VisualDandD

@Renerabbitt Super nice stuff. Your stuff looks impressive for sure. I like seeing your stuff. I was watching your template you were selling and find your approach very interesting. But our approaches to the software are so very different. Interesting to see the way we approach things. It might be interesting to see the way guys in a vacuum have all developed their stuff. I use a lot of line custom walls that are color and line by layer and those layer sets change in different annotation sets. I never got much into playing with saved plan views, but might explore at some point. But just cool to see your approach. Nice work!

Thanks. My stuff is not rendering either, but the vid card does so much within chief. I use a lot of vector view to do my exterior edits and that can really bog down system at times on large complex plans. I just picked up a 3060 card to throw in my old box because I am going to turn it into our sim box to run our car sim. Currently we steal my sons PC for it with his 3070, We run 3 1440p monitors at 144hz and the 3060 will actually drive them well of the software we run. (mainly asseto corsa) So upgrading my work pc will have some benefits that I can run the car sim as we approach track days for practice now without waiting for my son to get off. So there is double benefit to getting new pc! This is my Son prepping for VIR. He just turned 15, but got to run the full course (in real life) twice as a 14 year old. Not many kids can say that!

I did play with it a little. It might be something I use. Still have not spent a ton of time in 14 as I am still working on getting my defaults the way I want them. Also got rid my Logitech g13 pad and added a stream deck XL for all my chief functions. My son bult me a 60& keyboard and I got a separate hot swap num pad so I could really configure my work area the way I want. My son is into gaming, so he had me try out all these different types of switches...etc. It was fun for both of us. I will dig deeper into X14 when I start working in it full time. Appreciate the comments and insight for sure. @HumbleChiefAs for the 3070, my son has one in his box. I borrowed it a few times to explore some of the RTX features. In TM the 3070 does full ray trace really well. When I fired it up with the 3080 Ti, it was next level. Like amazing. If I could give any advice, the 3080Ti is well worth the leap if you can justify it. I kept my last box for over 6 years. Looking at the cost difference over time I will probably keep this new one, it was a no-brainer. I could not however justify the 3090 as it really is not that much faster.

Few more... Obviously you can see the ariel imagery in a mesh over terrain. If I wanted to really make it look good, I could populate with vegetation, but it serves it's intended purpose.

Mick right? I remember you for sure. Very talented and creative. Kinda went away from forum for a while. Just in the grind and stayed super busy. I spend too much time on car forums and workout ones, but I have always appreciated the talent on here for sure. I do things in weird ways I guess. But self taught everything and 25+ years in construction. Got my start swinging a hammer many years ago, and been involved in all ends of construction. Love design and found my way back here about 12 years ago. Simple life and much more enjoyable. Anyway, this is a project I am working on right now. And how I use renderings. Modern Med. Client has 500k lake lot and worried about views. I overlay GIS date of lake and inlet, mix with site topo and integrate models. Mostly line stuff, but every once in a while I throw some textures on things, but dont want to distract them too much. TM works great for me, and these took me less than 5 min to set up and processed in less than a minute.

I went a few years without staying updated w/ software even though I kept up my SSA. I finally decided to get caught up and figured that a new PC would be in order. (especially to use chief new rendering features, but I needed to do it regardless. Been using Chief since 1997. I remember back to the old Pov-Ray ray trace generators and it goes withou saying that I have seen the evolution of the program. I know a lot of people ask how something performs, so I figure I would post my specs and give feedback. Build. i9 12900k 32gb ddr5 5200mhz RTX3080Ti. (I was waiting for the 3090 cards to come out but they just dont seem worth extra $$ over the 3080Ti so I went with cheap(er) version. 1tb PCIe 5000/4000 MB/s 3tb data drive 6Gb/s So X14 runs very well. The real time ray tracing works as well as one could hope with very little delay in rendering in the image. That said, I am still not going to use it. I noticed pretty quickly that it's quality is not what I would want. Some things are really nice, but way too much garbage and trash elements of it that ruin it for me. Shame as it might be nice to have it integrated but pretty much my reservations were confirmed. Doing things 90% well...sucks frankly. But I have been using TM for a while and Lumion going back to Lum 6. Switched to TM few years back and have not looked back. With the RTX card, it SMOKEs and cranking out images is very easy. I will heat my office up quite nicely in the process but that goes along with it. I dont make a living rendering, but I like the option to do it. I generally dont do 'photo realistic' as I dont think it suits my need for rendering. I do more stylistic to show design themes. So I feel great about the ability of the above spec to run Chief. But disappointed in the built in rendering. I am not surprised and always felt that chief should invest time in making a more functional program for the actual design professionals and const doc/ utility. Have to give props as there are some nice additions, productivity wise, to the software that I appreciate for sure. Dont see myself using their rendering engine. The old jack of all trades, master of none analogy. But overall happy and just about make the full switch over to 14 on next project. Just been migrating my templates and 'annotation sets' (I know they are not called that any more ;). But some nice stuff that will be beneficial for sure.

