TheKitchenAbode

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  1. TheKitchenAbode
    Antoine - I have found in the past that CA is usually willing consider ones individual situation when it comes to a lapse in SSA renewal. As to the feature set, even though I use CA primarily for interior related work I do understand and appreciate the needs of those who differ from mine. I have often stated that they should really focus on addressing, fixing and cleaning up items such as staircases, roofs, foundations, bay/bow windows and many other core elements that constant frustrations for many users. I however doubt that CA will ever attempt to become a commercial multi-user software system such as AutoCAD or Revit.
  2. TheKitchenAbode
    Just depends on how you view this. Loyal customers get a discount if they renew within 30 days. Seems to me like a reasonable marketing strategy to encourage clients to stay and continue their SSA subscription. Long term commitment is not really driven by the SSA cost, it is more dependent on whether one is satisfied with the software's capability in respect to their needs. This is the issue you are experiencing.
  3. TheKitchenAbode
    Another X10 PBR
  4. TheKitchenAbode
    X10 PBR Just some minor color/saturation and sharpening adjustments.
  5. TheKitchenAbode
    The other solution is to just toggle the sun off. Since there are no windows or other openings the sun is not needed.
  6. TheKitchenAbode
    Personally these new reflective properties are a "Disaster". They are way too sensitive to light and camera angles and as such the degree of reflectivity varies greatly between multiple camera views within a scene. It seems impossible to get decent reflections on counter tops, they always look matte in most camera views, especially light/white marble tops.
  7. TheKitchenAbode
    It looks like there is some reflection, vertical wall corner showing. Could you post the plan?
  8. TheKitchenAbode
    Here is one I'm just working on with two mirrors. They are just the standard mirror from the core library. My suspicion is that your issue is lighting related. It seems that in PBR'ing these reflective properties are very dependent upon the angle at which light strikes their surface in respect to the cameras angle. You could try adding an area 3D light to get more light bouncing around the room. Also, make sure you have reflections turned on in the cameras DBX.
  9. TheKitchenAbode
    My suspicion is that this relates to the changes being made to the material properties, specifically the reflectivity(roughness) one. Ray Trace was always impacted by the number of reflective(rough) surfaces in a scene, the more reflective surfaces the slower it would run. It seems that now with the new material properties just about all materials have some level of reflectivity/roughness. As such Ray Trace must now do this computation on just about everything where in the past it only did it on materials that were specifically defined under the reflective materials properties.
  10. TheKitchenAbode
    That should also have an effect, anything that changes the ratio between the exterior light source and interior light source contribution should in some manner alter the color casts intensity.
  11. TheKitchenAbode
    Everything Mark has said with the addition that you can also reduce the sun's intensity which will also reduce the color cast. PBR'ing takes into account both direct and indirect sun light entering the interior. Indirect sunlight would be light that has struck an exterior surface/material and is reflected into the interior as such, if that surface has a color then the reflected back light will also contain a degree of that color which will be cast onto the interior. What would be ideal is to have an additional slider for the sun that would allow us to define the ratio of direct versus indirect light ccontribution for any given sun intensity setting.
  12. TheKitchenAbode
    The 1060 has been great, huge improvement when PBR'ing and handles everything I've thrown at it. I don't do walkthroughs so I can't comment on that aspect.
  13. TheKitchenAbode
    Try saving one of the pucks to your user library, open up it's symbol DBX and under options change it to off-set from the floor. Place the puck into your plan and set it's height from the floor as an absolute distance. This will override the auto mount to underside of cabinet function. The problem seems to be that when you place the upper cabinets then the auto placement sees those upper cabinets as having priority and therefore moves them up and as such they are now hidden by your P-Soild support rack.
  14. TheKitchenAbode
    Given that this is a corporate purchase you may wish to consider a Dell Alienware Area 51 Intel based system. The number of configurations is almost endless and Dell also provides system leasing. You mention that you do Ray Tracing with X10. Have you experimented with the new PBR camera feature? Unlike Ray Tracing which is highly dependent upon CPU core count, the PBR feature is more reliant on GPU performance. It would be worth exploring this PBR feature as it is most likely going to prevail over Ray Tracing as some time goes by. Certainly from my own experience I have now dropped Ray Tracing altogether, everything is PBR.
