TheKitchenAbode

I'm highly confident in my statement. Not all functions in CA are fully optimized but many are. Concerning CPU usage versus GPU, the CPU is always involved in graphics operations so you will always see CPU activity. Keep in mind that mouse commands must be processed by the CPU first, the CPU then has to prepare and send the appropriate commands to the GPU for processing. Not all operations in CA are fully optimized, many are still single threaded. I suspect that as CA moves towards optimization that they first focus on those operations that would most benefit from it and deal with the lesser later on.

CA does take advantage of multiple cores and hyper threading. Best to get as many as you can afford. Even if CA is not taking full advantage those extra cores will help when running other programs when multi-tasking.

I certainly find that many of the models are too simplistic and as such they just look fake. Not sure I'm understanding correctly your reference to my tip on maximum sun lumens. I believe I've been trying to emphasizing that there is a balance between the sun intensity and the interior light intensities that one needs to achieve. I typically try to find the right sun intensity first and then adjust my interior light intensities to suit. Maybe you are referring to one of my recommendations as to setting the PBR camera exposure to max and the brightness to 100% and then adjusting the lighting to work at these settings. This recommendation will most likely result in your sun intensity and light intensities being set very very low. The reason I make this suggestion is that at those PBR settings you will not get the effect where the PBR does not try to automatically adjust the apparent intensities as you change your lighting.

I think they both look good. Maybe the reason you prefer the night time is due to the fact that a lot of the detail is hidden due to the low light levels. On interior shots with higher levels of light it's more obvious when a model or material is not quite right.

Contact the institution that offers the exam, they will tell you what the prerequisites are required to qualify to write.

Not certain a fixed $/sqft rate will work. This will depend upon how complete the model is that you need to render and the quality of your rendering capability. Are you receiving files from others to render or are these renderings coming from projects you are already working on?

I believe you need export to 3Ds from within a 3D camera view not a plan view.

As these placed profiles are polylines I would expect them to place the same as when one draws a regular polyline, which is what they appear to do. Where they initially are depends upon the view in which they are drawn in, plan versus elevation, and where there is a suitable surface for them to be located against. In plan view it's fairly straight forward as it will be drawn at the floor level. In an elevation it's a bit trickier, if there is nothing suitable in between the camera and say the exterior wall they will be located on the background wall, if your elevation camera is back clipped then you will most likely not see it. You then need to go into plan view and start clicking around the wall surface to find it and then move it to it's proper location. It sort of males sense as in elevation there is no depth, when you draw a polyline how can the software know depth wise where it is to go.

Neil - although you are still not satisfied with the PBR results I think the lighting is much improved. You mentioned the effect when you add a light or adjust one that other lit regions also change, this effect is normal when the PBR Camera Exposure is set below a certain threshold. It automatically adjusts to maintain a certain exposure level, think of this as having a digital camera set to Auto Mode, it will evaluate the brightest region in a scene and then adjust other settings according to this to prevent blown out highlights, when doing this the brightest regions lessen and darker regions often become darker. Not sure what your PBR Camera Exposure and Brightness settings are, these two functions are very impactful and it's important to find the right setting for each. For the greatest dynamic range and contrast the Brightness should be as high as possible and the Camera Exposure as low as possible. My starting point is usually with the Brightness set at 100% and the Camera Exposure somewhere near it's default value .18. I then adjust light intensities to look as good as possible under these conditions. If you dislike the Camera Exposure auto adjust effect it can be for practical purposes disengaged by setting the Camera Exposure to 1(maximum) however, if you do this your lights will be way too bright and you will need to drastically reduce their intensity to get things under control.

If you want to convert the counter top shape into a symbol you need to copy that shape into a new blank plan, open up a camera view and then select Tools, Symbol, Convert. it will save it to your library and then you can drop it into you main plan and position it. The one thing is that these things should only be done once you are completely satisfied with the unit as they are a one way street, if you need to alter things you can't convert them back to their original polyline solid that can be edited. For example I noticed that some of the counter top protrudes into the sinks bowl region, at some point you will likey want to clean that up.