Thank you! Studio it is! Dread the work of switching everything over, but have to bite the bullet at some point! Excited to check out new version. (despite current SSA) I have not updated since x11

Just upgraded PC. New card w/ 3080ti. Have not even got all software over to the box but the Nvidia driver experience has a option for "game" drivers, or "studio" drivers saying the latter function better with people doing creative work. Any feedback on difference or which one might run better?

Video in unavailable. Would love to see. I know you are super creative and love to see what others do!

So I have been using chief for many years (going back to 98). I have always looked to improve my work flow. I was a very early adopter of 3d mouse. Been using a modified gaming keypad with multiple modes for hotkey macros...etc. I have not done anything different for years. Although I have kept a current SSA, I have not even installed 12,13. Well 12 is installed, but I never even bothered to work in it. I finally am making the upgrade on my pc, so I figured it would be a good time to take a look at improving my workflow as well. My PC is still a week or so from delivery, but specs are: i9 12900k 32gb ddr5 5200mhz PCIe 1tb 5000/4400 3td data drive. (plus I probably have 3 or 4 1tb satas I can throw in. (got a box w/ rear hot swap bays) Only place I cheaped out was vid card. I went with RTX3080Ti. I was waiting for 3090's to come out and numbers were not worth the extra 1000 over the 3080Ti. So I started looking at my input. My son like to game and he builds keyboards. So I had him build me a keyboard (which I picked all the switches I like for feel) You will see I ditched the 10 key. It now sits on my streamdeck XL which is the most POWERFUL upgrade I can imagine beyond the 3d mouse. Just limitless potential. Pretty much unlimited hot keys/ macros and amazing set up abilities. I went with a G9 49" and using Fancy Zones to configure. I have my chief center weighted. Running my Dell UHD in portrail mode (also configured as two monitors when I want w/ fancy zones). All fancy zone shortcuts are programmed into stream deck. I can launch and set to specific areas with a single key press. Really just scratching the surface. My G13 keypad is still on my desk. Need to wait till I set up X13/14 and get all my hotkeys finalized before I retire it. I have the streamdeck all set up to enter feet inch and full calc functions. This has been a lot of fun. Today was my first day working like this. Still waiting to finalize, (new office furniture and desk coming to better work with my new setup and PC. But this is unbelievably productive.

So lots of ways to do it. I have done a bunch of modern homes where the builder still wants to keep conventional roofing. By code we can do that here with 2:12 and double underlayment. For those projects we have used I joist or roof trusses. Roof trusses work best as HVAC runs are easy. Spray foam is pretty much a must. If going high budget, you can just make roofs flat w/ floor truss/ i joist and then install commercial built up roofs. Rally depends on slopes, and overall spans. Also if window headers go right under soffit makes a big structural difference. So very design dependent. I try to 'cheat' that look a lot while still staying in 100% conventional construction.

Never thought of the curved cursor! Been drawing for last 7-8 on my dell 2560x1440 which was bleeding edge back in the day. That was what I was going to make my secondary to the curved but put in portrait mode. I will see how the curved works. Worst case, my son ends up with it (which would make him overjoyed!) But you definitely brought up a good point! Thanks.

