TheKitchenAbode

Another example, this time using the CA sample gallery five-12-kitchen plan. Ray Trace as per CA sample plan settings. Ray Trace after my lighting and material adjustments. The Ray Trace program is far more capable than it is demonstrated to be. Just my humble opinion but CA should make a greater effort to demonstrate this, provide improved documentation to assist users and configure some specialized lights that will provide additional interior ambient control and to address the exterior direct suns inability to simulate indirect interior lighting effects.

The fact that things work fine using tabs but lag when using the window button is a fairly clear indicator that the issue is not related to your primary hardware such as ram or video card. This is most likely a software, driver or background process conflict. Suggest you track back to when this started to occur and any system changes that took place around that time. This includes Windows updates and CA updates. Keep in mind that when Windows performs an update that it can contain driver updates that are automatically installed.

f Stop Had a chance to run some Ray Traces with a range of f Stop settings. Here are the results. As you flip through the most noticeable change can be seen in the island stools closest to the camera. These were run at 1200 X 583, 30 passes, took 19 minutes. Hard to see any difference from f9.5 and higher. These are straight out of Ray Trace with no additional post processing. f 3.5 f 9.5 f 16 f 32

Sorry Mark - the colour/texture I use is Artic White, it's in the Formica catalog under solid colours. For the ceiling the properties are Matte, Diffuse 100%, Roughness 80%. Same colour for trim but then Roughness is 30%. I also use this on white cabinets, same settings as the trim. If I want more sheen/gloss I will change the material to General, add some reflection, specular and roughness. How white this will appear will depend on the lights and image property settings. If you are running Ray Traces with no active lights then you may need to add a bit of emissivity to get a bright white.

Hi Mark, pleased that you have found this information of interest. I fully agree with you about the level of realism, not good if the renderings look better than the finished project. The ceilings in my renderings are always flat. In my area no one wants texture any more. When they have it we are always scrapping it off. The light source you are referring to is the generic on that CA places when no other light source is in the plan. It's horrible, just place any fixture somewhere in the plan and the generic one will disappear, even if the one you placed is turned off.

Mick, also make sure the spots cut off angles are the same, really wide angles will diminish or prevent the wall tear drop effect.

It's under the Front/Sides/Back tab. Select the Cabinet Side you wish to work on, set Side Type to Custom Face and the Left & Right Stile input boxes will darken and you can enter your widths.

Make the right stile on the left cabinet 1/2" and the left stile on the right cabinet 1/2". Then when placed together the total stile width will be 1".

Mick, I don't have the plan open but suspect that the lights that don't appear on is because the tilt angle is different than the ones were the cone of light shows on the wall. The lights are in a sloped ceiling, the default for a downward recessed can is -90, they may have changed this for one or the other to compensate for the ceiling angle. Also9 if you increase the drop rate it will soften the edge where light meets dark, try say 3 or 4, 0 is the hardest transition. Keep working at this one item at a time, once the recessed lights are good you can work on those under cabinet pucks.

Here's the next level of the exterior only lit scene I have been working on. To push it further I dropped it into a photo editor and made some simple adjustments to improve the clarity and sharpness. I did not resize this one so you can see it at it's maximum resolution of 2400 X 1200. Keep in mind that the Ray Trace engine is not as sophisticated as a dedicated renderer. If you wish your Ray Traces to take on a more realistic look then you will likely need to do some post render work on it. Don't feel as if this is a compromise, professional photographers do this all of the time. None of those gorgeous magazine pics come straight out of the camera.

Hi Mick, pleased you found those settings beneficial. They are not carved in stone, you can always fine tune them to your liking according to your displays attributes. They should work fine with the lights on but only after you adjust the lights intensity to look proper under these image property settings. Try to resist making other changes until you have the lights properly set. I would leave all of the materials at their default settings and the same for the whatever light you are using except for the intensity and spread angle. For example if you change the emissivity of a material before your lights are set then when you tweak your lights you will likely find that the emissivity is now incorrect and will now have to be adjusted again. The key to all of this is to do things on step at a time and in the appropriate order. As far as the pic you posted the colors seem to be a bit over saturated, this may just be differences between our monitors . You could go into the image properties and reduce the saturation a bit. Another thing that will impact on this is the ambient occlusion setting, it will determine the dynamic range of the ambient light. I only use the min & max ambient occlusion control never the uniform one. To make the scene brighter increase the max, or if the overall brightness is fine then increase or decrease the min to control the depth of the shaded regions where wall to wall and ceiling intersects occur.

Hi Mick, in the sample I posted under Image Properties the direct sun was set at 50. I usually have this set between 5 to 10 but for this one I wanted it at it's max. My lights are almost always at 255,255,255. You can of coarse change this if you prefer a warmer light. Not sure how accurate the f factor is, don't normally use this but will be doing some test runs in the future to see exactly what it can do. Never use the bloom, I think if you want this kind of effect you would be better off using a photo editing program. Just to clarify on not using the "Use Camera View Settings", the main reason is that I may at times change this for my regular camera views, just don't want this to automatically effect my Ray Traces.

