TheKitchenAbode

Tried the new updated X10 and latest Intel HD620 driver on my Spectra 360 and it still crashed/froze when using the cameras. Have rolled back the driver(2016 version) and it seems to be working ok with the latest X10 update.

Would it be possible to post the plan. I'm curious as to what could be in there that is causing the light unexplained light.

I believe what you are experiencing is the fact that shadows from the sun are hard shadows and there are no direct ways to control this. There is however a way to soften exterior sun shadows by positioning one or more 3D spots or point lights on the outside, turn their shadow settings to off. The light from these will penetrate the shadow regions and lighten them, just takes a bit of playing around between the sun intensity and 3D light(s) intensity to get the right balance.

To whoever was so kind to give me a negative on my last posting herein. Please consider that what I'm saying is not baseless. There are many examples where companies have failed or severely damaged their market position through complacency and failing to address product deficiencies. This is a highly competitive market and with the likes of software the tables can turn in very short notice. I've used and thoroughly enjoyed this software for many years and hope to continue to do so. This however does not negate the fact that there are a number of core functional areas that by now should have been taken care of. Not doing so potentially jeopardizes CA ,which would be very unfortunate. Clients engage my services to get things right and I do not expect them to accept my short cummings, that's the reality and the way it is. This is no different than the relationship between myself and those for whom I am their client, that's also the reality and the way it is. The Pro version of CA is not promoted as a hobbyist or causal user program and as such it is not disrespectful or unreasonable for one to expect it to perform as claimed, and it is also not disrespectful or unreasonable to question said claims when there appears to be direct or indirect contradictions.

I have the notification but now I usually wait a while before updating just in case the new version ends up being buggy. Went through that on my Spectra 360 Intel 620 driver, wasted a lot of time restoring the old driver as the new one wiped out the roll-back option.

Yes, I pulled it from Device Manager and also checked under Preferences, Video Card to make sure it was the same. This is the same driver I was using before the CA update, so the only thing that I can tell has changed is CA.

Exporting the image is the only way you can save a PBR camera scene. When Ray Tracing I used the PNG format as the JPEG export was not as clean. I also normally export at my standard screen size but there are times when this is not high enough when doing Photoshop work where I need greater resolution(more data) to manipulate. I understand that CA can't just jump every time I or someone else encounters an issue. But these things were working correctly before, and now since the update they seem to be non functional. Just seems to me that they are rushing a bit too much and not running enough debugging simulations before putting this into our hands. It's not really the best approach to rely on it's user base as a testing ground, that's not what I pay them for, unless maybe CA would be willing to pay out for each bug we find.

That's my GTX 1060 Driver. I have not loaded up the newest CA version on my Spectra 360 yet.

My driver is 23.21.13.9101 2/23/2018. Not the latest but the issue was not present in the previous CA version. Suspect it's related to something they changed and likely another example of incomplete testing prior to release. I know it's impossible to catch everything, but it's not like exporting a render is some obscure rarely used function, especially JPEG or PNG. Same goes for the Check Box, it's right in your face every time you open the adjust light DBX, I noticed it the first time it opened in the updated version. While complaining, not sure if this happens on your system, but the PBR Icon, in fact all of the camera type Icons, in the camera view drop down menu do not stick. After I close the PBR DBX it changes to the technique options icon. Has done this since the beta version, certainly never noticed this before.

Just tried again and this is what I get when exporting a PBR image. Saved active window size as a PNG Saved as a JPEG sized larger than my active window size. Saved as a JPEG active window size. This happens all the time since the latest update.

I have noticed the same thing. Saving a PBR in PNG format does not seem to function and saving a JPEG in a resolution higher than it's window size results in a black image. No idea what's going on. There are times when I can't avoid wondering what level of testing is done when changes are made to ensure there are no negative consequences, especially when they seem to be so obvious. Another one seems to be that the "Update Lights" check box in the Adjust Lights DBX does not retain it's setting. It is always unchecked when opened even if I have checked it before closing it. It stayed checked prior to this update. PBR white outs also still occur, took me about 5 seconds to get it to occur even though they stated it had been fixed. If this is a fact of PBR'ing then it should be least explained as to what causes this so we can avoid the situation as best as possible.