Just wanted to say SUPER excited to check it out. I have always kept current SSA and never even installed 13. I was motivated enough that I celebrated with new pc today. i9-12900K 32gb DDR5/5200mhz mem 1tb PCIe 5000/4400mb/s 3tb data drive RTX 3080ti New G9 Odessy 49" curved monitor (and will run my Dell 29" QHD in portrait mode off to the side of the big curved one. (currently run 3 monitors. 2-24 and 1-29) Been so busy last few years never even kept up with new stuff. Figure it is time and PERFECT timing of what looks like a great productivity update! Never worried about Chief rendering since I use Twinmotion and used Lumion in the past till I went back to TM w/ new version. Needless to say excited to check it out.

Ha! I am still working in 11 even though I have maintained current SSA. Been so busy never even went to other versions. Although I did put 12 on my computer. Never even used it

Logitech G600 mouse (lots of programmable buttons Logitech G13 game pad programmable . Full 10 key with feet and inch marks and tons of programmed hot keys. (almost never have to use drop down menus) 3Dconnection 3d mouse. I keep it simple ;). Amazing how eliminating clicks can speed up productivity. I draw twice the amount of work I did a few years ago in same time. Each extra click is a waste

@Kbird1 I am hoping your computer knowledge may help out. So I have fallen down the ray trace and now VR rabbit hole this weekend. I have hooked up my oculus quest to the Twinmotion. I notice that it will export the VR with ray trace selected. BUT the vid card is not fast enough to do the ray tracing. I am using my sons 3070 gaming pc. So I was looking at having a box built, and was going to spec a 3080Ti, but for $500 more, I can get the 3090. Do you think it is worth it. I am wondering if the 3090 will even be able to render fast enough to use the ray trace in VR. If not, the only thing the faster card is really doing is slowing my rendering times (which can all be qued anyway and run over night). So not really needing anything faster than 3070 to be productive. Any thoughts? Might have to wait for the 4000 series cars which are rumored to be 3x faster than 3090, but wont drop till end of 2022 at earliest... Thanks for all the help by the way!

Just a few more TM ray trace examples. I tired it when it first came out, but really this is only playing with it for 2 days. Not bad. BUT, definitely need to upgrade hardware. Borrowing my sons gaming 3070, it spit these out in under a minute each. I did not spend too much time 'staging' the scene. These are as detailed as I need for my purposes. Not sure how chief does it, but what is nice about TM is you can set up all your 'shots' each having different settings, camera. lighting. layers showing...etc, and then set a que for them to render all at once so you dont have to do each one individually. The real time preview gives you more than enough info on what material and lighting adjustments are doing. Have to say I wont miss lumion (except for on the fly bump mapping)

I have zero issue spending money on performance. I am guessing that getting a 3090ti is probably most likely though one of the big PC builders like Cyberpower...etc. I generally buy the fastest or very close when I switch up and it seems to be the best route as I end up getting a lot of usefulness out of my rigs. I will probably go 3080ti or even 3090, but I almost want to wait to see the new specs of the 3090ti. Thank you SO much for the practical responses. I have not kept up with any of this stuff for some time. MUCH appreciated! I ran a totally bare bone, no texture interior rendering with about 6 lights and the lighting is stunning. Excuse the lack of detail as it was just an experiment. I have been messing with renderings going back to the old Pov Ray stuff in chief. But this actually makes it practical. I will be interested to see how it works in Chief. Current box wont run it of course. I have now put a few days in TwinMotion. Not a bad interface, and I can picture how I could improve my workflows...etc. Time will tell on that one. With TM, I was 100% maxing GPU and 3% cpu, so this will all be a card driven limit.

I need to check it out! Question for the tech guys. For real time ray tracing, will the 3080Ti be better than the 3090? My son also said the 3090Ti is slated to drop 3rd week in Jan. Might be worth the wait?... I "borrowed" my sons 3070 box and did these renderings on TM. Took about 1:30 per picture full settings maxed out. Same model as above crappy pics The RTX is AMAZING and super easy to use. I started running a vid, but a 30 second clip (maxed out settings) was going to take a few hours so I cancelled it.. Will run overnight.

Renderings look nice. Board and batten, is that manually done w/ material region or PLS? Only flaw where Lumion has a BIG edge on the interior is in lumion you can soften edges (like on the countertop) and those subtle things do a lot to take away the 'computer' look. Fantastic otherwise. Scaring the hell out of me with the crashes though I messed w/ twin motion this morning and did this. I really like this manner of presentation.

