CADustin

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.

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!

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

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.

Sometimes when panels get moved around or turned off the "Show/Hide Selection Panel" Chopsaw mentioned can be somewhat collapsed. Try making sure it's toggled on and dragging the two windows apart as shown in the images. Lemme know if you still have issues and I'll help run it down.

Hey sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately, the way the tile builder is currently built, any image inputs will be reduced to grayscale/black and white. Fixing it so colors show is on my todo list, but it wasn't a trivial addition so I'm on hold till I get a chunk of time to drill down into the details so I don't break it. Sorry!

Gotcha, we're reaching out. Also, remember our success rate with manufacturers goes way up when they hear from you guys that you want your favorite brands in Chief. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/blog/partner-program/

Sure thing, added to my todo list, Stone in general is something I'd like to do a big update on when time allows. Keep posting requests on anything stone related and I'll try to knock as many out as I can when I start the update.

Good point, I always forget about the hide surfaces tool.

Hey Rob, glennw is right, your best bet is a material. If you got a picture of what you're trying to make, we might be able to point you to a material that might get the job done for you.

^ Pretty much that ^ We update as often as possible and usually manufacturers reach out to us with product updates to be implemented but if we haven't heard from a brand in a while, we'll reach out to them to check for updates. -For brands that seem to have gone stale, feel free to reach out to both us here at Chief Content and your specific brand. Usually, that's enough to jumpstart a conversation on what needs to be updated. -For brands that are updating at a good clip but you see things that are missing, let us know what you need and we can either find it and add it or have an explanation why something might not be supported yet. Cambria did indeed update recently, but won't be launched till the 2nd to coincide with the updated products launch. After June 2nd, take a look and get back to me with stuff that might be missing that you need and I'll get the ball rolling.

For something like garage doors, you'd have to export the door out as a dae/3ds/etc and strip the grill geometry off in a 3d editing program like blender... https://www.blender.org/ Most things in the 3d library are imported from software like blender or 3ds max, so we can't enable "exploding" on these kinds of objects. Exploding is usually limited to things combined together in Chief after import like kitchen island sets, dining table sets, cabinet combos, etc. Hit me up if you hit any snags going in and out of chief with your door. GL!

Hey McConnell, The Tile builder has a hex and cube (I think its called "Rhombus Pattern") tile set up that might help you out. One thing to note, when working with Hexes in the tile builder, increase the resolution to 1024 to reduce the jaggy edges, 512x512 doesn't play very nice with non 90° angles.

I'll put those on my update list! There's always updates coming for the builders but it's depends on my current content workload. When I get caught up, I go back to my list and knock out as many things as I can, so don't be shy with the requests. I need to know what you guys need.

You got it, I'm due for another run at the builders here in a bit, I'll add a pattern generation map to the exportable maps. The grout controls are already using an edge detect with a static, preset pattern to get the grout thickness so I just gotta run those patterns to a new output, easy peasy. I just started a big update for a catalog but after that I'll see if I can squeeze in some of the last couple months requests.

You guys figured it out. Sorry for the late reply, I'm on vacation. The grout thickness is indeed limited to the overall texture size in substance player since we need at least three pixels to make the most basic groove (preferably more) and on a layout of 10 tiles, that's 30 pixels. A 512x512 image gets you 512-30 = 482. So 482 pixels left to cover 10 tiles gets you 48.2 pixels per tile, which isn't a lot when scaled across some of the larger format tile layouts. So if our simple groove of a downward sloping pixel, a flat pixel, and an upward sloping pixel "\_/" can't be any smaller than 3 pixels, and if you have 512 pixels for the whole image, the grout line can only be so thin, no matter what the grout slider is set at. Increasing the pixel count up to 1024 or 2048 gives you a lot more play with the grout slider since you have more pixels to play with and the ratio of 3pxl grout to 48.2pxl tile is a lot clunkier than 3pxl to 201.8pxl (at 2048x2048.) So more pixels gets you thinner grout and sharper detail on your tile (and cleaner edges on non square tiles btw) but larger files takes more memory so just be aware of this and try not to flood your plans with high res maps everywhere, just where you need it.

You can find most, if not all of the same species in the builder in Core > Material > Wood, the builder is just if you want to tweak them.

Hey Michael, any and all suggestions are always welcome. Just for clarity, the substance player builders we offer here are just optional supplements to what is already available either in the Chief Core catalog or on the 3d library. Nothing in the builders isn't already offered in Chief in some form or fashion. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/3d-library There's a lot of material options under the "Material and Surfaces" section. When I make new textures for Chief, I make them in substance. But once I export them, they're now static images and are now unchangeable and for the most part that is fine but for subjects with a wide variety of options and subjective/temporal views on what looks good or trendy, it's often a faster route for some to offer the tools here to adjust what you need/when you need it rather then sift through large catalogs of extra textures. Both options are valid though, just up to personal preference. If there are types of materials you'd like to see more of offered as catalogs on the 3D Library please don't hesitate to reach out here or our suggestions e mail. I'm always game to make more.

Hey BK, I'll put it on my list. I know I have 'Wood Grain Tile" on there to add to the tile builder but it just might be easier to put grout in the wood builder. I'll keep you posted when I start working on it again.

This ^ Hit me up if you don't find what you need and I'll get it on the update list.

I'll add these details to the bug report. Not sure why the shape would matter, but it looks like it does.