Dave89

Will proceed with using the direct 3DS output then. Thanks for the feedback.

Using Chief X6.

Question for the experts.... What method do you use for exporting to Thea Studio? Direct import of 3DS file into Thea or go through another translator such as PoseRay or AccuTrans 3D to a Kerkythea file? Do you use the same sequence for both interior and exterior scenes? Thanks!

Thanks for everyone’s input. Jon, Thanks for your insight. All of the lights were on during my test render. With just lights 81, 82 and Sun, I'm at 0:56 with the AMD rig and 0:22 with the Intel setup. Now I've learned the lesson I've been telling my kids, "Turn the lights off when you’re not using them." Learn something new every day. From seeing others setup within their signatures, I feel much better with my rendering times. My two PCs were not meant to be the end all in CPU horsepower but a compromise between power and energy with a silent setup. Both processors are 65 watts. Again... Thanks!

Okay... I'm just trying to get a feel for the speeds I should be getting with my Ray Traces. For my test I am using the following: Default Riverstone Plan with X6 View: Camera 12 Default Ray Trace Settings 640x480 Resolution Ambient Occlusion = NO Environmental Lighting = NO Photon Mapping = NO Depth of Field = NO Limit = 2 Rendered for 2 Passes Test PC #1 MSI A88XM Gaming FM2+ Motherboard AMD A10-7800 3.5GHz to 3.9GHz Turbo - Quad Core AMD 16Gb RAM - DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) AMD Radeon R7 Graphics 1024Mb AMD Radeon R7 240Gb SSD Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 Ray Trace Time: 24.00 Test PC #2 Shuttle XH61V Motherboard Intel Core i7 3770S 3.1GHz to 3.9GHz Turbo - Quad Core, 8 Threads G.Skill 16Gb RAM - DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Intel HD 4000 Graphics 1024Mb Intel 530 240Gb SSD Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 Ray Trace Time: 8:50 The reason I am curious is, I believe I should be getting faster Ray Traces as others on the forum seems to be a lot faster with a lot more advanced settings. Thanks in advance for anyones input. Dave

Wow! Yesterday I just got the same error and submitted it to Tech Support. See below: I was thinking it may have been hardware specific, but seeing how you have an Intel/nVidia Rig verses my complete AMD Rig, it rules that out. All I have to do is open Chief, select the sample plan and try to RayTrace... gets to the black and white checkered screen, and bombs out. I can open Chief, draw 4 walls try to RayTrace and it does the same thing. This is all on a fresh install of Chief. Hope this gets resolved soon. I would even be willing to load a copy of the Beta X7 to give it a try. Very weird! And no, this is NOT in Trial mode. Keep getting this error no matter what sample plan I try to raytrace or even if I draw just 4 walls and try to raytrace. C:\p4sync\dev\Releases\16\chief\source\raytrace.cpp(497): Error #272032345 "An unexpected error occurred while ray tracing." 1/8/2015 11:08:29 PM Build: 16.4.1.20x64 Running: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 AMD A10-7800 AMD 16Gb RAM AMD Radeon R7 Graphics 1024Mb AMD Radeon R7 240Gb SSD