CADustin

Hey WestChester, I just tried to download them and had to sign out and sign back in and they came down fine, if you still can't download them, msg me your e mail and I'll send them to you direct. Thanks Renee, glad they are working out for you.

You can right click on the camera in plan view and select "Save Camera" or select the camera and hit the "Save Camera" button in the bottom left edit toolbar.

My guess would be that the edges of the plant had a little bit of transparency and it got lost along the way somehow. Not sure how though. If you e mail the image to me, I can take a look. Dustin@chiefarchitect.com

For Sketch up and CAD type modeling, I've found that the real killer is the resolution of your shapes aka your Level of Detail (LOD). Using Alaskan Sons well done example, if I was going to make a ring in sketch up, rings are made with a circle looped around with another circle looped over each individual segment. So the polygon count is going to be the number of segments used to make these circles multiplied together, so we need to things like how large and visible this ring is going to be. Is it a large part of some lighting fixture that needs to look smooth and rounded or is it a pull on some cabinet hardware? Knowing where it's going will help you pick your battles on where to spend your polygons. Example A Example A has 60 segments around the circle and 60 sides around each segment which makes a very smooth looking ring for a grand total of 7200 polygons. But wait! 60x60 is 3600! It is, but all your quad surfaces will get divided by two into tri's on export so we double our count to 7200. Example B Example B has 16 segments around the ring and 6 sides per segment, doubled for Tri's for a much more Chief friendly 192 polygons. So by reducing the ring segments and sides to something more manageable, we can drastically reduce our file sizes. Add on top of that, AS's correct point about removing what isn't visible/needed. If we assume these rings are going to be pulls for our kitchen cabinets, we know that they'll be very small, and no one will see the backside. Looking at both rings together at a reasonable distance shows that we don't need all that detail in this situation and our low poly example with 192 polygons would be the better choice, more so if you ripped off the back of the ring leaving 16 segments and 4 sides for 64 x 2 = 128 per pull, lets say 10 pulls in the kitchen, 1280 polygons total for our pulls, still way less than if we used just one ring from example A. And when you pull back they look pretty much the same... Sadly, getting to a lower resolution is something that I'm unfamiliar with in Sketch up so I'll step aside and let some pros step in to help you with that but this might help get you started... https://help.sketchup.com/en/making-detailed-model-lightweight-way I'm curious how this works out since it's a question I get often during IBS/KBIS, keep us informed and let me know if I can help you out. Thanks, Dustin

It shouldn't matter, B2M is just another software they make unrelated to what we're doing. Gotta say, I'm baffled. My guess is your Intel® HD Graphics 5500 is probably the culprit but I've got no way of verifying it since I don't have a machine with those specs anywhere. Chief has also had tech related/performance issues with these onboard chip sets. My hunch is that it's something on their end only because it's a black screen before you even load a file. At this point I'd say your best bet is to ask for help here... https://www.substance3d.com/contact/ and mention your specs, maybe intel chipsets are no longer supported? Maybe an update walled them off? They would know if anything changed. Also mention that you had it working before then it just stopped, that might help them narrow it down. Please let me know if they say anything that helps just in case they deduce that it's something that I can fix for you on my end.

Hmmm, it sounds like it's a problem with the player software. Some folks have had issues with specific panels going black, but I haven't seen anything about the entire thing going dark. Here's someone that has some black panels that got it fixed, maybe this might work If not, that forum would be the best place to ask for assistance. https://forum.substance3d.com/index.php/topic,22997.0.html Let me know if this also is a dead end, and also... PC or mac? Video card? Windows version if PC? I'll keep poking around and looking for fixes.

Hmmm...Not sure. Is it only for tile builder or do other builders also show black screen? I would say try to update your video card drivers and if that doesn't work try opening substance player, and hit F9. If this works you should see a "Select Substance Engine" pop up, from there you can try a different engine and see if that helps. More times then not though its just video card drivers. Let me know how it goes, if it's still broken we can dig a little deeper.

Hey Faruk, You didn't do anything wrong. With that tile scaled so large, even at 2048, we'll run into some confusing scaling issues... An 8 tile wide image at 2048 pixels = 256 pixels allotted per tile. 256 pixels across 48" gets us about about 5.3 pixels per inch when the 2:1 tile is at this scale. Since the maps need a minimum of 3 pixels to form a grout line (one descending to the grout, one for grout, one ascending) your grout comes out to about half an inch wide, which is why you're seeing such chunky lines in Chief. or Each tile is 48" wide. 48" x 8 tiles = 384" wide 2048/384 = 5.3 pixels per inch Sorry if this is confusing. Also sorry if my math is wrong So... 1) Until I get a chance to do an update, you can try the max 4096 which will reduce your current grout width in half (about 1/4" wide) 2) If you can find the specific type of tile you're after and e-mail it to me at dustin@chiefarchitect.com I might have something to help you out in the short term. 3) For the long term, I've put "Large Format" 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, and 4:1 on my update list for my next pass on the tile builder. This will set a lower tile count on the image so you'll get more pixels per tile, thus smaller/thinner grout capability. As for the most recent updates, I just post them on original post in this thread and the following post is where I note the updates. I usually refresh this thread with an update notification as well. So if you see me post an update, go ahead and throw away your old version, get the newest version from the first post and check for updates on the second post. Or just ask me , I'm always poking around this thread.