Thanks and I'm in full agreement with your sentiment and have often stated that CA needs to make a concretive effort to fix and clean-up what seems to be an ever increasing number of idiosyncrasies that affect it's core functionality. There seems to be a struggle as it relates to this software's evolutionary process, where is it going, how will it get there and who will it serve. The current approach seems more jack of all trades versus specialist, not sure in such a competitive market that the latter is the best approach, especially for the Pro version of CA. For example, expending time and resources on the PBR feature is fine, but it is severely undermined if I can't build the model efficiently. I had a recent project that required the accurate modeling of an existing home so the owners could explore their remodeling/decorating ideas. It was an extremely painful, frustrating and time consuming process to get core elements such as stairs, roofs and foundations correct. It needs to be understood that designing and remodeling a home today is far more complex than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Todays clients do not want basic and the design software needs to be able to accommodate the required customization and endless material choices. The derived plans and renderings must be accurate, close enough is not good enough. To top it all off I must be able to accomplish this within a time frame that makes financial sense, time is money and the market places a limit on what a client is willing to pay. It seems that there is a lack of appreciation of this when update after update fails to address the many lingering and known core issues.

This X10 PBR uses only the generic sun set at 10,000 lux, there are no active lights.

This in my opinion is what's terrible concerning the CA PBR feature. View from CA Lake Point plan, sample plan default settings. After adjusting the lights and some materials. As with Ray Tracing, I have never found the default settings to be conducive in demonstrating the potential of the rendering engine. What's perplexing is that the changes I made are not very complex. Lights where only adjusted for intensity and drop rate, material adjustments were just to increase their reflectivity(reduced roughness), the sun intensity was altered and the back drop replaced, some emissivity was added to the glass and the camera exposure and brightness levels were adjusted. The actual rendering time was about 3 seconds. I really think there needs to be a much greater effort to provide users with proper documentation and examples. Currently users are left entirely on their own using a hit or miss, trial and error learning process.

Hi Scott, great to hear from you. I fully agree and take those marketing videos with a grain of salt. There is no doubt that even with the new PBR feature it still has it's limitations and definitely needs to be worked on to make things more intuitive. Even if all of this is done I doubt that it will ever come close to the capabilities of a program such as Lumion. My comments where based on the fact that Edward indicated that this level of rendering was only needed once in a while for marketing/promotional purposes. Just thought that in this case it might make more business sense to just farm out the rendering work as needed instead of putting up $3,000 at the front end.

Edward, as you indicate that you do not need this level of rendering for your daily activities I would suggest considering to just farm out the couple of projects that you wish to showcase. The issue is not really the time to render, it's the learning curve and graphic design skills needed to obtain those fantastic results. Suggest reviewing some of the postings from Rene as he often mentions the time and effort he puts into his rendering work.

Thanks, I don't do walkthroughs so I was not aware of that limitation. Agree that the promo is not very good, in fact I have not seen any PBR examples from CA that I would consider as good. One would think that the people who develop these things should be capable of showing much better examples, in other words, I hope that the samples they have shown do not represent their interpretation of photorealistic.

You can also reduce the sun intensity and the color cast will reduce accordingly. In doing so you may need to rebalance your interior lights and adjust the camera exposure and brightness. From the time I have spent PBR'ing it dose not seem to matter all that much as to what the actual intensity setting is of the sun and lights, it seems to be the relationship(ratio) of the sun intensity and the lights that's most important.

Thanks for the update Mark. I will go ahead and update my Spectra 360 and hopefully it will work on my version.

This issue may have been resolved in the new updated CA release. Will see what happens when I get a chance to check it out.

Always an interesting subject, the endless quest for the ideal CA computer system. If cost is a consideration, which it usually is, then the right configuration will be determined by what one does in CA, their workflow and what other programs one has running concurrently on their system. This of course will vary for every user and as such their system requirements will also vary. For example, users involved in complete builds will have more demanding needs than a user such as myself that is focused on existing home remodeling or users who are only kitchen/bath focused. If you review my system specs(below) you will see that they are both under CA's minimum recommendation in one way or the other, yet I have no problems as they relate to my workload. It is only recently that I had to upgrade my main systems graphics card, but this was only due to the fact that I use the new PBR rendering feature in conjunction with many active lights. If it was not for all the lights I utilize then my older GTX 745 would have been fine. Even my laptop with the integrated Intel graphics chip works fine, just struggles a bit when PBR'ing with all of those lights. The challenge is in attempting to understanding what does what between you, the software and the hardware. This can require considerable effort to get a handle on what's 'really" going on and what is the best way to address this to derive a system that performs to your specific needs. Do you need a $1,500 or a $6,000 system, it all comes down to what you do.

Toggle the sun "off" and set the sun intensity to "0" in the Ray Trace DBX and see if it goes away. If not then you have a rouge light or two somewhere in the plan.

You're welcome. Keep that trick in mind, you never know when a paranormal project might come your way.

By any chance, do you have shadows turned "OFF".

Given that you are dealing with an older system, you may find this article to be of interest. https://www.techspot.com/article/1496-pairing-cpu-and-gpu-bottlenecking/ As demonstrated, if your CPU is not up to snuff then you could be wasting your money. The term "discrete graphics" can be misconstrued, it's performance is still highly reliant upon your main CPU. Might be time to seriously consider a full system upgrade.