something larger.  As you can see, the grout gets smaller and smaller as I increase the resolution on the image.

Sorry for the late reply but I've been busy.  We've reached out to techno bloc earlier this year but haven't heard back yet, but I plan on swinging by the booth at KBIS this year to try and get the ball rolling.  I'll keep you posted.

Till then, I just put up the Masonry and Stone Builder at the top of the post for users to make custom pavers and stone layouts.  I ported over some layouts from the tile builder to make some of the more specific  techo-bloc-ish layouts an option.

Most of the bones of the Masonry and Stone builder are lifted form the tile builder as well so if you're familiar with the tile builder you should hit the ground running with this one.  As always, if you find issues or want something added just hit me here on ChiefTalk and I'll either fix it or get it on the update list.

Have Fun Gang!

Tile Builder got a small update today...To get the latest version just download it again from the beginning of this post.

For the 1:1. 2:, Large 2:1, etc Offsetting with the slider worked fine for 1/2 offsets but 1/3 offsets would always have one row out of place, breaking the seamlessness. I upped the count on most of the basic layouts to the lowest common denominator between 2 and 3 so a 1/3 offset and a 1/2 offset should always be seamless.

Thanks Jessie, I'm glad you find the tool useful.

For the image input, sadly it's not built to load a picture of an image.  Instead it's for you to load a type of material you'd like your tile to be made out of.  If you want stone, concrete, wood grain, etc. you'd load an image of that material and the tile builder will then slice it up into the available Tile Layout.

I've looked into using images of tiles but since the image is static, and the builders make everything procedurally, I'm unable to make it work together.  Apples and Oranges etc etc.  For things like making seamless premade images, photoshop is the tool we use in house and there's a ton of resources online for taking an image and making it seamless.  If you decide to try this route and run into any headaches, just e mail me at dustin@chiefarchitect.com and I'll get you on the right track...I've made thousands of them.

Hey Achilles, lets see if I can follow...

1. The maps export out of Substance Player 8 Tiles Horizontally and 16 Vertically, changing the tile layouts will change the tile counts.  You can view the maps on export to count the tiles, we'll need to know the tile counts to get the correct scale in Chief.

2. If your desired tile size is 12" Horizontal x 6" Vertical and your tile count is 8 Horizontal x 16 Vertical then your scale in Chief will be 96"x96" (8 Tiles @ 12" each = 96" and 16 Tiles @ 6" each = 96")

3. Sadly, no there isn't a 1:1 correlation on the grout size value to a definitive measurement.  I'm still hoping to find a solution on that since the tools I use to make these builders aren't using real world dimensions, and usually go off of percentages or pixels.  The grout thickness says "1" but it's an arbitrary value, nothing ties it to an actual size since these builders can be scaled in Chief to any size.  Same with the roughness and hue/saturation/lightness sliders, it's just a percentage represented from 0 to 1, under the hood it's just changing masks from black to white but in the case of the grout thickness, it's going from 100% to 300% of the lines default thickness.  You'll just have to eyeball it based off a refence image.

Also, if I was super clever and the tools allowed it, changing the grout thickness SHOULD move your tiles around on the image since real world grout doesn't make the tiles surface area smaller like it currently does with this tool, but alas either I, the tools, or both aren't quite that clever yet.  Someday though, someday.

Let me know if these answers solve your issues or if I am way off base.

22 hours ago, Danielle_AZL said:

Hello,

 

I have come across a lot of matterport ads, but it does not seem to work well with CA without a lot of converting of files. What do other CA users use that is an alternative to matterport?

Matterport is pretty neat but since its a photogrammetry tool, it's not really a Chief friendly format.  Photogrammetry makes a 3d Scene by pulling 3d data out of picture/video scans and can get pretty neat results but if the camera can't see an area, it has nothing to pull the 3d data from.  You can get full 3d scenes and objects with photogrammetry tools but you'd have to be sure that you get all angles and views accounted for so the tools can get the most fleshed out scene possible and even then, there's usually a few snags. 

This isn't a matterport specific issue, it's just how photogrammetry works so any tool that relies on cameras to pull its 3D Data will have the same limitations.  I've played around with some of the tools myself for fun and they do some neat stuff, but if you are looking for something you can plop into Chief without a lot of file work, it's not really a 1 to 1 transfer just by its nature. 

I did talk to one user that had good luck with some 360 Leica scanners that he plopped into Chief and used as a guide for as-builts, he still had to use Chief tools to draw over the scanned geometry but it worked for him.  The imported geo was on its own layer to toggle as the "before" then his Chief made model as the "after" so all he needed the scan for was as a preview and reference so he didn't need to do any heavy lifting with it.

If you take the plunge into photogrammetry, let me know.  I always think this stuff is super neat and like to see what people do with it.

As far as I understand it, Tony is spot on.

Still though, when there's any sort of upheaval like this, it's never a bad idea to archive the zip of whatever tools may or may not be disappearing. We won't be able to support someone else's software if they decide to take it down, but usually tools like the player get replaced down the line with something else and if that turns out to be the case, I'll jump on whatever software they provide to keep the builders working if at all possible.

Still hoping for the status quo though, the player turned out to be a great tool. 

The Wood Builder has a seamed shiplap option but it was made to intentionally smooth out the seams lengthwise, but you can get pretty close using the hardwood Setting...Here's the settings I used to get close

Usually from here I'd say...

-Bring it in Chief 

-Rotate it 90° 

-Load you roughness map into your texture slot and get your pattern with the "Pattern from Texture" button then load your texture back in the texture slot

-Set your scale how you want it

BUT while testing it out I ran into a couple snags with scaling the pattern from texture so I just made a quick one for you that hopefully should work.  We'll get those snags looked at so next time you can do all this yourself but for now see attached for my example and hopefully that will help you out.

Let me know if you have any questions or if something didn't work out for you.

Shiplap Example.calibz

On the list, thanks for feedback!

On 2/11/2022 at 11:40 AM, nikiley said:

Hi @CADustin, 

 

Using the wood builder file and I'm noticing that the wood grain is oriented incorrectly for the shiplap cut options. Also any chances for some updates on tile layouts in the future? 

Good catch Nikki, I think I broke it adding the Orientation: Vertical/Horizontal controls but it should be fixed now.  Just redownload it and let me know if it's still acting funky.  Speaking of funky, the software we use for ChiefTalk is now adding timestamps to uploaded files so the wood builder will come down as 1888175955_WoodBuilderBeta.sbsar.  I'm asking around how to fix it, but for now any updated files will have crazy big names for a while.

As for tile layouts, I'm always accepting requests.  Everything that gets asked for goes on a document and when I get a window to get them implemented I try to knock out as many as I can.  Layouts are usually the easiest additions so don't be shy and post anything you'd like to see in the builders here on this thread or just email me at dustin@chiefarchitect.com. I haven't had time lately but hopefully this spring I'll get some updates in there.

Naturekast just went live today and has a lot of stuff that might be close to what you're looking for.

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/3d-library/index.php?r=site/detail/1228

On 7/31/2021 at 8:53 AM, Chief-James98 said:

Can I use ssa catalogs whithout the subscription by just purchasing the catalog?

Yes you can, just make sure you have a compatible version of Chief that works with whatever catalog you purchase.  For example, you won't be able to use a new X13 catalog if you are still on X12.