Also, for ShawnHayes, I forgot to add that the wood builder also now has a shiplap option.

Hmmm...I haven't heard of any crashes on the fabrics yet. I'll take a look. Does it give you an error message or just freeze up?

Yeah they are the same company, and got bought by adobe last year I think, maybe two. Gang, I updated the wood builder today with some better looking knotty/rustic options and added an image input so you can load your own wood images and slice them into flooring. ReneRabbitt requested it and I love it. Let me know if you guys run into any problems with it and I'll look into adding it into the tile builder as well. -To access it you need to set the Wood_Species to ~Image Input and load an image into the slot at the bottom. -Use seamless textures when using the image input for best results.

Hot stuff ^

Should still be free. You're looking for Substance Player. https://www.substance3d.com/substance-player/ If you are looking at Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Substance Alchemist, etc, you are on the wrong page. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.

That's a good idea, I've put it on my list for updates. When i swing back around on wood I'll be sure to add some shiplap options.

Ok MauiDave, I ran some tests but couldn't reproduce your error so I'll need a little bit more info... Here's my export settings that I use, it's most all defaults. I would recommend trying to export something from the wood builder beta and see if that can get your files exported, if not... Double check that your file path location isn't locked down in anyway, try exporting to the desktop. Try hitting F9 to try a different engine, I don't know what kind of machine you're running but I've got Direct3D 10 and SSE2 as options on mine and both work, I use Direct3D 10. Let me know if you are on a mac, I'm on windows which might be why I can't reproduce it. Try exporting one output at a time and see if you are hanging up on just one or all maps. Get back to me and let me know if any of these work. Thanks Dustin

Hey Maui, I'm currently at IBS with the team but just wanted to let you know I saw your problem and I'll take a look when I get back to the office next week. It might be a problem on my end, I'll get in touch soon.

If you want the metallic dividers, you can make a metal map, just make it white where you want metal and black where you don't and load it in the metal map slot on the properties tab. Then you can just change the color on the texture source image to get whatever color/type of metal you want.

Hitting "Export to bitmap" should take you to the export screen that has a format select drop down in the upper right hand of the prompt. From there you can pick whatever format you prefer. It defaults to TGA but I recommend PNG. Your Marble question is a bit more tricky though, I didn't set any color controls for individual elements of a material, it blends the whole image. The marble default is white veins with grey background so if you want grey veins with white background, that's gonna be some extra work since we're getting into some nitty-gritty manipulations. I'll put an inverted marble material on the list for next time so you have an option of dark veins on light background, but until then, if you have access to photoshop or something else to edit images, your best bet would be to invert the image and then lighten it up, your veins will then be a darker tone than the rest of the image and you should have an easier time adjusting to get the grey on white that you're after. When we add more material types that have a good color variation like marble, I'll add an "invert" button to each tile color section to help you guys out with these kinds of issues. Good questions man, keep em coming. This is how I know what to add next.

Hey gang, the new tile update is live on the original post with a change list at the top of the page. Let me know if you run into any snags. Enjoy!

Hey David, I'll have the new tile builder version up hopefully in a week or two and yes there will be a grout sizer added, as well as some hand glazed finishes that let the light bounce off the surface a bit. Lots of new stuff. Hex is a problem child, anything with non 45° angles gets that weird sawtooth effect from the pixel layout, I'm aware and I'll take another pass at it i I have time. I think the original intent was 1" hex, if I can't fix it I'll put a large format hex on the list for next time that will have more pixels to clear up that edge. For water color/pattern line overlays, you might be doing this already but you can generate your own pattern in the pattern tab. I recommend using a roughness map or normal map for the cleanest results but you just have to copy the maps location into the texture slot, generate your pattern, and replace your texture location and your pattern lines should be right on. Keep the suggestions/requests/bugs coming guys. Thanks!

Hey guys... jcaffee - I've added the request to our feature list, if it gets picked up, this will be the first place I come to. dskogg - That tile is kinda ornate...rad...but ornate. I'm getting back into tile here this week and while I'm a ways off, if I can squeeze in some cooler stuff, I'll do my best. Currently the tile builder can't make this layout/type, but I added it to my list. Having said that, once this batch of tile gets made I'll add it to the builder and do a refresh with some new bells and whistles.

I doubt its going anywhere but If we ever move it, we'll be sure to link to where we put it for future reference.

Hey gang, we just added the Wood_Builder_Beta.sbsar for you to be able to generate your own wood and wood flooring materials. Parameter definitions have been added above and the file itself can be found in the original post (with the tile builder). If you have any questions or issues, let me know and I'll make fixes/changes as needed. Robert, we're always looking into ways to improve the user experience and a substance plug in would be just that. Currently though, I have no news one way or another on a third party plug in.

I'll try to add Grout Thickness next time I tinker with it. The Large Tile addition was just a short term band-aid.

Faruk - Try the "Large Tile" drop down under "Shape" and see if that works out better for you. You'll have to re-download Tile_Builder_Beta to see the changes.