stevenyhof

I worked on my modern house with new material textures and maps. The stone on the wall I made from a wallpaper and put into PixPlant 5. I put in a photo for the background. I still like to see some bushes, and that is still an area to put some work into. I'm trying to push the bar for Chief renderings so they look into more realistic trees and bushes. I have trees in Twinmotions that are up to 700 Mb's, so I do not expect those types of file sizes in Chief. Even when you get into 4k maps the system really starts to lag.

Daytime

Nighttime

12 hours ago, Ryan-M said:

Adding more variety to the grass tool

And maybe random works, or at least it could be one of the options, but as an artist (speaking for anyone with an eye for proper detail), maybe even a map over the grass region with +Add options so we could specify where within the map we would place random features (plants, grasses, etc.). And like the grass, options from little to many, etc.

+Add  = add plant one
+Add = add grass three
+Add = add leaves B

And then within each added option are controls for each with an optional map parameter where you want them located. Map regions could overlap each other. You get the idea.

How is this for materials and texture mapping? I knew Chief had it in it. Was a nice way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.

My posts and beams are solids with solids subtracted on the edges to split the wood. The roof and a few other textures are using all the map fields. The stone are terrain sidewalk polys broken up to allow the grass through. I used my grunge images on the brick walls and the deck floor. Chiefs grass is very nice, but their plants pull the realistic look out of the picture. But I did darken them which helps. You can also see I used a few wall regions on the brick and foundation stone, as well as the wood lintels.

My background is not perfect yet, but my granddaughter is bugging me to play with her. So I will fix this up later.

Added some broken glass to the front window

1 minute ago, Renerabbitt said:

Instead...make a true spherical image in photoshop

I will look into this, but I have never done that before. I assume photoshop has a tool to make this?

I do understand what you are saying with it being a true spherical and not something Chief is just joining.

Thank you,

Steve

6 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

You might want to call chief, this works as intended:

Hi Rene. I reviewed your video again and I think it is not spinning for you either. You are seeing the backdrop distort through the glass cube, but the front reflection remains. Change your glass to a mirror and try again please.

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/HGc8VqbRwC6wNpEtNeRU

Thank you,

Steve

So this is what I get...

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/mDoM5AhdW86l4aMHuAfV

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/HGc8VqbRwC6wNpEtNeRU

Thoughts?

40 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

Are you sure it’s spherical?

I assumed any Backdrop image that is checked to be Spherical will work? I mean, my backdrop does show up in the windows, but when I change the controls, nothing happens. If I spin the model I can see the changes in the windows. I'm about to test the same thing you just did in the video.

4 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

You might want to call chief, this works as intended:

Wow! Mine is not working like that. That is a big deal to making things work right. Thank you for sharing this, Rene! I have sent this into Chief last week.

36 minutes ago, robdyck said:

This gallery demonstrates the reflective glass changing in relation to a standard backdrop.

Very nice! Thank you for sharing this.

8 minutes ago, robdyck said:

Nope, a normal map.

Very nice. I use PixPlant to make my Normal maps. Sometimes you can get what you want with a Bump map, but Normal map is a better way to go.

2 minutes ago, robdyck said:

Been experimenting with some new glass textures for more realistic reflections...real window glass ain't flat!

Very nice! So add a bit of a bump map I assume. I love your road also. 

I added a water bump image map to my puddles which have the glass material so it was not flat.

2 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

I just spent about 25 minutes on chiefs Crowne Point Model.
generated grass to replace my grass texture. a quick grunge overlay on roof, some hand drawn elements on the stone and a bit of editing. its not perfect but it took 25 minutes from opening the file, which needed a few fixes, to editing the shot:

Great window reflections. That is a big one for me that needs to be right. Like mine, they both have a long way to go for Chief to look amazing. 

52 minutes ago, robdyck said:

2 quick tips for trees...this goes for pretty much every 3d tree in the Chief library. It's really unfortunate they were added this way...the whole library needs to be edited.

1. adjust the 3d smoothing angle to a much higher number. I like 99 for obvious reasons, its quick to enter and it's the greatest.
2. adjust the bark texture to a smaller size, reset the aspect ratio, check global symbol mapping.

The image below is of the same tree. The one on the right has the aforementioned edits. Chief should take note...I think this is a prime example of why people think they need a different software to do exterior renders.

 

Wow! That was easy! Now we just need all the leave updated to something less flat.

