TheKitchenAbode

Try setting the Ambient Occlusion Min=0, Max=3 and uncheck "Use Camera View Settings". Here's what I get with these settings. You can use the Image Properties settings to adjust contrast, intensity, etc. Graham

Just another example based on the 3rd pic in my last posting. The 1st pic has a yellowish color cast to it and lacks in clarity, here it is in 1200 x 582 size. For the 2nd pic I just adjusted the 1st pic by only using the "Image Properties" controls after Raytracing. Everything has been done within Chief and the Raytrace DBX. Graham

I have X8 and it shows the correct video memory 4095 MB. I think the poster is talking about the integrated chip being recognized over the discrete graphics chip. This needs to be set(assigned) in the Nvidia control program. Graham

Here are examples as to how lighting determines just about everything. The Raytrace settings are the default "Indoor High Quality", 1200 X 736 px. 1st pic - Sun "Off", Lights "Off"_ 50 passes, 1min 2nd pic - Sun "On", Lights "Off"_50 passes, 12min 3rd pic - Sun "On", Lights "On"_50 passes, 27min No matter what settings or materials you play with, there is no way that I know of to make the 1st or 2nd pics look any good. Only once the lighting is properly set and balanced (3rd pic) should one even consider playing with a materials properties. Graham

Hi Larry - Had a very strong sense that you were pulling my leg, especially when you reiterated that you were "too busy to learn yourself". Now that you have fessed up my plan for today's responses has been disrupted. I'm sure other members will be disappointed now, their envisioning of me working feverishly to find the elusive "Perfect Settings" has come to an end. Graham PS - Will be posting some more results shortly but need to work on finding the "Holy Grail", the "Treasure on oak island" and a few million "Fraudulent Voters" first.

From the description it sounds like User B has not deactivated License B and now both License A and B are active on User B's computer. There is no mention in the description concerning this step. Graham

I did not say they were perfect, there is no such setting. Post a pic of what you got, maybe you have something turned on or turned off that should not be that way. Graham

Try this set-up. - Set the North pointer and Sun to your liking. Leave the suns light strength and colour as per the default. You can also use the generic sun if you wish. All other settings are done in the Raytrace DBX only. If I do not mention an item then it is to be turned "off" (unchecked) or set to "0". - General Tab - Set size to your liking, set number of passes to 50 max. - Lighting Tab - Ambient Occlusion Min .5, Max 7. Direct Sunlight 2 - Advance Tab - Photon Mapping "On" - Image Properties Tab - Brightness 46, Contrast 59, Saturation 38 Run your Raytrace Here are three exterior views based on these settings. All models and materials are default Chief. They run 50 passes in about 7 minutes on my system, they are actually pretty well done after 10 passes. Here is a late night scene. These are the only changes I made to the above. - Changed backdrop to a much darker version. Took Chief forested road backdrop and knocked down the highlights in Photoshop. - Changed Direct Sunlight to .05. Wanted to simulate some moonlight contribution. - Changed Ambient Occlusion to Min 0, Max 2 Does any of this help? Please note that there are likely many more ways to achieve this. My method does not necessarily produce Architectural Digest quality images, it does however produce high contrast, punchy pics very quickly right out of the box. Graham

Not sure if the helps, just ran this. Please no comments on the architecture, this is an interior first floor project; just threw a roof on it and a bit of landscaping. 11 passes in 1 min 41 sec. 1200 X 600 px Graham

If it is bad at 50 passes then it will still likely be bad at 830 passes. Post a the image and we might be able to provide you with some guidance. Graham

Mike - That's the 64 million dollar question "Where Does One Start". At least from my experience, I believe that more than 90% of a reasonable quality Raytrace is directly related to how a scene is lit. If this is accomplished then there is very little need to play with a materials properties; changes to these properties should really only be done as final tweaks and only after the scene has been properly lit. From a lighting perspective I believe this needs to be approached in stages, ambient light needs to be set first, I only use the ambient occlusion, then you need to progressively add your other lights. Just dropping in 20 different lights and running a Raytrace is not likely going to produce an acceptable result and when things don't look right then which light do you adjust. The bathroom scene I posted only uses 2 recessed lights, as can be seen, and one spot light behind the camera used to up the ambient light level. There is no exterior lighting, that was turned off, set to "0", or any special material property settings and no bump maps. I do not proclaim to be a Raytrace expert and my objective is not necessarily to produce the most photo realistic scene. I want to produce good looking scenes as fast as possible. Graham

Hi Scott, Here is the X8 plan. Please note that this was set-up to render items with a high degree of contrast and lots of color. All of the models and textures are in the Chief libraries. All of the lights are spots. This runs fast so on your machine you should be able to get a good scene out in about 1 minute. Abode_ Test Room_High Contrast.plan Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Graham

