TheKitchenAbode

I've not found that to be the case. The reason their PBR scene has all those overblown whites is that the user is not setting the sun, lights and materials correctly. My concern is that CA seems to be satisfied with their rendering results, which in my opinion is well below what the program can actually do. I struggle to find an acceptable explanation for this, do they just have a very low standard? Do they not care? Do they not have the skill? Were they in a rush? As mentioned I struggle to find an acceptable reason for this. The purpose of the Webinar was to introduce this great new real time Raytrace feature, but they demonstrated this on a scene that has many obvious issues. What's the point of adding reflections to an inherently inferior quality scene, reflections or not it is still a poor scene. X12 PBR of same interior. Just another x12 PBR Example.

Not only that, but personally the demo did not even come close to what CA can do. I'm perplexed as to why the ones who actually design this program can't produce better results, especially when it can produce them. Having been in marketing for a good number of years I would have never accepted releasing something like that as a promotion for a significant new feature. Sorry but really? I don't wish to offend and I'm certain those working on this are doing their best but maybe Graphic Design is just not their strongest skill set. Here is a screen capture from the video of their PBR with Ray Tracing. Here's a PBR of the same scene I did 6 months ago in X12 without Ray Tracing.

Personally I would suggest waiting a while, get X13 on your new system and see how it functions. So far the only real need to go for a very high end graphics card is if you feel a need to Ray Trace for potentially improved reflections. Your RTX 2060 is capable of doing this so you will be able to evaluate it, if you think it's great and need it to be faster then go ahead and upgrade. Just be aware that a quality rendering is not just determined by whether or not a rendering engine has the capacity to real time Ray Trace, there's a lot more to it than this one feature.

Since CA introduced PBR'ing I never use Ray Trace. Can produce better results in PBR without the wait and the advantage that I can work live within a PBR window. Now that CA has added Ray Tracing to their PBR it will be interesting to see the impact. To be honest though, from the recent webinar on this I was not overly impressed.

This change in graphics is certainly a departure from the past when all of CA's features would run on just about any make or system configuration. We now have a feature that is only available to a specific operating system and hardware configuration. Even on a Windows PC this feature is limited to a specific series of graphics card which will mean that many of us PC users will need to upgrade. What about all those existing laptops where the graphics card can't be upgraded or even worse those with integrated graphics chips.

The presenter had an RTX 3080 which is as good as it gets. In PBR mode the scenes where taking about 3 - 4 seconds to resolve, lesser cards are going to take longer. The Raytrace looks ok but I noticed a significant amount of noise in most of those interior scenes. Also noticed some light bleed issues in some and those jaggy lines are still there, most noticeable on on window frames. Though the raytracing is real time it looks as if many of the past raytrace problems are still there, will see when X13 is released.

You need a backdrop, here's a quick PBR with a backdrop and the sun set to 800 lux. Just to give you an example as to what happens when PBR'ing and CA thinks something that belongs in the interior is an exterior element. I moved the sun so the direct light from the window is cast onto the main dining room wall, see how bright those spots are compared to the surrounding wall. This is essentially what's happening to those walls in the hall/foyer, CA is lighting them as if the are entirely exposed to the direct exterior sunlight.

David - took another look at your plan. There are a lot of things, especially with the roof were connections are not proper. With PBR it is critical that everything be properly enclosed or you will encounter some odd things.

I have not looked at the things in your plan to see if something is wrong there. Check to make sure your glass is correct, do you have the "use backdrop" checked in the PBR DBX? Your wall can glow bright if it is not contained within the room. Check to make certain the no part of the wall penetrates into the attic or into an exterior wall cavity. I have used PBR extensively and have never had these types of issues.

I believe the only difference is that when you choose Export then the applications PDF converter is used, when you choose Print you get to select the PDF converter from your printer list.

Why is 100 low, just adjust the camera exposure and brightness to get the look you want.

The sun intensity is way too high. Turn it down to 100 lux and it PBR's just fine.

You should really have all of your library items installed on your faster C: Drive, these files are accessed while you are working in CA. If you are running short of C: Drive space it would be better to find something you don't use very often and move that to your D: Drive.

Below is a link to a well authored article/guide on each hardware component of a computer system designed for 3D modeling and rendering. It provides considerable depth as to the role each component plays in the modeling/rendering process and the specific features of each hardware component that are most impactful on performance. Well worth a read. https://www.cgdirector.com/best-computer-3d-modeling-rendering/ Cheers, Graham

I believe you need to do a manual save first so CA has a file name and path in order to do the auto save. When you open/create a new plan there is no save path until you do your first save. Once this is done then auto save can do it's thing.

I believe CA will store an unlimited number of archive files but after 16 it will show a pop up that asks if you wish to manage them.

With OneDrive open in your browser select recent files, find your plan file in the list, click on it and in the menu bar at the top select version history. It should then show a list of previous versions.

Not sure either. You will need to access your OneDrive through your windows online account, not the folder on your computer.

There is only one auto save file, the main one you are working on. if you are using a cloud system such as OneDrive you might be able to get it back from the cloud.

I assume it will. The only thing to consider is the total number of files you are going to have, as each archive save is a separate independent plan file you will really start to eat into your drive space if you are auto saving every 5 minutes.

Auto save and archiving are two separate functions. They are set in the preferences. I believe the default for archiving is once a day, you can set it to hourly. If your system crashes then the auto save may not help as the crash may have resulted in the saved plan being corrupted. As such, the archives are your only way to get your plan back.

Everything should be fine then. Come to think about it, I believe that once you actually open a file with a program that windows automatically adds that program into the file association list. You could test this by deleting that catalog from your library and then download it again and open it in your browser, if the textures come over then all is good.

Glad you found a resolution. This seems to indicate that the file associations in Windows may be missing X12. When you drag a file over it's kind of an alternative to right clicking a file and selecting open with. You can check file associations by opening up window settings, select Apps, select Default Apps, scroll down to the bottom and select Set Defaults by App. Scroll down the list until you see Chief Architect Premier X12, click on it and select manage. It should show all the file types and the name of the program that the file type is associated with. If you see a program other than X12 click on it and a DBX should pop up that will let you assign X12 to it. Once this is done then you should be ok to just open the downloaded file directly from your browser.

The only time I have had something like that is if I've used a high resolution texture and then in the texture DBX I had set the size to something like 1/16" X 1/16". As you can surmise, replicating a very high resolution texture that many times over say a 10 sq.ft. surface is a lot of work.

Also, don't forget about the Display Layer options. Turning off unnecessary layers has a big impact on performance. Again, when working on structure there is no need for furniture, cabinets, electrical, plants, trees, terrain and the likes to be displayed. Under most circumstances CA only processes what is defined as displayed. You can define your own Display sets so this only has to be done once and then you just have to assign this to the camera you are using.