kwhitt

Thanks. I was hoping that was the case.

I should have mentioned that I have Project Management turned off.

I just recently upgraded to X17 and am looking for a way to back up my project as it was in X16. I don't want the new project file as I can't access individual image maps. I often tweak my image maps in Photoshop and will need direct access to the map. Is there a way to "Back up Entire Project" like it was in X16? Thanks, Kevin

Okay, I'll give it another try. Thanks!

Here's a link to the file in a Dropbox folder: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/jo4umwplypjp7rgaupfhu/AHYDZkRSEgkF5B-IUQJc_aY?rlkey=z3zmmk8rg2ugcax2t0m4ndqfs&st=auasrjk2&dl=0 Please open the wall marked by the revision cloud and see if you are able to delete the wallboard layer. Thanks!

I would upload the file, but it is too large and I am unable to reduce it with this new project management backup (which I can't stand so far). How are users now uploading to the forum?

Yes, and I've tried it several times - even restarting Chief. Sometimes after modifying the new wall, it will revert to Brick-6 and totally ignore the changes I made.

I’m creating an exterior brick wall with no wallboard on the interior. I do this by copying Brick-4 and attempting to delete the wallboard layer. When I attempt to delete, I get the attached error message. This method worked fine in X16 but not in X17 to which I just recently upgraded.

@Ryan-M I’ve been experimenting with Chief’s PBR rendering engine for the last few months attempting to push it to its limits. Attached are images I produced for a master bath and PBR is quite capable with some postproduction work in Photoshop; however, there a few things missing that would really improve the realism: · The ability to change the phong angle of all components within a symbol. This is very important as many of the renderings I see contain objects with far too much smoothing causing artifacts during rendering. · The ability to control the cubic material mapping of objects in all three axes. Bitmaps can only be rotated on the Y axis which causes problems especially when applying tile materials to showers where the grout lines don’t sync. You can see this on countertops too where the texture on the front vertical edge does not align with the horizontal surface. If we could revolve/rotate the mapping in all three axes, this could be resolved. · The addition of pre-defined area lights so that it’s possible to accomplish many of the tricks used in interior photography. It can be done now by creating a flat plane and assigning an emissive material but it’s time consuming to move around in the scene. The area light would come in two forms – rectangular and disc-shaped. The rectangular lights would emulate studio light boxes and the discs would be used for ceiling lights with controls for fall-off. · The addition of a shader that mimics the rounding of corners for objects in the scene. Understandably so, Chief’s walls have sharp corners and having the ability to round them using a special bump map shader at time of render would add substantially to the realism and it would keep the file size down without all the added geometry. Models imported into Chief would not have to be as detailed and heavy with this feature. · The addition of penumbra to spotlights and point lights. There is no fall-off between shadow and light within the cone which is a dead giveaway. The addition of IES lights would also solve this problem. · The addition of anisotropy to simulate brushed metals realistically. Chief does allow separate roughness values for U and V, but I am unable to see where it makes any difference in my experiments. If only applicable to models with UV’s, there should be a cubic mapping option; however, this will only be useful if we are able to rotate around all three axes as mentioned above. · The ability to specify the IOR of dielectric materials. There is no way to differentiate between plastics, latex paint, and many other materials. Everything comes out looking like plastic with varying sheens. · The addition of sub-surface scattering (SSS) to stimulate plastics such as Lucite and other acrylics, marble, and milk, etc. · The addition of postproduction filters in Chief. At the very least, we should have the ability to control contrast or even better, a curves function such as that in Photoshop. Without this capability the images are flat and lifeless. It would also be nice to have more tone mapping options to prevent whites from blowing out a scene. I like ACES but it is a bit too strong, and it would be nice if we could limit its impact with a slider. · The ability to control door swing angle and opening status with Layer Sets. This would be a huge timesaver as I’m constantly opening and closing doors for different camera views. · The ability to control light attributes such as intensity and color via Light Sets. It is now only possible to specify whether a light is on or off. This can be a lot to keep track of – having to assign a Layer Set to each camera view that controls which of the lights are on and visible and at what intensity for each camera view. It’s somewhat doable now but a lot of work and clumsy. · The ability to control the extent of denoising with a slider and the radius of the correction. Often denoising is too much making the results blurry. Furthermore, small resolution images require a smaller denoising radius as the pixels are so few. I really hope Chief plans to expand the capabilities of their PBR engine as it has so much potential. Raytracing takes far too long, and the results aren’t nearly as nice as PBR. It would also be nice to avoid having to export entire projects to other rendering engines as you lose the parametric functions which work so well in Chief. If the developers could deliver on this, I could dispose of my other software.

Precisely!

@Ryan-MThanks Ryan - I'll get my most recent updated wish list and post it in this thread.

Thanks Rene. Will do. If we had the ability to prevent objects from casing shadows, I could make my own backgrounds which would have the same effect. There are so many things I'd like to see added.

@Ryan-M Ryan - Is there a way to use the HDRI as a backdrop only with no illumination? The illumination would come from a white color only. Thanks, Kevin

Thanks Ryan. Very helpful and it makes sense. Kevin