Westlanedesigns

22 hours ago, teewhite7 said:

 

 

What is the plant you're referring to?

I haven't been able to find anything that looks like it.

Looks really good by the way!

 

Thanks

Here are the files I am using right now.

WLD Rock.calibz

WLD Grass.calibz

I didn't find any other users in Winnipeg. I will let you know if something changes. 

I have played with the concept a little more. Changed the image file I was using. Here is my newest preliminary rendering created using the method I described above. 

 

My goal is to find a way to make CA do what I want it to. This is the closest I have gotten to something realistic grass. I actually used the same strategy on the rocks in the landscaping at the front of the house. No post editing of this image. Everything done in CA X11.

2 minutes ago, Chopsaw said:

 

Here is a short tutorial I have that likely originally came from the forum here somewhere.

 

Seamless textures with GIMP.txt

THANKS!!!!

3 minutes ago, Chopsaw said:

 

The more variation there is in the photo the more difficult it is but did you try making a seamless texture out of it ?  You can do it in Photoshop or Gimp.

No I guess I have never tried to make my own seamless texture. I have GIMP, but I have not played with it very much. I have use it to touch up photos after creating them in CA, but only a few times, and each time it is like learning a new software all over again. Thanks for the tip, I will give that a try.

1 hour ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

The above is what I do. I have seamless shingles and seamless grass I downloaded from a texture website.

 

Just do a search for online textures, there are tons.

 

I have also made my own seamless brick from a photograph of a brick house where I wanted to use the same brick. Turned out great.

 

 

I have had some success with things like that too, on building materials. Not so much with terrain. I guess it is because I don't like the look of the grass in the seamless textures I have found. The grasses that I do like, aren't seamless. For the "Front Elevation Grass Issue" I found a grass I liked, but kept having issues with how the texture repeated. Have you had any success with that? I have circled the parts I don't like about the grass in this picture. 

 

One of my issues has always been the hard lines between grass and sidewalks, or other terrain. This is just a way to potentially deal with that if other people have the same issue. Here is a ground level view of the same picture I previously posted. The "Ground Level" picture is just a standard render. I have circled the two areas that this plant distribution thing fixes. In my eyes anyway. 

 

Grass Glorious Grass. This drawing is still in preliminary stages but I wanted to share. I have been searching for a way to get more realistic looking grass in CA since I first started using the product 10 years ago. I finally figured it out last night by accident. There is still some work to do to make it better, but at least it is closer to what I want grass to look like than all the other terrain images.

 

Create a garden bed where you want the grass to be, then add this "plant" to the garden bed. I have never done this before, but if you add this grass to your library, select it and then place it in the garden bed it will distribute the plant. I turned off show objects, reduced the distance, changed to alternate grid, random angle and object scaling to 25% and 50%.

 

There is still some work to do to make it look better, but I wanted to get this out there and see if anyone else has tried something like this.

 

I should add that I am still using X11.

 

Grass.calibz

I am just seeing if there are any other designers in Manitoba, Canada. I am trying to see if I can get a training seminar set up for Winnipeg.

I just got off the phone with CA Support. We did some troubleshooting. It would appear there is an issue with the driver. We weren't able to fix the problem, but he found a way to at least make it load faster. If you go to Edit/Preferences select Library Browser. In the Selection Pane View uncheck Show Names in Selection Pane. As the name would suggest you will lose the names in the selection pane, but the thumbnails will load faster. As fast as expected.

I have sent something to tech support. I am thinking it is some combination of W10, the NVIDIA drivers for my card and CAx9. It works as expected on CAx8 on the same machine. 

 

I played around with it a little more yesterday bought haven't figured anything out yet. I have already wasted more time than it is worth. I shouldn't have got a new computer, new operating system and new version of CA all at the same time. Too mamy variables to easily troubleshoot.

50 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

I believe what you are seeing is the amount of video card memory Open GL has set aside for it's use. Keep in mind that each running program, depending upon the total amount of available memory, will block out a certain amount of memory for it's exclusive use. Your video card has to service more than just CA, all of your other running programs are also using the video card and as such they also need memory. Things will be faster if they are not over writing each others data so they divide this up. I would not be concerned with this, it's normal. Download GPUz and it will tell you how much video card memory is actually in use. I think you will be surprised at how little of your 8 GB is actual being used.

I have two other machines the vRAM in the message log for both of those machines displays the same RAM value of the card. My notebook has 2GB message log says 2GB, My older desktop has 4GB message log says 4GB. I am just trying to figure out If there is a problem with Windows 10 ability to use 8GB or CA to use 8GB, or if there is a problem with my desktop. Based on Chopsaw's response it would appear it is either W10 or CA. If I have time I will pull the 8GB card and put it in my older machine that is running W7, although I think I read somewhere that W7 was only capable of using 4GB of video card RAM.

5 hours ago, jcaffee said:

To view accurate technical specs of the GPU, try...

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

 

Thanks for the advice. I know the specs of the card. I am trying to determine if Chief is using it properly.