Ok, it seems to be that Shapes are see through. If you convert say the counter top into a Symbol then you can use it instead of the Shape version and it can be moved just like your sinks and all the underlying shapes will be hidden from view.

As they are the same type of object I don't think they can be moved within their drawing group, even if they are moving there is no solid fill to obscure them. There may be another way but if you open up the Leg Shape, go to Line Style and change the Color to "White" it will give you the effect want.

If using my plan, an exact repeat of the flower may not work out exactly according to the pattern/texture. I adjusted these but they may need to be tweaked just a bit more to get their centers exact. The problem is that when adjusting textures and patterns CA will only accept 1/16" increments, as such their can be a small amount of drift as the pattern is replicated over a considerable distance. I usually mock the layout up as close as possible and then add in notes to guide the tiler when on-site, or better still I go in and lay it out for them.

One thing to consider in a tile layout like this is that the tiler is likely going to cuss at you. Getting everything to balance out between the main tile, boarder and flower insert will be challenging, especially if the tiler has to remove the white hexagons and replace them with the darker ones. $$$

See if this helps. - I created a Hexagon pattern as a polyline solid, it's blocked. You will see it on the bathroom floor. - I assigned the proper pattern file to the main floor, scaled it and adjusted the offsets to align with the texture. - I adjusted the texture a bit as it was not symmetrical. I have placed a camera directly overhead, just use this in either standard or vector view. Copy paste my block and move to where you want it and align with the texture/pattern on the main floor. Bathroomtile_Abode.zip

Would prefer to be Boo-Boo, Yogi was always getting into trouble. Now that I think about it maybe Yogi is a better descriptive.

There is a CAD line in there, that's preventing you from turning it into an Architectural Bock. In plan view it's centered and running the depth of the unit, just remove it and you should be good to go.

Here's an example where a bit of Photoshop work can significantly boost the realism. Excuse my cropping, just a quick example. Before After

Neil - I'm uncertain that your approach is going to result in a satisfactory rendering. Your focus on that sign is premature as would be making any material adjustments such as adding bump maps. None of these functions will correct or compensate for improperly balanced/adjusted primary lighting. How a material looks according to it's property settings and the bump effect is dependent upon how the material is lit. Concerning emissive settings, as you can see in your last render pushing the emissive setting is washing out the Red tomato logo. Yes you have a glow, but now the main logo is undermined. If you look at the Starbucks example the main logo is enhanced by the backlighting not undermined. Just a recommendation, but you should go into the materials and kill all of the emissive settings, turn off all of the lights except the primary recessed lights in the overhead ceiling plan/soffit. Now turn off all but one of them and adjust that one to look proper. I know in your original posted plan you had up to 5 light sources applied to those recessed lights, delete all but one, you just need one downward spot light source. Use the intensity, angle and drop rate to get the light to cast properly. Once you are comfortable with that one you can then replicate it's settings to the other recessed lights. Don't expect the recessed lights to light the entire scene, they are spot lights and are intended to provide localized lighting. For general overall ambient lighting you can use some 3D area point lights, but only after the recessed lights are right.

Thanks Mick, but not sure about the "Guru" status, still experimenting like so many others are. Yes, the tile and wood are just using the Texture File for Bump Mapping. It's fast and easy and though not as good as a custom map the results aren't too bad.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any way to group select surfaces, just one at a time. You could use SketchUp as Greg suggests.

You can load the symbol into a blank plan and then use the Delete Surfaces tool to remove what you don't need. Then use the Convert to Symbol function to save the new symbol back to your library.

Here is the scene with a higher emissive setting on the signage. This is a PBR not a Ray Trace. I know I'm being repetitive, but you need to get your main lighting correct before playing with the emissive settings. What might help is to Google say "Food Courts" and find a real photo to use as inspiration and a reference for lighting and materials. Here's an example.

The emissive effect just depends on how high a setting you use. What's more important is to get the overall lighting correct and then you can go into the material properties and weak them.