VisualDandD

Check your file sizes. If they are big....like 500mg+, you have the wrong codec set. For some reason the program comes by default set to IYUV. This needs to be changed to "XVID" under Preferences>Render>Codec options. You may have to download and install the XVID codec. Just google and install. Once you use that I can make a 2min walk-through that is only about 60mb. They should make this more clear for people and I found it by accident somehow. I used to get 1gb vids and have to convert with Microsoft movie maker to get them to play.

Never done it...but got me thinking. I took the 3d trees and using the material selector, I changed all the leaf material to 100% transparent. Worked like a charm! For mounds of snow, the landscape feature would work well. Just put the right material on it. I would imagine you could start with just white and experiment from there. You just have to crank up the triangle count on the terrain to get them small enough to look good in small areas.

The effect works well in ray trace. This is a quick dirty one,....I used a different camera so I did not fix my background. Really just wanted to see the window effect. Tweaked the transparency and emissive and this worked great for a quick one. Again....no bumpmaps...etc. Just quick and dirty. The "image" type landscaping would need changed to help this out a lot. This was 3min with 10 passes. (small though...1000x480) Cant believe I did not think of this earlier....this is so much easier to get good looking glass..

No. Soooooooooooo much simpler then that. I have played with that before to get the look I wanted and it was a major PITA and took tons of time. This is just a standard backdrop too. The window is "painted" with the material painter. (first I select the surface and make a copy of the material for the glass and re-name "glass sky view" it so I can switch back and fourth easy). Material properties are still left as "reflective" under properties. I can then eyedropper and paint the rest of the windows (even mulled units) which you cant access the material DBX when mulled. I then play with the scale and offset to get the right look. The texture has to be big enough so it can span across multiple mulled units without repeating. I settled on x=120 and y=130. Last I mess with the offest. To get more "sky" in the view, I brought the texture point down a little to y= -10. I am sure from plan to plan you would have to make small adjustments to scale and offset to get that right balance, but it can be done very quickly. This looks great in watercolor. In standard render it is not as dramatic. I found that adjusting the diffuse down to 80, dropping emissive down to 0 and setting transparency to about 60 gave some good effects. (I did not run a ray trace, but I am sure I could come up with a good look) I attached the picture that I "painted" on the windows. Took me a while to find the one with the right balance. Let me know if any of you guys play with the idea and what you think, or any improvements you can possibly come up with. Justin

I prefer to do watercolor with line renders as they take much less effort than raytracing to get a nice look. They leave enough to the imagination that they dont need to be perfect. With raytracing, I have gone to extremes to get that nice look from my glass like putting up giant 'billboards' to get good image reflections...etc. It is usually the glass that lacks character in most of the views...but especially the non ray traced ones. Tonight I decided to play a little and did a simple technique of applying a custom texture to my windows to get the effect very easily. Not sure if others do the same, but wanted to throw this out there. It helps a lot to take the sterile look out of a model. See what you guys think. This took me about 30 minutes of playing and now that I have it saved, I should just be able to re-use it with small adjustments.

What will be interesting is to see how this flows though annosets and defaults.... Who wants to try first

I have an idea! Possibly..... can you just delete the chief font all together.....and when you open a file Iin chief) that has it in it, it will prompt that it cant find the font and then give you a selection box asking you to replace it with a selection. I think I have seen this happen when I open old chief files where I dont have the font on this computer. (It is a chief prompt) Not sure if this will work but it just popped in my head.

Wow....what a pain in the rear! I decided to bite the bullet tonight and not deal with this going forward. I downloaded and installed blueprintdpt and updated all my annosets to use this font. I am now realizing the downside to using "rich text". When using standard text with a "text style" everything updates globally when you update or change the "style" unless you have "custom" selected. I am getting more into refining my annosets, but see the need to go back and create a real good template. (I use the "save as" method not templates). I will have to update a lot of my notes and labels as I used "rich text" a lot and did not realize how difficult this would make things as I went further with annosets. Funny, I just began taking a look at annosets and really tweeking them. I cant believe I waited as long as I did to use them! Anyone who has not come up to speed on them should invest the time for sure!!

I had to open a plan I did in X4 and noticed the same thing today! I was wondering what happened. It clipped all my text and I had to go expand each text box in the whole plan....... I found that I could double click the text and it would open the dialogue box. I could then just click "OK" and it would resize automatically which made the process a lot faster. But, I had to open EVERY bit of text.

I played around with it for a minute. Specifically the base 3 drawer cab to the left of stove (looking at the stove). It is a connection issue. In elevation view I resized smaller (dragging handle from left to right. Brought it down to about 24". Then I slid it left to separate it. Slid it back right to connect it. (Great....no seam). And then re-sized back to original width into corner. No seam now. That is all I played with, but I am guessing that will fix a lot of your seams. BTW...where did you get the Thermador appliances?. They look nice.