  15. TheKitchenAbode
    Here's an example where everything is according to the default settings versus just making some minor changes to the sun, Camera Exposure, Hue, Saturation and Brightness. Everything else is default and all objects are from the core library catalogs, now changes were made to the material properties. I placed a selection of lights all as per their defaults. The recessed lights are spread evenly throughout the space. The total lumen output of all lights is 29,218, the square footage of the room is 635 square feet, this equates to an average of 46 lumens per square foot. Scene 1 as per CA Defaults & Generic Sun Scene 1 with Sun @5,000 Lux, Camera Exposure 0.25, Hue -4, Saturation -10, Brightness 30 Scene 2 as per CA Defaults & Generic Sun Scene 2 with Sun @5,000 Lux, Camera Exposure 0.25, Hue -4, Saturation -10, Brightness 30 The Hue and Saturation adjustment was primarily done to reduce the color cast. The sun intensity, camera exposure and brightness are of greater significance.
  16. TheKitchenAbode
    Do you have a terrain? If so the green cast could be from it. When in camera view uncheck terrain in the Active Layer Display Options DBX.
  17. TheKitchenAbode
    Great suggestions Mark. Adding to this technique is to take an existing backdrop into a photo editor and adjust it's colour saturation and brightness/darkness and import it back into CA. In this scene the CA Forested Road backdrop was altered in Photoshop. I have predominantly overexposed windows with just a hint of the backdrop as seen in the bay window. Doing this eliminates the need to overly crank up the sun's intensity which can cause other undesirable effects.
  18. TheKitchenAbode
    The greenish tint/color cast is usually related to the exterior terrain(grass) or a backdrop with a lot of green color in it in combination with very high sun lux settings. With PBR'ing exterior colors will influence the interior. If the exterior must stay as is then just reduce the sun's intensity. The other approach is to change the backdrop or terrain, just keep in mind that in this case the PBR will forecast those colors into the interior. I would not really recommend using the Hue slider as this is global and will change everything else in the scene, it also seems to be way to sensitive and impossible to make very fine adjustments.
  19. TheKitchenAbode
    Yes, it would be great if it was just as simple as throwing in some lights and turn on the sun. I agree that the defaults do not seem to be highly conducive to this. However, as in real life, a room with only one or two lights will never photograph well. CA can't control how many lights you use or their type, they also can't control your sun placement(angle/date) or the number of windows you have that will allow the sun light to enter the room. The quality of scene you achieve is determined by computations based upon how the available light, from a given light source, would interact with materials in accordance to their property settings. As this PBR thing is brand new and somewhat rushed it's likely going to take a bit of time for CA to fine tune things to at least deliver an improved starting point.
  20. TheKitchenAbode
    PBR'ing, like Ray Tracing takes some time and experimentation to develop an understanding as to the relationships between lighting and material properties. As with Ray Tracing, it seems that the default settings are not always conducive to the best result. The other aspect, as you are experiencing, is that PBR'ing is quite demanding on the GPU. As such, the live PBR environment can be frustrating to work in when it starts taking 15 seconds or more to update. If I examine your PBR scene I would say the most obvious issue is that the sun's intensity is most likely too high. Those ceiling pots need their drop rate increased to avoid the highly defined bright circle being cast onto the floor and other objects. As you do these things your scene will most likely darken, just use the PBR DBX and adjust the camera exposure and brightness to correct for this. It seems with PBR'ing that balancing the contribution of sun related light to interior lighting is extremely important, this is of coarse how it is in the real world, the perceived degree of brightness of say a 550 lumen pot light is directly related to the amount of light entering the room from the exterior, at night the pot looks bright but at mid day it may not even show. PBR deals with light in the same manner, try to think in real world terms. For example, if you look out of your windows the exterior background is way too bright, would this type of situation really occur in the real world, I doubt it. These over exposed exteriors/windows are a special photographic effect, best to leave this effect alone until one learns the basics.
  21. TheKitchenAbode
    If that worked then the problem must relate to the way the two wall/material sections abut. For some reason CA must be calculating them just slightly different from each other. Maybe try opening up each walls DBX and making sure the location points and angles are exact, could also try re snapping them.
  22. TheKitchenAbode
    By any chance did you try the wall material region?
  23. TheKitchenAbode
    Try changing the intensity(Lux) of the sun, the default is very high.
  24. TheKitchenAbode
    just another thought, as it is occurring exactly were the two wall types abut, try using a wall material region applied overtop that covers both walls as a single element.
  25. TheKitchenAbode
    Have you tried toggling the enhance lighting quality in the PBR DBX. I have found times when having this on creates some weird effects, especially when one gets that total white out. Also, what happens if you toggle the sun off or reduce it's intensity? If you post the plan I will take a look to see if I can spot anything.