Scott - Here's a 3 renderings of the exact same scene. This is just a test room I use to play with things so excuse the odd mix of items. If you flip through them you can see that the differences are minor. Yes, the 75 pass one is better but you can see that the improvement is just in a slightly less grainy appearance, most notably in the painted wall surface by the TV. What you should be using your computers power for is to run higher resolution pics. The sample you posted was run at 2400 X 1024, the equivalent of a 2 mega pixel camera. If you want to zoom in on your pics then you need a bigger camera. My last posted scene was run at 4800 X 2284, the equivalent of an 11 mega pixel camera. Although it is only a 10 pass run it looks sharper than the 75 pass 3rd scene and you can zoom in to see more detail. However as you can see, running many passes or at much higher resolution does not significantly change the overall look of the scene, this is dictated by the lighting set-up, materials and their properties. These are 1200 X 571, photon mapping "on". 1st scene - 10 passes, 2 min. 2nd scene - 35 passes, 7 min. 3rd scene - 75 passes, 15 min. 4th scene - 10 passes, 30 min, 4800 X 2284 Graham

Scott - I not sure there is really anything to be gained by running so many passes. From my testing I have never really found a discernable difference between a 50 pass versus a 500 pass Raytrace. The one posted above was only 15 passes. In most cases, if your lighting is correct then your scene should be pretty decent after 10 passes. I have found that if more passes are needed it is usually to just clean up some speckling that can occur with glass/transparent materials or to refine some subtle lighting effects. Graham

Justin - Thank you for the details. You make a very good point concerning the importance of choosing textures that exhibit good rendering characteristics. This also holds true when selecting 3d models, some are very basic and will never look right no matter what one does. I did a quick mock-up of your bathroom, not exact but reasonably close. As I have very little patience for long Raytracing times I made some adjustments just to see how fast I could get this to Raytrace. Would still need a bit of work but I got this down to 4 minutes on a 2400 X 1142. Main change was to turn-off photon mapping and to use the Image Properties to compensate. Graham

It is unlikely that those are the type of textures that are in Chief. The tile and wood look more like high resolution pics. My understanding is that the intent of this topic is to focus upon what can be achieved using Chief materials and controls in order to learn, share and assist those who do not wish to work outside of Chief. Graham

Thanks for your comments Michalelgia. You are 100% correct about the stainless steel, the one used here was the polished stainless from the Metals in the Bonus Catalog, I did however play a bit with the roughness settings. Since this one is based on the polished settings it will naturally have a softer look. Have to agree that the stainless steel is likely the most difficult metal to control. All of the materials/textures are standard CA ones. The hardwood bump map is just the hardwood texture jpg file in Chief. Graham

Nicely done intro Scott and seeing all those cores running in the Task Manager was really something to behold. Here are some Ray Traces I ran yesterday. Everything is Chief X8 except "kitty" (3d warehouse). Size - 1200 X 587 Ray Trace Settings - Ambient Occlusion min 0, max 6. Photon Mapping yes. Caustics yes. Lighting - all spots Ray Trace Time - 75 passes, 22 min - 26 min depending on scene Graham

Very Nice !!! Just curious when you say "everything done in X8 & X9" Do you mean you built everything (buildings) from scratch using only CA and rendered this via the built-in Raytracer with no post production work? Graham

I run with Windows 10 and all drivers are up to date. Still have to have "Show Shadows" unchecked to avoid the Black Screen of Death. this is with an HD3000 integrated graphics chip. Graham

When you say 3D Render, do you mean when you open up a 3D camera view. If so what does the screen look like? If it is just a solid black then open up the camera DBX and uncheck "Show Shadows". Some of the older integrated graphics can't handle the shadows, this happens on one of my laptops that has an Intel HD3000 chip. Graham

Laptop discrete graphics are usually built into the MB so you need to purchase it that way. They must have something set wrong, I have three laptops and CA runs on all of them, one with a discrete GPU and the two others with integrated graphics. Graham

Agree with Larry on this. It's much easier to upgrade a graphics card than the CPU. Every program you use will always benefit from CPU performance, especially in a multi-tasking environment. Graham

You are correct concerning the intent of the Xeon class. They are designed for use in servers running flat out 24/7. You do want hyper threading, especially if you Raytrace. This effectively doubles the core count(physical vs logical) and it will be very impactful on speed. For your money, get as many cores (hyper threaded) as possible running at as high a frequency as possible. Intel's top I7's are the leaders, would only really consider a Xeon set-up if you want to run a dual processor set-up. Graham

Pleased that things worked out for you. Happy Raytracing !!! Graham