kwhitt

Thanks Jason. I do my share of CD's too, but have the most fun with rendering (when there's time).

Thanks Marckus. I looked into Lumion a while back and concluded it was too expensive to add to my tool set considering I already have subscriptions for AutoCAD, FormZ, Cinema 4D, Corona Renderer, UV Layout, and Marvelous Designer. I was using these other applications exclusively before finding Chief a couple of years ago. Chief sure has streamlined my workflow; however, I still create most of my own 3D symbols outside of Chief.

Mick - let me know what you think when you take it for a spin. I am impressed that they were able to fix so many things with both render engines in one update. Very cool that I was able to complete this one job yesterday in about 5 hours and the renders look as though I spent days...

This new update from today is everything I'd hoped it would be. Reflections behind glass now work perfectly even with refraction. They were even able to restore the standard renderer to its former state. This software just keeps getting better and better.

You are correct. That's the office machine with the NVidia Quadro RTX 5000 which I rarely use. I work from home where I can actually get something done these days. I only go to the office two days a week to meet with clients.

Mark - It certainly is feature rich. Other than the standard renderer and the hardware lines disappearing in elevation view, I have not encountered any other issues - not to discount those problems. I really appreciate the new cabinet dialog box which allows me to build just about anything and the accuracy is such that I can use the output for shop drawings without a CAD detail from view. I just ordered a new computer with the RTX 3090 card, so looking forward to diving into PBR w/ RR. That said, I'd stick with the Standard Renderer if it performed like it did in X12.

Okay, will wait to hear from tech support.

Will do. Does Chief have an FTP server where I can upload large files? I'll send both the X12 and X13 if you want them.

Thanks Mick!

Hey Mick. Agreed. I opened a case with tech support. Will let everyone know what they say. I just noticed something else that's really strange. It appears the ceiling gets lighter while the floor gets darker - exactly the opposite of what should happen with down lights at the ceiling. Notice that the "banding" around the vaulted ceiling is washed out in the 2nd image (X13) and the carpet under the sectional sofa is dark (can barely notice the pattern). This is the opposite of what I'd expect with a room illuminated by down lights. Materials that contain image maps (textures) like the beaded board ceiling, art, etc. don't seem to vary between the two versions except for those closest to the floor.

Here are a couple more comparisons between X12 and X13 from the same project.

Hey Chop - not sure what's going on with the shadows. I could always get quick, decent results with the standard renderer - now not the case. I suspect the ambient occlusion is not working. That would go a long way to improving the images. I'm tempted to stick with X12 for now, but there are so many cool new features in X13. I am blown away by the control I have over cabinet door and drawer reveals, but I much prefer the results I was getting from X12. We do a lot of cabinetry!

I forgot to mention that the ambient occlusion is maxed out at 100%. It's as if there is no ambient occlusion at all.

I realize there will be differences between X12 and X13 when it comes to the rendering engine; however, the standard renderer in X13 looks awful compared to the results I got in X12. The new standard render looks completely washed out even when I decrease material brightness. I've also played around with ambient settings. It appears the shadows aren't dark enough and I don't see where I have any control over the darkness/brightness of shadows. There's also something strange happening with the cast shadows in the image below. The first image is X12 and the second is X13. Are there plans to improve this or is the focus solely only PBR with real-time raytracing? If so, that's unfortunate as the standard renderer was great at turning out a quick image.

It would be redundant as Dermot has already stated they are working on it. From Dermot in response to the original poster: "Regarding the missing lines for cabinet hardware, I believe that this is the result of a bug in X13. Upgrading your computer is very unlikely to have any affect on this. We are currently working on a fix for this and hope to have it available in the next update. For now, if you turn off color and then find you have some missing lines, they should come back if you use the Rebuild 3D tool. You should always report these kinds of problems to our technical support team if and when you run into them."

Thanks Mick. I tried several different searches all to no avail.

Tech support told me nothing. I read it somewhere on this forum. It is my understanding from the thread that it has been reported. I am not the one who found the bug.

I know this has been reported, but I can't find the post with the solution. Would someone mind commenting or pointing me to the correct thread? Thanks, Kevin

You are correct!

Chad - I've been dealing with pugentsystems.com. They are currently 4 weeks out, but the customer service is great. Their prices are in line when I've compared. Geno is my contact there.

Yep, it's here this morning...

I have run into that, but it usually clears up when I make it one large custom countertop. It is happening to me when the cabinet countertops are segmented. You might try ticking "global mapping" under the texture tab in the materials dialog box.

Mick - I don't see your uploaded images, but thanks for confirming. Now that I've spent the whole day on this, what does it mean? Nothing really as I've spent hours trying to put what I've learned into practical use in my bathroom scene. I've removed the wall and substituted for p-solids as the shower glass, drawn the p-solids in positive and negative directions in case the normals got flipped, removed the windows, changed my camera view to outside the shower tile volume, made the shower part of a larger room, tried various material adjustments, turned the p-solids into surfaces, etc., etc.... I can't recreate this simple setup into a practical application for a real scene. Aside from all of this, I am excited to see the direction taken by Chief as pertains to their rendering engine. I'm finished! I think I'll pass on the new computer and turn off refraction for now. It's still much better than anyone else is able to do in this market and the customer just won't notice there's no refraction. Thanks for all the help today. Hope I didn't wear you out! Kevin

It's definitely showing up. Here's a shot of a cylinder reflected in the mirror on the camera side of the refractive glass. I'd be curious to see what you get. I posted the file again in my latest post so as not to confuse with the others.