I get this every now and again. Sometimes I have to move the cabinet back and 're-connect' it. I will copy, delete, and then paste 'hold position' and that sometimes works. Sometimes it is persistent and I will go as far as deleting and using a new cabinet. Does not always seem to make sense...... Make sure your cabinet width is not poking into the adjoining cabinet as well.

I run two monitors. My "main" one is a dell 2560x1140. I have had it a few years and the price has come down a good bit on them. ($500 range) It is nice to have the resolution on that one. It is also very easy on the eyes. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824260111 Makes the 24" 1920x1080 next to it seem small when I drag dual window open, I find that I feel 'cramped'.

Thanks Joe! Been away from forums for a while. I will be hanging out much more often. Taking time to really optimize and learn some new things as I am getting busier. Thank you again!!! Justin

Thank you. At least I am not going crazy. I can confirm it works on X4. I used it all the time. The weird thing is you can rotate a poly line solid around a 'absolute point' just fine. You just have to go though the extra steps to do it. (Hit the input point button and it will give you current points exact coordinates.....you then have to enter them in manually). Hard to believe I am the first to notice this...... How would others manually model a arched soldier over a window? Attached is the project I was working on where I ran into the issue. I finally figured out to draw the bricks in CAD first and group select and then convert to polyline solid. Much more work then using the pre-made ones I used to save to library and just transform/replicate......

I know I can do that. (sorry if I did not make that clear earlier). My problem is I can not perform the function of: -an array copy rotating about CURRENT point (using transform replicate) see above posts. -of a polyline solid -in elevation view. -works in CAD in elevation.....just not once you make it a solid. Able to do in X4 and previous versions. (recently upgraded) Thanks!

Just a small bump. Wondering if this is correct and you can no longer rotate objects about current point in elevation view? Again, I can get cad to work, but as soon as it becomes something like a polyline solid, the option goes away. Confused as this worked fine in X4. Thanks!

I corrected myself above. Yes, it is not the move function. BUT...... That works fine with CAD objects. As soon as you convert to a polyline solid, the option to 'rotate around CURRENT point' goes away. Works fine in X4....just not working in X6 What is weird, is rotate about absolute point still works. So you can either draw in CAD and then rotate/copy>>>>then convert to polyline solid. Or....I drew in CAD and opened the DBX with "about current point" checked (made note of exact point. (you can also get that info by just opening "input point" and it will give you current point position))>>>>>>then use the rotate/copy "about absolute point" and manually enter the coordinates in. Am I missing anything. I cant seem to get the selection "about current point" to work on objects whereas it works in X4? I was pulling my hair out last night on this one....but cant seem to figure out why this function is not working after updating?

I dont think that is it. On X6, in transform replicate, "relative to current point' radio button is "grey'd" out. (you cant select it). Actually you want to rotate/resize around point...but that is grey too. I took a few screen caps. First is X6. Second pic is X4 and how I used transform replicate to make an array copy of the soldier. (I did the operation first and then re-opened and put in the settings I used so it would be easy to understand)

OK....in X6 I could not make transform replicate work about current point even in floor plan. The multiple copy tool works fine though. My problem is again, when I switch to elevation, multiple copy will not work work even when setting behavior to rotate/resize about current point. I can drag it around fine about a point, but no multiple copy....

Hi all. I recently upgraded from x4 to 6. When detailing elevations with soldiers over arched windows, I use a cad block that I made with a brick and grout. I would set use transform replicate, and place a point at the arc center of the window. Then guessing at how many copies I needed, and the angle I would get a nice soldier course. My problem is in X6 I cant get transform replicate to work "about current point" in Elevation view only. It works fine on floor plan view. On elevation I can change the "edit behaviors" to rotate about current point. (grabbing the little triangle rotates just fine around any point I set) Am I missing something easy? I spent a while playing with all the settings and could not see anything. I even made a new plan with just 4 walls and tested....same result. Went back to X4 and it works just fine... Thanks!!! Justin

You can just use windows live movie maker. (free). I run all my walk-throughs through it anyway even if I dont add sound. They all come out about 1gb+ / min. I run them though movie maker and save as a MP4. This reduces the size to about 20mg for HD size.

Bump... Long time chief user. Version 6 I think.... Been off forums for a while. Used to do design/build. Migrated away from the building and now do mostly plans for custom clients as well as several builders. Done everything from 1200sf homes to 19,500 hsf monsters. Going on 20 years construction field experience which comes in handy when drawing. Always good to meet local users! Justin

I think I have an old "client viewer" cd floating around somewhere. But printing to a PDF will be very easy. I like Bullzip PDF printer. Free too!

Thanks for all the advice given. I decided to upgrade.....it was about time anyway. I have a few plans I am in the middle of that I have to finish and then I can start switching over. I really need to buckle down and learn annosets....I am a little behind

Sure. I will have to dig them up. Have quit using it as of late, but need to get back to it. I remember how much time is saved.