Image Properties The Ray Trace Image Properties(top left little slider in ray trace window) is a very important tool. It allows one to make a number of image adjustments while your ray trace is running and after completion. This tool will have a significant impact on the look of your scene and depending upon the settings it will determine how you interpret your lighting and material when making changes & adjustments. After lights are placed a ray trace is run to see how it looks. The look will be significantly affected by the light settings and the image properties settings. If the scene is not to your liking then is it the light settings or the image properties settings or a combination of both? The image properties DBX has 7 adjustment sliders and the Use Tone Mapping option, how these are set can make or break your scene. In fact improper settings can make it virtually impossible for one to generate a decent scene. These settings must be established to begin with and should remain fixed during the light & material adjustment process and then only adjusted once lights and materials have been properly set and balanced. There are default settings for these and one would assume that they should be used, this however may not be the case. Here's what I got after placing my lights and running my ray trace at the default image properties settings. Not so great, it's washed out, my whites are grey looking and everything looks soft. If I was not conscious of the image property controls I would go back and start adjusting lights and material properties, maybe adjust the ambient occlusion, run more passes, etc. Now that may work, but every time you make one of those adjustments you will need to run another ray trace and that's more time spent. Since the image property settings can be adjusted after a ray trace then maybe I should see first if something there might help. The big benefit is that these changes are instant(live), no need to run another trace. So lets see what I got. The scene has changed significantly, it's crisper, has improved dynamic range, colors are more vibrant and whites are whiter. Depending upon your needs then maybe that's all you needed to do to have a satisfactory rending. Even if it was not fully complete, which do you think would be a better one to start from? As demonstrated above, the image properties will determine how your lighting and materials will appear. You need to make sure that the image properties are reasonably good, otherwise you will be adjusting lights and materials under less than ideal conditions. Just my opinion, but the default image property settings are not conducive to good results. These are my typical settings, Tone Mapping "ON" Contrast 35% Intensity 35% Softness 4% Color Correction 0% Brightness 48% Contrast 70% Saturation 50% I leave these alone while adjusting lighting and materials. Once I have things looking satisfactory under these image property settings I can then go back and tweak the image property settings a bit to finish off the scene. I have also found when I adjust lights and materials based on these image property settings that when I tweak the final image via the image property settings there is lots of adjustment tolerance before the pic will degrade due to over application. For those curious about the posted scenes lighting, it has been done to look as if all the lighting is from the exterior on a nice bright sunny day. None of the interior fixtures are active. The Sun Intensity is 50, Ambient Occlusion Min=1, Max=9.5, Photon Mapping "On", Focal Blur = f8.0. I never use "Use Camera View Settings" and Environment Light is "Disabled" as is Caustics. Here's one more of the same scene, Just used the image property settings to tone it down a bit.

Yes, that is also an option. The only issue is that it will effect all lighting the same, it has a global effect. In my example not all of the lights needed to adjusted by the same amount as say my under cabinet lights.

Here is the Zero Sum Kitchen after making some further adjustments. For this I turned on Photon Mapping and adjusted my lights accordingly. The original CA rendering. My previous render with Photon Mapping turned off. My latest with Photon Mapping turned on. You can see the effect of having photon mapping turned on. Please keep in mind that the light settings used in the non photon mapped scene must be adjusted as photon mapping treats the light differently. In most cases the light intensity must be reduced and sometimes by a considerable amount. For example, the under counter lights in the non photon mapped scene are at 60% intensity, in the photon mapped scene they are 7% intensity. The of amount adjustment will vary dependent upon the type of light and it's proximity to surfaces and the properties of those surfaces. When photon mapping is not used light from it's source strikes a surface and then it bounces directly to the camera. When photon mapping is used the light will continue to bounce off surfaces 4 more times before reaching the camera. If you flip between the two pics you can see that darker regions in the non photon mapped scene are now brighter after photon mapping, watch the change on the espresso machine(left main counter top) and you will see that much more detail has been revealed as it is now receiving additional indirect light bouncing off of other materials. Conversely shadow strength has reduced as this additional indirect light reduces/dilutes their effect.

Rene - Some very good insight concerning those speckles and how Ambient Occlusion can be utilized to help counter this issue. I was in the process of preparing some thoughts and examples on this issue. Concerning this, my focus has been to first understand why these speckles occur in the first place so an effective strategy can be developed to avoid them to begin with. What I have been able to deduce so far is that these occur when there is an extreme difference between the exterior light level and the interior, typically a very bright exterior and poorly (low) lit interior. One of the deficiencies in Ray Trace is that it does not take fully into account the effect of the direct sun on interior ambient light levels. In nature as the exterior light levels increase the entire interior of a home would also increase as a result of direct and scattered light entering through the windows. In Ray Trace it only takes into account the direct light portion of the sun. Without using some special techniques the best way to avoid these speckles is to adjust the sun level down and use your interior lights and/or 3D lights to adjust the interior ambient accordingly. Just a warning, always make sure to have a roof on your house, otherwise this anomaly will be magnified. For environmental light you really need to have a foundation with a floor or you will encounter similar issues.

