TheKitchenAbode

If you try Twinmotion, keep in mind that none of the lights in CA are recognized, you will need to redo them using their lights. Exteriors are easier as they mostly only use the sun. You can create softer shadows in CA PBR. One thing worth trying is to open up the camera DBX and under the Show Shadow box, uncheck Ray Casted Sun Shadows and see if you prefer the look. The other method to control shadows is by creating a spotlight array as a substitute for the sun. This scene has an array of about 12 spot lights of varying intensities and slightly different positions, note the larger shadow right bottom on the grass and patio, the edges are softer. Also the soffit shadow across the back garage door. The array also contains one spot with shadows turned off to control the overall shadow depth.

Would surprise me if a Quadro card would make any significant difference. When I looked at this issue it seems that the problem is related to the time it takes to recalculate all of the vector graphics, this is a CPU function and from what I can tell it is predominantly single threaded, high core count CPU's won't have a significant impact.

Also, don't assume that just because you drew up the drawings that this automatically implies that you have some form of ownership rights to the drawings. Ownership rights are highly dependent upon who is actually in control of the design/creative process. If the client is directing you in all aspects of the design process then you may have little or no claim of ownership.

Would be highly advised to look at how you describe yourself to avoid any misinterpretations by potential clients. Be careful as certain terms(descriptors) are only to be used by those who have specific professional designations, it is illegal to use these designations if you don't really meet the requirements regardless of whether or not you have the knowledge to do the work. As recommended by other respondents, you need to prepare a proper contract that properly describes the services being performed, the method of compensation and the terms and conditions. Personally, payment for drafting/design work should be retainer based, keep in mind that once you send them the drawings you have instantly lost most if not all of your leverage should you need to collect on outstanding balances.

That's for sure. That's happening to me right now, my daughter is visiting from the UK, all my clients are aware of this but some of them still keep e-mailing and texting for changes, updates and meetings. Here's the irony in this, one of them keeps apologizing but the reason they need these things done is because they are going on vacation.

I would talk to CA Support, I'm certain they can accommodate for this. Not really a vacation though!!!

If you talk with CA support I'm sure they can arrange for this. I know on my system(s) it checks in at least once a day. You can always tether via your cell phones data connection if need be.

I don't run with a Ram Drive but have set one up just to see. I myself could not detect any difference however that may be related to the type of work that I do. I believe Rene derives a true benefit as he seems to be using numerous custom high resolution textures and some very complex models/symbols, due to their size their load times will be much greater than CA's included textures and symbols so a Ram Drive will get this done as fast as possible. What you need really depends on what you do, and that varies for every user.

The high CPU core usage is due to the fact that the BBQ's are symbols and the majority of work is related to the textures, this is a multi threaded process so your high core count 3900X and it's ability to run those cores at a high frequency provides a considerable benefit. On the parade of homes you can also see this if you watch task manger, however due to the model rebuilding which is primarily single threaded the benefit is not as great as texture processing here only represents maybe 10% of the overall processing time. IMO you've done a great job in putting together your new system and doing so without breaking the bank. Personally, though you are considering other possible future upgrades I would be very cautious not to set to high of expectations as to how great a performance benefit will be gained over what you currently have. Certainly switching to a MVNe M.2 drive will help and given their low cost they are very good value for the money. Before coughing up the big bucks for one of those newer drives I would do as Rene suggest and just set-up a Ram Drive, you have enough memory, it costs nothing to do and it will be faster than any other drive system. Also, setting up a Ram Drive is a good way to test/predict the potential performance improvement before spending any more money. If you set one up and can't really tell the difference then it's telling you that the type of work you do will not really benefit from these new drives.

When running these comparisons it's extremely important to make sure that the actions being done are exactly the same for each test. That includes closing the existing plan and duplicating the camera opening procedure. When a plan is first loaded and you activate a camera CA while perform a model rebuild first before sending things to your GPU for rendering. Once this is done and if nothing has changed in your plan subsequent opening of the camera will not require this model rebuild and will therefore run faster than the first original camera opening. If you do not wish to keep closing and opening the plan then open the plan, open the camera, ignore the time to render, then save/close the camera window and then open it and note the time. Another technique is to open the camera, again ignore the time, and then use the camera/view type drop down menu to flip the camera between different views, say standard view and then water colour.

2-3 seconds at most on my system using your water colour render plan test and opening the camera from plan view. If the camera is already open say in standard view then about 1 - 2 seconds when switched to water colour. Note I have a GTX 1060.

Differences in time to render are most likely related to CPU differences between those posting results.

Are you certain you wish to place them inside of a cabinet. Though they can be built-in they are different than say a built-in oven or microwave which are specifically designed to be installed within a cabinet. So called built-in fridges and freezers are really designed where the cabinetry is built around the appliance, you place the appliance like a free standing one and then place the cabinets beside and above as required. For built-in fridges and freezers you must also consider that units can vary in respect to whether or not the doors are flush with the existing cabinetry doors, depending on this the required opening width may vary slightly depending upon the doors hinge system.

