michaelgia

Yup, water color with line drawing over top is my go to presentation approach. With X9 it's actually a pleasure to use, and I'm always taken aback at how nice they look, and then you print them and they're even nicer! sorry, I'm a Chief fan. Spent/wasted too much time over the years with Softplan and Archicad to know the grass is not greener...

I'll post the plan when I get back home later, but I did verify that the names are spelled exactly the same.

Nevermind.... Camera was on wrong layer... I was changing text size for a text style that wasn't being used by my section cameras. I need to open my eyes more. Just click on the camera and the text style it uses is in the active layer pane. I was jumping to the default setting without noticing which text style was associated with that camera. I need a break

So I take a section view. I can control the size of the arrow. I can control the text size in the arrow. But, how do I control the text size of the label under the arrow? I'm pretty sure I used to do this through > default > text, callouts and markers I wish I could just right click on the damn label and change its defaults from there. Like with so many other default settings. (Sorry I'm venting here)

It's not a resolution problem. Whenver you see a badly speckled raytrace there is always a highly reflective surface or surfaces present. This is why surfaces like chrome and stainless steel give raytraces so much problems as well. Before a raytrace, use the "rainbow tool" and check all surfaces for high reflection settings and tone them down until you improve speckling. Then if you're not satisfied because everything is too flat or not reflective enough you can go back and increase the reflection on that one central piece that you feel is necessary for the realism you're looking for.

I posted a couple of weeks ago. Problem with vector camera view. Standard view works fine. All views work well except vector view. This does not seem consistent with "your system is old" response, or "time to upgrade". This is a bug. Otherwise I would have crashing or performance issues. I'm sure they'll fix it eventually. In the meantime we don't help by sugar coating issues with X9. Or any other issues. From prior post: https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=21784 EDIT: Just updated to 19.1.0.470SX vector view issue fixed! Thanks Chief!!!

Well, to all of you that say X9 is just fine, let me be the first to say that the emperor has no clothes. Chief if you're listening, please continue working on all the fixes. It's not fine. And if fine means I have to invest in a NASA grade computer then it's not my computer's fault, it's your programming.

X9 ain't fully ready yet. I went back to X8. Hopefully there will be a much needed update soon. March I'm suspecting...hoping.

Wow a 3000$+ laptop that doesn't have a solid state drive? The 3000$ budget wasn't enough?... I don't get it, or Amazon is not listing all the specs correctly. The only reason I mention this is because a solid state drive is so vital to performance. Almost more so than ram, in my opinion.

Anyway, for anyone following this, I went back to: - Live view (update on demand) - Technical illustration - opaque windows -Shadows on It's quicker/near instant to send to layout. When printed the dimensions and text really stand out since they're in color especially against the technical illustration which has very fine line weights. The shadows give a good depth perception, especially giving a nice shadow for everything under the terrain. The house above ground stands out more. The PDF is not as well defined as the printed version, but here is a sample PDF. Elevation Technical Illustration.pdf

Ok thanks, I was not sending as Plot Lines but rather a Live View. (Which is quicker) I got the result by simply unchecking "Color Fill" in the Send to Layout DBX. Can you tell me what settings for "Scaling" and "Plot Line Options" should be? 1) use layout line scaling? 2) use edge line defaults? 3) use pattern line defaults? 4) merge generated lines? I'm suspecting I have bad settings here because whenever I use send view to layout as Plot Lines, my computer tends to launch itself into a very time consuming calculation of ..."creating Plot Lines", panel "calculating panel heights" etc... We're talking 30 seconds to send to layout. My raytraces are shorter. What am I doing wrong?

I don't want the patterns in vector view but I do want colour for my text, dimensions, and cad. When I uncheck "color" in the "View" menu, it removes the color from the patterns but at the same time it makes my text, dimensions, and cad colorless as well. I can't seem to control this through layer sets. I thought I could.

I'm sure I'm going crazy but I could have sworn that I could send an elevation to layout with the color off (greyscale) but have my cad lines, dimensions, and text maintain their color. Was I dreaming this? Or is this not possible? First image is what I would like in layout and not the all grey second image. I know I could send as line drawing to achieve this but then I have to mess with line weights. I find vector view with the color toggled off gives better line weights out of the box. Which is the real issues. ...I think?

This is really nice. Clean and simple. The tree shadow created by a hidden 3D tree is a nice effect. What do we have to do to get our grubby little hands on your awesome grass texture? Is asking nicely sufficient?

I think one thing that is often overlooked is that "setting up a scene" as the phrase indicates is more related to photography than it is to architecture or drafting. With that in mind, I would try to imitate scenes from interior design magazines as taken by professional photographers as a first step. Second step would be materials and lighting. (my humble opinion)

This is a true litmus test of Chief's capabilities. Nice work Graham, especially the bump map on the floor, makes for a nice backdrop for the scene. However, I see that nagging under performing stainless steel is still an issue even for someone with your pedigree... It would also be helpful if, when posting, people would mention if their materials or textures were acquired outside of the program.

I know right?... It's X9 and I'm really not that good. lol I've been really impressed with X9. I put absolutely no effort into that shot. I've just been fooling around and getting acquainted with the new version. I haven't even saved a plan in X9 yet. I'm not confident enough. I think I'll take the plunge this weekend. You know, take the training wheels off X8.

Here is the same view in water color with line drawing over top and shadows on. All settings default out of the box. Takes a second longer than vector view with no issue like the vector view is giving me.

Ha ha, that does look cool! and thanks for the suggestion to send Ryan the dbx. I realize my Mac is a little outdated and seemingly underpowered but I honestly never experience any lag, and crashes are very rare. I'd hate to have to upgrade anything. I'm loving how quick the line drawing works. I always loved that look but rarely used it because it was so time consuming before.

Sorry I was at the movies.... here is the graphic card info: 2.5 Ghz Intel Core i5 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB C02HN8T1DHJF

Here's the plan. DIAMOND_MR_WEN.plan

Ok so here is a vector view in X9. It looked fine in X8. I merely opened the plan in X9. Anyone know what's going on?

I think this app could be useful for capturing the inside of a historical building such as a cathedral, for future consideration in case of destruction or fire etc... This would be overkill and actually more work for what we do on this forum, as HumbleChief so ardently articulated.

I'll just add the collaboration abilities of revit and Archicad, I think, is the only real deficiency of Chief over these other programs. On the other hand collaboration is necessary on these other programs because I don't think you can effectively and productively work alone in these other programs seeing how much leg work goes into setting things up to be as efficient as Chief out of the box.