1 hour ago, Renerabbitt said:

I would spend some time trying to make some better materials. That's always going to be a major difference. You are talking about a software that uses 1K textures vs one that utilizes 4-8K textures
Not to mention TM has a holw lot of other tricks up its sleaves. Bicubic/tri/planar projection re-mapping, sepearate backdrop and light sources from HDRI's, better caustics...all kinds of things

Yes, for sure on the materials. I did spend a bit of time in Twinmotions creating materials and all the maps. I need to do the same with Chief.

_____________

Ok, so I thought the picture looked a little like it had just rained a little so I wanted to add some water puddles. I also updated my pool and updated my water image in photoshop...

Here you can see where I placed the grunge and puddles

I have again updated the same Library with Puddles...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XJo7gJ9_KXpR-Pp0COgzfKdpmXtVjPE_/view?usp=sharing

Now I need to get back to work

1 hour ago, robdyck said:

@stevenyhof Steve, have you purchased plants from Xfrog, and if so, do you recommend that compared to the available 3d plants from Chief's library?

Not from Xfrog yet - I did check them out. I purchase plants from various places. Some are from Sketchup because they are free and you can find smaller file sizes. I can break them apart in Sketchup and save versions, like my hostas. However, I made the hostas in X16 Beta, so they I will not post them until the release. Same with a few trees. I always update my materials (leaves, bark, etc.) in photoshop to make things look better. I still need to do more to add some brown spots and tears to the leaves.

I have been using Chief plants (not trees) because I find them quit fine. They are at least congruent with the building model. Meaning, just a little fake.

Right now I got sidetracked again from my work and am making up some water puddles. I will add a new rendering shortly and add the puddles to the Landscape Library.

1 hour ago, ACADuser said:

Nice work Steve. Very impressive.

Thank you! It was still more than 2 hours of work with fussing with all the details and changing material properties, etc. But I would guess the more we do it the faster we get.

There is a clear difference between Twinmotion and Chief. I am hoping to try and figure that out. Twinmotion looks more like a photograph, but it too is not perfect. I guess if it was easy than everyone would be doing it. My goal of course is to find that sweet spot with the background image and camera settings to make it look more like a photo.

I rendered this plan in Twinmotions about year ago. The new image was rendered in Chief using my backgrounds and camera settings in this forum thread. I also added some leaves and tree shadows. I still need to work on the Backdrop images (not my background images) which I only use for window reflection, but I'm going to need to wait until Chief fixes the Spherical Panoramic Backdrop controls. At the moment, you can control the Spherical Panoramic Backdrop as a background image, but changing the settings do not show the changes in the window reflections.

Twinmotions - and brought into Photoshop and Camera Raw

Chief Architect - and brought into Photoshop and Camera Raw

I see that it works in a few videos that exist out there, but I messed with it for a while and finally sent my quest 2 back. 

Hi leahernst,

Post your plan here. I'm sure there are a few people here that can help...

Here I put a swimming pool in by cutting a hole in my slab, added foundation walls and painted them with a tile material. Then added a slab for my water, dropped it below the top slab and painted the water and added the bump map.

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/CQuNsNlOILy0xgUfnZcq

Here is a simple way to create water and reflection for your PBR renderings. This is the first time I have messed with water and rendering within Chief. I'm pretty impressed!

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/Tha46sgOz5tBJeWUw3x6

I think I am about at the end, or at lease a good place to say that we can now produce a more life like grass in Chief. I know this thread was about Twinmotion, but I am back at Chief to do my renderings. I still use Twinmotions now and then, like to create new background images. I made like 20 new backgrounds, but I use them in a different way. Details in the link below...

Download the Library of Leaves, Clover and Grunge images from here...

I added some new things to my Library for grass effects to quickly add more life to your renderings. Get the updated Library by clicking the forum link below...

I think I am about at the end, or at lease a good place to say that we can now produce a more life like grass in Chief. Where this topic started a long time ago...

Download the Library of Leaves, Clover and Grunge images from here...

I wanted to add a little more to the grass in those renderings that show more grass and are not hidden so much by just tree shadows (noted above).

Now I have added Leaves and Clover to the Library. Same link as before, just with some added materials, etc.

The grunge image ( a single image) I am showing has been stretched to span over the whole front yard. I also made the grunge image less transparent and brownish in color, so try some different colors and transparency. Lifting the grunge image up and down in the grass also makes a difference on the look.

The Landscape Library that includes Leaves, Clover and Grunge...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XJo7gJ9_KXpR-Pp0COgzfKdpmXtVjPE_/view?usp=sharing

I would love to see some of your renderings where these methods are used.