Do you mean LED "Rope" or "Tape" light. Rope lights are available in line and low voltage while Tape lights are low voltage only(requires driver/transformer). https://www.flexfireleds.com/what-is-the-difference-between-rope-lights-and-led-strip-lights/ Wiring is going to vary according to a number of factors. If using a low voltage system there are limits as to how long a run of LED's can be supported by the driver/transformer, the other consideration is where will the transformer be located, at the point where the light run starts or in some other remote location and finally is the driver a plug in type or hardwired. For these I think Marks method depicts the devices and wiring accurately. Line voltage from switch to driver/transformer location and the low voltage from the driver/transformer to the low voltage lights. Concerning the type of wire used for the runs that's the responsibility of the Electrician to ensure that the wire is capable of carrying the anticipated loads and meets all other code requirements.

You need to turn off all of your other lights, I only have the sun and the 6 area lights on in the scene. Turn all lights off and set the sun first, what's happening in your plan is that the other lights you have on are overwhelming the sun as their intensities are too high in respect to my suns 45 lux setting. First get the sun correct and then start working on your other lights. One other thing to remember, any material that is emissive also acts as a light contributor, they should all be set to zero until the sun and other lights have been set, you can then tweak the emissive materials so they look correct under those lighting conditions.

Here are the major light settings. Materials were just minor such as reflection, some emissive on the light lenses, etc.

I made a few changes to the sun, added a few area lights around the kitchen and changed a few material properties. All of these changes I made should be possible in HD PRO 2020.

I would recommend talking with CA technical support to see if CA even supports a dual graphics card setup, I don't believe it does. Just putting two or more graphics cards in your system dose not mean they will be utilized, the software program you use must be written to recognize and take advantage of them. It's similar to multi-threaded(cpu core) usage, those cores are available but it's primarily up to the software package as to their use or not.

Bluetooth and WiFi are two distinctly different forms of wireless communication. If your mouse is connected using Bluetooth then you can try disconnecting and reconnecting the Bluetooth mouse device, disable and enable the Bluetooth driver and/or reinstall the Bluetooth driver. One way to check if the mouse is ok is that most wireless mouse have the option to hard connect with a USB type cable, if so connect this way and if all is ok then your mouse is likely ok and it's most likely a software/driver issue.

You will need to adjust the symbol stretch planes, this will tell CA how to stretch it properly when you change the width or height of your cabinet. Just remember to update(replace) the appliance symbol from your library so the new stretch settings will take effect.

For something like a drawer box it needs to be treated as an appliance. Create an appliance opening in your cabinet and then select your library object that is to be used. For it to insert properly you may need to open up your library symbol and adjust the orientation offsets and sizing planes.

I believe that if you are going to export a CA model for use in an independent renderer such as Twinmotion you need to create your CA model and assign CA materials with this in mind. It seems to me that in the conversion(export) process is not dissimilar to saving a symbol, individual surfaces are defined based upon the materials assigned to those surfaces. So like a symbol, if it has only one material when it is saved then it sees all surfaces as being one, if the symbol has 5 different materials when saved then it is seen as having 5 individual surfaces(components). So if you have a house model and all your ceilings, walls and trim are bone when you export then the program that imports this will not separate out the ceiling, walls and trim, if you then apply a new material all of those items will change and you will not be able to apply different materials to each surface. Maybe different in other rendering programs but this is what I noticed when playing with Twinmoition.

Would be interesting to see how this goes. There has been considerable discussion about Twinmotion, some very enthusiastic, but so far I have not seen any interior renderings, just exterior which are much easier to do as these only involve the sun.

Yes, it does look as if you have fewer options concerning the material properties. However, as Chris_Kelly states lighting is extremely important, both sun and your actual light fixtures. You can play with material properties all day but if the lighting is not correct it will never look very good. In the sample you posted the lighting needs to be worked on, for example, if you have the option on your recessed lights to change the drop rate I would increase this to eliminate those hard transitions between lite regions and non lite regions. You may also need to adjust the sun angle and intensity, for most materials their reflective property is mostly influenced by the sun. Here's an example on a project I'm working on now. The reflections in the backsplash tile are the result of the sun setting, same for the sheen on the cabinetry and the floor. The internal lights don't really contribute much to this reflectivity, you can see this if you look at the backsplash to the left, almost no visible reflectivity even though there are under-cabinet lights there. In this example, same project, note the softness in the upper in-cabinet lights, no hard transitions, that's due to the drop rate being set higher to 9.0.

As I said, no harm in checking. Can never say for sure but my suspicion is that upon the initial GTX 2080 install the card was not being recognized as 100% dedicated, could have been flipping back and forth between the integrated chip and the GTX depending upon demand. Assigning CA in the Nvidia DBX can resolve this problem but not always as this is mainly related to the power plan settings. However, if it worked it worked and at the end of the day that's really all that matters.