Ridge_Runner

34 minutes ago, jcaffee said:

The "Santas" are Elf-on-a-shelf; an inside joke for somebody who was reviewing the image.

Those pesky little guys make a mess in our house from Thanksgiving until Christmas!

Thanks, Joe.

Using X9. I am having a terrible time with corner boards not staying on my auto dormers. I don't usually use them (do them manually because of these problems) but on two of the jobs I have currently going I placed them on the roof to give the clients different exterior looks. I then went back on both jobs and added corner boards. They stay - for a while. But for no reason, on both jobs, I go back to an overview to see how things look and they are gone. It happens when I am working on totally different areas; I didn't edit or move them. Anyone else see this?

Sure - Yusuf-333!  That guy can do some amazing stuff. These have been discussed before, but not sure how far back. If you do a search you might come up with them. It may have been on the old forum so you may have to go there and search. I think Yusuf showed a way.

For my work flow I added a Genovation 24 Key programmable key pad - USB; I love it - well built with tactical keys. I placed several of the hotkeys and keystrokes I use all of the time on it. It programs very intuitive with their software and allows you to program multiple-key hotkeys onto one key. Since I am right handed I added the numerical keypad numbers on it to use with my left hand. It is very reasonably priced - got it from Amazon I think. In retro, I wish I had gone ahead and bought the 48 key version - maybe in the future.

Thanks, Michael. I missed this one. Doing a similar shower now and I just did it the old fashioned way - drag the walls down.

Thanks, Christina. I've pulled some "fire" symbols from 3D Warehouse and used a couple, but I think I like the looks of this one better.

Nice raytrace of the church, Christina, especially from 10 years ago. Is that a new church project, remodel, just for fun? Nice sanctuary design anyway.

Played good on my machine Christina - but I am still Win 7 Pro.

Just curious, is the "fire" in your firepit from 3D Warehouse?

Larry, glad to see someone else has a work desk that looks like mine!  BTW, I have a plaque in my office that says a cluttered desk is a sign of genius - makes me feel better anyway.

Thanks, Charles, for the reminder. I am currently working on a project where I will have to add a similar disclaimer to the plot plan - lot survey done by a licensed surveyor for the client but on a small sheet without the usual surveyor info and NO stamp.

Thanks, Michael, for the grass textures.

Nice, Christina.

1 hour ago, michaelgia said:

What do we have to do to get our grubby little hands on your awesome grass texture?

I was about to ask the same thing. I don't know where you came up with this one Michael but I like it; better than any I have found to date for my taste. I have been using one for years I got from the Design Diva (I think that's what she went by). Pretty good but yours is better.

5 minutes ago, RL-inc said:

I have also had appraisers only calculate the floor area that the stair system started on and not the open area above.

This is the way I was taught in Appraisal School several years ago. However, appraisers and realtors never agree. Realtors here sometimes count everything under roof and seem to get away with it in the MRLS; it was always a battle, especially when the lender got involved. Having said all that, I don't live in the land of fruits and nuts - I pity you guys who do!

Nice, Jon. Feels like someone should light up a cigar. 

Thanks. It looks good but sure sounds like a lot of work!

Michael, how did you get the images to sandwich between the two tree lines (lakeside vs. rear of back yard)? Some kind of different layer arrangements in Photoshop with saving and cropping the front trees?

Rob nailed it. Just make sure to heed his advice to turn off everything in that layerset you don't need to see from the outside before you turn it into a symbol. Otherwise it will be another headache you don't need.

Nice design, Jon. I also like the 3D north arrow - nice touch.

On 10/7/2014 at 11:29 PM, RodCole said:

Mike Riddle also founded Evolution Computing in the mid 80's with EasyCAD, my first CAD program, and FastCAD, my second.  Mike still owns and operates his business currently.

 

I am still leaning in the direction of ArchiCAD since it was promoted through small dealers, many in connection with universities here in the US.  I don't doubt that it was a small startup that promoted the product.  Probably not the developer though.  Still like to know if what you saw back then could do roofs.  That would be an important clue.

Interesting to see someone mention EasyCAD. I began using Autocad around 1985 or 86. Right after that I found EasyCAD. Didn't even go back to Autocad for several years. I did upgrade eventually to FastCAD, EasyCAD's big brother. Strictly 2D but easy to use and, like it's name, it was indeed very fast. Used it for years in our corporate engineering offices until we had to go back to Autocad to be compatible with the outside world.

I started with Broderbund's 3D Home, ver. 1.5 around 1993 - $39.95 I think. Went to Chief with ver. '97. Never looked back.

I do like Perry and either use a polyline mask or currently just draw a polyline over the dashed lines, set color to white (assuming you are not printing in color), and make line size a little larger than the dashed line set in your layerset.

Thanks, guys. I was out of the office yesterday.

Are you talking about the arches in particular? Need a little more specific information. I would use polyline solids drawn in elevation for the arches. Pick your poison for the columns - slabs; primitives; etc.

3 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Justin - Thank you for the details. You make a very good point concerning the importance of choosing textures that exhibit good rendering characteristics. This also holds true when selecting 3d models, some are very basic and will never look right no matter what one does.

 

I did a quick mock-up of your bathroom, not exact but reasonably close. As I have very little patience for long Raytracing times I made some adjustments just to see how fast I could get this to Raytrace. Would still need a bit of work but I got this down to 4 minutes on a 2400 X 1142. Main change was to turn-off photon mapping and to use the Image Properties  to compensate.

 

 

Graham

Graham, if I understand Scott's purpose in starting this thread, this is one of the areas that many of us don't yet have a handle on. I'm not sure there are tutorials or training videos that show where to even begin to adjust materials. It is one thing to say "adjust image properties," but what image property would/do you start with first? Specular setting? Emissive setting? etc. I know there are probably no hard rules, but where would you start to look; what would you try first? And for an acceptable RT, are bumpmaps really necessary over OOB textures?

Depends on where you are building - just like all projects. I have done several small church projects over the years in Chief, but in rural areas, and they were small; much of it was just concept stuff for the congregation and leadership's use for fundraising. I always leave the bigger stuff to those equipped for the challenge. 3D Warehouse will become your friend if not already. Be careful though; some of the items will have to be modified (of course) and some have way too may polygons to use effectively. I usually download and edit almost every one I use in Sketchup first. Up side is I can save them to my library for future use. If you are a licensed Architect, good; but get ready for the Fire Marshall - I hope you get a good one you can work with (do many exist?). Work with them as soon as possible and develop the best relationship you can with them. My 2 cents.