Once I opened the TXT file I used CTRL+F to find the spot instead of scrolling down. Just lazy. Thanks for looking. I am not sure if this issue is related to my other issue. This is helping me troubleshoot.

Thanks Glenn. you just crushed my "it's a windows 10 issue" theory. It looks like I am down to my install of X9, some sort of compatibility issue with my graphics card or my entire system.

 

 

go to windows RUN type in %localappdata%

open Chief Architect X9 folder

Message Log.txt should be there.

 

If do CTRL+F and type in Diagnostic it will bring you to the information about the video card and other fun stuff.

Thanks, I have another computer in my office running X9 on Windows 7. It is noticeably faster. I keep thinking it is a Windows 10 issue, but I am trying to figure out if it is Windows 10 or if there is an issue with this machine.

 

Thanks for the signature advice!

I recently had a new desktop built. My video card is a Nvidia GTX 1070. It is an 8GB card. when I look at my message log it says I only have 4GB of ram.

 

            OpenGL Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation

            OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2

            OpenGL Version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 384.76

            OpenGL VRam: 4095

            OpenGL GPU Count: 1

            OpenGL GPU VRam: 4095

            OpenGL GPU Driver Name: nvoglv64

            OpenGL GPU Driver Date: 6-27-2017

            OpenGL GPU Driver Version: 22.21.13.8476

            OpenGL GPU Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

            OpenGL GPU Device Path: pci\ven_10de&dev_1b81

Here is my system.

 

Windows 10 Pro

Intel Core i7-6900K

Nvidia GTX 1070

Crucial MX300 275GB SSD

Crucial 4X4GB DDR4 2400 RAM

 

Anyone have a similar issue? I have Chief X8 and X9 on this system. The message log in both programs say the same thing. If anyone is running Windows 10 Pro with an 8GB card can they have a look at their message log and tell me if you are getting a similar message? This could just be a logging issue.

Chief Architect X9 library thumbs nails load slow. Anyone have a similar issue? Here is my system.

 

Windows 10 Pro

Intel Core i7-6900K

Nvidia GTX 1070

Crucial MX300 275GB SSD

Crucial 4X4GB DDR4 2400 RAM

 

I have Chief X8 and X9 on this system. in X8 the thumbnails load as expected. In X9 they take a long time.

 

I have taken a picture of Mirrors and Frames. The thumbnails in this folder take about 4 seconds to load. When I open the same folder in X8 it takes a little over 1 second. This may seem insignificant, but when you are doing things like changing doors I need to wait for all of the door thumbnails to load before I can pick the one I want. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program.

 

I am having the same problem. I have a lot of my notes for different floor plans saved as blocks. When I am working on a new floor plan I bring that block into the new job and just move all the notes to the correct spot. Is this similar to what you do? If you do something similar, maybe the issue is with the block. My blocks were created in x7, maybe that is the issue. I have never unchecked the "modify name in all layer sets" box. I did not even know it existed.

 

The other thing I do that brings information from one job to the next is use Annotation Sets and Layer Sets. I update these sets on a semi-regular basis, so if I am working on an older job I will import the new Annotation Sets and Layer Sets to the new job. Maybe that is triggering something??

 

I have not been able to create the problem by loading blocks, annotation sets or layer sets, as I have described above, But the I only ever notice the issue after I have done all of those things. It doesn't appear to be an issue with the template that I use. I save two different files for every job. A "preliminary" file and a "final" file. I don't use blocks, or update the annotation sets & layer sets in the "preliminary" file. I always do that for the "final" file. I only seem to have this issue with the "final" file.

 

Not sure if my input helps anything, but if other users work in a similar fashion, and are experiencing the same issue, maybe that is the place to look???

Lourdes,

 

Those are awesome! Are you using Chief Architect to create those exterior renderings? if so, how are you able to make the grass stick up so high?

Yeah I tried it that way. Do they have to be in a specific root location when they are being importated? I have all of my calbiz files on my "server". Should they be stored in a different location in order to import into CA correctly? I haven't imported any new calbiz files for a while so I can't remember if I have had issues like this in the past.

Thanks Joe,

 

It still seems to be doing it. Maybe I am doing something wrong. I am running X6. I have tried, drag and drop, double clicking the file, and importing from CA. They all came in empty (file image location is pointing to your computer). Is there a way to make the file location point to a calbiz file? I am sure by importing the calbiz file the image location is supposed to point back to the location of the calbiz file...Maybe it is an issue with X6.

 

Anyway, I was able to get all of them to work as described above. Thanks so much for the collection.

 

Cheers,
Mike

Thanks, I have found a way around it. I copied each of the calbiz files to my textures folder. Change the file type to .zip and now I am going into each one of the "people" and changing the file path to where I want it to point.....I am sure this is wrong, but it seems to be working.

I know this thread is old now, but I just downloaded the people files. for some reason only People Images 3 worked for me. The other images didn't load. Did I do something wrong? I have them loaded into my library, but the file path is pointing to Joe's computer. I can't find the image files on my computer, except for People Images 3 which is in the Textures folder.