kwhitt

Thanks Rob!

Thanks!

Thanks Michael. I was just getting ready to start a ticket but as usual I cannot find the link. It's as if Chief does not want you to open a ticket. Do you have a direct link? Kevin I've also noticed that you are unable to select a vertical segment within a molding polyline in a camera view. I prefer doing my take-offs in 3D if there's not much to count as I find it faster than creating a material list.

First, when adding molding from an elevation view, the resulting profile gets offset quite a far distance from the intended location. After created, it must be manually moved into place every time. 3D molding polylines used to fall into place perfectly. Second, the Length/Perimeter under the Polyline tab is totally inaccurate - see attached. This example is made up of 4 sides with two segments at 36-1/2" wide and two segments at 10" in height - although I am unable to select the vertical segments in a 3D camera view. The total perimeter should equal 93" while the dialog box reports 73". I very often use this feature to calculate molding quantities which is totally useless to me now. Instead of orbiting around the room in a camera view and adding up the total lengths, I now must create 2D elevations of each wall and manually add all the segments together. It doesn't seem to be a problem in plan view where I often use "Make Room Polyline" to calculate shoe and baseboard. I no longer trust Chief to return accurate molding measurements. Granted, this is a file created in X15 now being edited in X16 if that factors in. Has anyone else experienced strange behavior from the new Molding Polyline? Can someone confirm the Length/Perimeter readings are off?

Shayne - thanks for the breakdown. I will give it a good. Kevin

Thanks Jim. I'm going to give it a try. Kevin

I thought about that too but thought it would be difficult to get everything to align properly, but maybe not if it's an exact duplicate of the same elevation. This will, of course, require that I have two elevations for every view I'm after. This might be worth a try though unless the topmost layout box hides the one below. Do you know the behavior of overlapping layout boxes? Thanks.

Thanks Shayne. Just so that I understand, are you saying send the elevation as a plot view and disable updating, Any changes/additions to text and dimensions will be updated automatically without changing the original plot lines as long that they aren't generated again? What does this have to do with the line weight adjustment though?

Bob - thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I follow you. Are you saying take a screen grab of the elevation without the dimensions and then overlay the dims in layout?

Thanks DB.

I believe I’ve asked this question before but can’t find the original post. I would like to create a live view of a wall without color but have my dimensions and notes in red. For example, keep everything in the view attached exactly as it is, but have the dimension line of 95-5/8” in red. Thanks, Kevin

Signature Designer Light Fixtures | Experience Visual Comfort & Co. I'm not sure what you mean by "who has the largest selection to do so". The link above is directly to the manufacturer's website. Find a fixture that you like and scroll down a little to the .skp or other file type. Note that they have many of their fixtures available as CAD models but not all. I can usually find what I'm looking for most of the time. On those occasions that I cannot, customer service is quite helpful IF they have the model.

Got it. I'll give that a try. Thanks.

Michael - thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I follow you though. Would you mind giving me some more info on your technique? Kevin

Thanks Dermot. I have tried deleting the unneeded lines; however, that creates a 2D plan symbol that is not as large as the 3D symbol. This means the 2D symbol does not align with the 3D geometry (there's an offset). As far as I know there is no way to align the 2D symbol. Any ideas?

I created a conference table to use in a design. When the symbol is auto-generated, the symbol shows the outline of the baseboard which I do not want showing in the symbol I’ve created as it represents the table surface as being larger than it actually is. The actual object is 105.5” wide x 43.5” wide; however, the table symbol should only be 104” wide x 42” wide without the ¾’ thick baseboard showing. I have tried editing the symbol by making the baseboard segments invisible with a zero-line width and a white color. I’ve even tried placing the baseboard segments on another layer in the hopes of concealing them by turning the layer off. Nothing works! Any suggestions? Thanks, Kevin

Renee - Nice! Have you tried ACES tone mapping? I just did in the scene below. It almost makes post-production in Photoshop unnecessary.

Jason – you don’t use area lights arbitrarily where you feel you need more light like you would with ambient lighting. Forget the notion that they provide overall lighting for your scene (as I interpret your statement). Area lights are used to replace light fixtures such as overhead ceiling lights so, in a way, they do exist in the real world and this is the rendering engine's way of simulating them.. They can also be used as softboxes to provide “fill” light like a photographer would in an interior setting. It’s all about balancing the light. You don’t want everything overly lit. You want shadows and dark areas to create contrast or the images appear flat. I’d also recommend you try copying the lighting as seen in real photographs. After time, this will train your eye. I would recommend you first calibrate your scene with natural lighting using a backdrop or HDRI before adding any area lights (or turn them off prior). In other words, create a camera view as if the scene was lit entirely from exterior (natural) lighting and adjust the exposure to your liking (I would not recommend using auto-exposure). I would then add overhead lighting if needed - or for effect. It can be quite nice to have natural cool light coming from outdoors illuminating most of the scene and highlight an area with warm overhead lighting above a feature in the room such as a vanity. It is also very important that the materials are physically correct. None of your whites should exceed 90% for the Value (in HSV) and those are for very white materials such as snow. You also do not want the materials too saturated so keep the S (Saturation) below this 90% threshold as well. I also try to keep all blacks above a 20% value with the lower end reserved for very dark materials such as coal. For RGB calculations, none of the channels should exceed 229 (.90 x 255 = 229.5). This keeps all materials within the physically correct range. The albedo of surfaces in the real world is never as bright or dark as we perceive them with our eyes. Chief’s materials out of the box are not suitable for PBR. You’ll have to experiment but once you’ve added several successful materials to your library, they should work well in all scenes without too much tweaking required. Good models and materials are key and for the most part, I use my own that I import into Chief. Chief is perfectly capable of handling high-poly count and high-res image maps if you have a decent graphics card. I’m working on a sample file for study if anyone is interested. I’d love to see Chief’s gallery rival that of higher-end software. Chief is much more capable than most give it credit for – especially now with the introduction of X16.

Rob - that's why I say that area lights are a game changer for rendering within Chief. There is absolutely no comparison to be made between object-base lighting (area light) and the Add Light feature (which is only a point or spotlight emanating from a single point in space). Area lights more closely resemble lighting in the real world. I really think this is going to take Chief to a whole new level and I look forward to seeing what users are able to create with it.

Ryan - that is what I am exploring today - making a library of various sized planes to simulate softboxes and other studio lighting. I think for now that is the best solution.

For me, the ability to turn off visibility, shadows, and reflections of a light source is not needed. I can; however, see a place for it in product visualizations. I’ve had this ability available to me in Corona Renderer for years and have never used it. I guess I see this as a cheat and not physically accurate. Then again, the very act of using a computer to create a image is the ultimate cheat. My take is that a well-placed fill light would accomplish the same and would be more accurate, but you are right, most high-end engines offer it.

That’s exactly what I’m asking for – a predefined emitter object. As stated in the original post, I am now using a face and assigning an emissive material to simulate this behavior. I am sure it will be added eventually.

Chief’s “Add Light” is not an Area Light, nor do they call it that. It is merely a point or spotlight that lights an area. Every physically based rendering engine calls object-based emitters “Area Lights”. This would apply to Vray and Corona Renderer (the standards in the visualization market) – both of which I have used for many years among others. Below is a definition from the PBR Book. https://www.pbr-book.org/3ed-2018/Light_Sources/Area_Lights#:~:text=Area%20lights%20are%20light%20sources,each%20point%20on%20the%20surface It’s a huge leap to equate Chief’s “Add Light” with an Area Light and would be inaccurate.

LOL. It was not my first choice nor was the whole country scene! The client had specifics!

Here is that same sphere in X16.