Hi Mick, there is no reading involved as the stuff in the reference manual is not very comprehensive. This is a process of learning by doing. From everything I have done so far it becomes evident that this program attempts to follow the physics of light as it travels from a source and strikes a surface and is then reflected or scattered back depending upon the properties of the surface being struck. It can initially be fairly complex as you have light being emitted from many different sources, at varying intensities and angles all striking the materials and then intermixing and scattering throughout the room. As in nature too much light will washout a surface while too little light will not properly reveal the surface. One thing you can do is just look around your home and observe how the different light sources affect what you see, the depth of color and shadows. The exact same principles apply to Ray Tracing.

Thanks Mick, there are really no tricks being used here, I'm just adjusting the main light properties such as intensity, cut off angle and drop rate and placed a few 3D type spot lights to provide some control over the overall ambient light level. If your scene is coming out dark then you have three ways to deal with that. One is to increase your lights intensity, reduce the drop rate or increase the cut off angle, the second is to up the max value under Ambient Occlusion and the final option is to use the image adjustment properties to adjust the intensity, contrast, softness, etc. It may actually require a combination of all three. You should work on one type of light at a time. Turn off everything except the ceiling recessed cans and adjust those for your desired effect, then turn on the next light type and adjust them. You need to do things one step at a time, otherwise there will be way too much happening and you will not be able to properly associate the cause and effect. Will take a look at the 5-12 Kitchen plan to see what they have done. Hopefully it will run a lot faster and deliver a much better quality image versus the ones that I have tested.

Are you using a separate dedicated video card or an integrated video chip set. If the latter, then I believe the integrated HD chip set must be 4000 or newer. The older chip sets are limited/restricted and from my understanding the Open GL version can't be upgraded to meet the minimum requirements. You should really provide some system specs if you wish more specific suggestions, otherwise we are just guessing.

Thanks Johnny, how far I can push this towards photo realism only time will tell. The Ray Trace program definitely lacks a number of features inherent in more dedicated rendering programs. One major issue is how Ray Trace deals with exterior sun light on interior scenes. Yes, it will create a bright patch say on the floor but it does not really take into account the overall effect this would have on the overall interior ambient light level and the lights overall direction & scattering effect. This will be one of the next things I will work on.

That was a personal choice of mine, I purposely adjusted the cabinet finish, did the same for the freeform counter top section and the yellow wall colour. Other adjustments included reducing the reflection of the floor to expose more of the tile pattern, adjusted little things like the colour on the apples, flower vase material, pendant light material etc. Once you get the Ray Trace time down to a few minutes it makes it easy to make all of these little adjustments as you do not have to wait very long to see the result.

For those interested in exploring CA Ray Tracing Techniques. From the CA sample gallery I downloaded the "Zero Sum Kitchen" plan. Other than reducing the width and height to 1200 X 618 I ran a Ray Trace as per CAs' settings. The scene took 1 hour and 54 minutes to reach a point were I could not detect any discernable graininess. Here is the scene after 1 hour & 54 minutes, needed about 30 passes. I reworked the lighting and altered some of the material properties. This ran in 1 minute & 44 seconds, only needed 5 passes. Here it is at 4800 X 2472 if you wish to zoom in for closer examination. Took 28 minutes to run 6 passes. The biggest problem with the CA plan are the point lights, in fact 18 of the 24 lights were points, even the ceiling recessed fixtures. They had Photon Mapping turned "ON" and even so the stainless steel rendered poorly. I changed all the lighting to spots and turned off the Photon Mapping, note that even with the Photon Mapping turned off the stainless steel rendered quite well, contrary to the common belief that one needs Photon Mapping turned on to render these metals. That horrible orange colour cast has been eliminated, the scene now has an improved sense of depth, detail and colour balance. And it runs really fast.

If the X8 files were somehow deleted then check your recycle bin, they should be there and you can restore them. Have never experienced that, whenever I've upgraded the prior version and all of it's files are left intact, the new version sets up it's own directories under the new versions name.

Yes, my apologies also to the OP. Was not my original intention to go off subject this much. My objective was to demonstrate that one does not necessarily need the most powerful computer on the planet to Ray Trace and when considering an upgrade that this should be given due consideration.

Rene - I know in the past that I have suggested that CA should allow us to individual associate both lights and Ray Trace settings for each camera, and having a personal interest in photography it would be great to have camera settings such as ISO, Exposure, f stop, shutter speed and different lens types. Maybe at the end of the day CA should just trash the Ray Trace engine and just license a plugin version of Thea.