Very interesting. I had not thought much about processor since it always seemed w/ Chief it was heavily GPU based. I mean, I never skimped, but I was never as worried about the CPU being the latest and greatest, but rather the GPU. Looks like I need to start researching on CPU also. I saw the whole PCIe stuff changing when I was going to build a PC for my son. Man....lots to catch up on!

Budgets are all relative my friend For sure though! I am a cost/value person. If a 6k box made me 2x faster than 3k one, I have no issue with spending the money on it. My (gamer) son told me to go with the 3080Ti. But he comes at stuff from gaming. As a 14yo, he has kept up a lot more with computers than I have! I see that in TM but I cant use it currently. I have spent the day playing with TM and finding I might be able to match work-flow w/ lumion. I started doing material files and took the textured out of chief and made normal maps for them...etc. It is not bad, just one extra step you dont have to do in Lumion. Still messing with grass to get what I want in TM. These are just regular exports not the RT.

Thanks man! I have already been looking at 'box' systems. Was thinking 3080Ti might be the best bet possibly over 3090. I just need to ask my son on that one Like I said, I FINLLY have one of my builders interested in VR...etc. Stuff I have been playing with for years and no one has ever wanted me to do. Also renderings as standard. I have not used X12/13. But for renderings, as of right now, the export to Lumion is the quickest with best results. But if I am going VR, Twin Motion may be a better investment of time. Just materials are easier to deal with in Lumion. I have a few things to sort out for sure, but my current box has lasted me a long time, but I dont mind investing in the future for sure. Thanks for all the feedback (and kick in the a$$).

Thanks for feedback. Just frankly was so busy this past year, I did not even have time to dealing with the update and never did it. (not a bad problem to have). I will take your word for it. The interesting part of this whole thing is I finally have a long time client who wants rendering. I am torn which direction to go. I upgraded my Twinmotion last night and it seems very powerful but even though I am 4 updates back on Lumion, I can get to a finished product the quickest with it. The one thing I LOVE about Lumion is the ability to 'soften' edges of materials. In my opinion, it is one of the things that is the hardest to overcome in rendering interiors. Exteriors it is not as big an issue. Lumion also can on the fly create height maps from image. (which is passable most of the time) Twinmotion, you have to take it out of the software and do it. I have never taken the time to do it and build a good library. Has Chief improved their ability with siding depth/textures. Board and batten,,,etc or are you still having to use material regions/poly line solids...etc? Last thing I need to figure out is what to upgrade my box to. Normally I build my PC's but when the time came to build my son a PC, with the GPU shortage, it was much easier just to buy the box. Hope all has been well for you guys and I need to hang out more and get out of the grind and bring my game up a little more. I bought an oculus and never played much with it. Except Twinmotion which works nicely.

So some background. I have been working in chief since 1998. For the past 11 years, I have been designing full time and stay quite busy. I Pay my SSA every year like a good boy, but became frustrated at the direction Chief has taken. (trying to become a rendering software instead of gearing itself to fixing long problems with the work flow of producing working drawings). PBR was the biggest waste of time and I felt like they were going even more for the 'flash'. Again, I paid my SSA...but it is almost expiring and find that I have never even loaded up X12. (srs). I run X11 every day. For the clients that want renderings, I use Lumion or I have played with Twinmotion which I have a license also. Now I log on forum for first time in many months, and see people complaining about the real time ray tracing. I see pics that look worse the renderings I did 4 years ago in Lumion...etc. So what is the verdict. Has X12 been worth it? Do you have any hope for X13? Or is still the same crap that has been slung around here for years. The die-hards asking for functional stair tools, and Chief posting pretty pictures. Guess at some point I should upload X12... But with my SSA coming up, wonding if I am so unexcited about a update that I pay for it and dont install it, if it is even worth is since the complaints seem the same. I should add, because I never installed X12, I never updated my box. With the 3080 card we got, I built my son a great gaming pc and I am still drawing with a 970 graphics cars. But we have a really cool sim That 3080 smokes running 3 monitors at 144hz!