TheKitchenAbode

Your Welcome Ben. From reading your original post I was highly confident that the best product would prevail. You may wish to scan this forum further, there are active members utilizing Chief in regions who's building practices & codes are more aligned with the UK. I am certain they would be a great resource as you adapt Chief to your suit your specific needs. For techniques, everyone here is more than willing to jump in. I have been using Chief for at least 10 years and never looked back. Best software investment I ever made. Graham

Just ran into something. If for say you alter the height of a chandelier the lights offset position from it's base does not change accordingly, it stays at the default offset position. You must manually change this it to relocate the light position properly within the fixture. Graham

Just a guess, looks like the blue sky background is casting a blue hue throughout the interior which is being seen through the windows. Looks like the sun angle is directed towards the back face of the house. Graham

Welcome Ben, Just popped over to the Visual Builder website to take a peek at it. Considering the price it certainly seems to offer a considerable number of features. Having worked for over 13 years (R&D and Marketing) for a division of BPB (British Gypsum) I can appreciate the differences in construction techniques, terminology and building codes. Definitely something you need to seriously consider, especially if you just want to get up and running as fast as possible. Chief Architect does however allow you to customize just about everything so you can create for example your own wall types and nomenclature (plasterboard versus drywall). They offer, as does Chief, free trial versions. May be worth downloading so you can evaluate each to determine the features most important to you. You mention conceptual 3D renders and fly-throughs as being an important consideration. From my brief look I think Chief has a distinct advantage with very extensive 3D model catalogs, materials and Raytrace rendering capability. You may also wish to investigate how large a "professional" user base Visual Builder has. The forum did not appear to be very extensive. From my use of Chief their user and member support is exceptional and there is a wealth of information available if one makes the effort to do a little searching. Cheers, Graham

Agee Michael - It's definitely a challenge to impart that sense of realism. And to your point Raytraces can have that "flat" look. I don't believe this can be fully accomplished using just standard light placement. Most likely 3D cameras will need to be strategically placed and adjust to create shadows and highlites within the scene. Often done in photography were a light might be placed behind say a couch to create a soft glow backdrop to impart a sense of depth. There may also be the need to perform post processing in PhotoShop if your going to crank-up the level of realism. Not many photographs go straight from the camera to print without significant post processing. Graham

Thanks Yusuf. I don't claim to be 100% correct on this but I am reasonably confident that the general principle(s) are applicable. I, like so many other users have really struggled to get acceptable Raytraces on a consistent basis, usually more on a hit and miss basis. As I started to dig deeper it eventually dawned on me to think about it from a photography perspective. Upon doing so my approach to lighting and material property adjustments changed significantly, this in turn resulted in much higher quality Raytraces in lower pass time. The other benefit was that when things don't come out right I can fairly quickly identify the culprit and make predictable adjustments. Not perfect but a huge improvement. Many Thanks, Graham

Dennis - had a chance to upload X8 so I took a look at your plan. Though my camera position is different the effect of my adjustments demonstrate the effect. The first two pics are as per your settings, only difference is the sun angle. The first is a 1 pass result and the 2nd is after 15 passes. The two following pics, 1 pass & 15 passes, are after making a few adjustments. The only adjustments made were to the interior light intensity & balance and a few materials in respect to their emmisivity & roughness. The sun intensity & environment intensity is as per your original plan. The light bleed has been brought under control and the reddish colour cast has almost been completely eliminated, would just need a little more fine tuning. The output is also much cleaner with improved dynamic range. Hope this helps to demonstrate that all is not lost when that light bleed and colour casting rears it's ugly head. Graham

Lew - There are a number of items such as those in your list that can't be covered under copyright, however some of those can be covered under Trademark and Patent protection such as brand names, chemical formulations, mechanical processes and the likes.There are also seperate ways to protect design work such as logo's (graphic design), fashion design, product design for example. Despite all of this, it still boils down to the complainants ability to pursue enforcement. There really is no mechanism where this will be done by some other authority on your behalf, great for large corporations who can afford the cost. If your client refuses to pay for a contracted for service that has been delivered you can only obtain payment if you have the means to take them to court. The only reason you have a contract is so it can be used to determine breach and fault during a proceeding. Graham

Lew - How would this scenario be treated. I post in this forum what I believe to be a unique combination of light & raytrace settings that virtually guarantees high quality raytraces at maximum pass through rate, this setting combination has never been posted here before . Upon you seeing these settings do you have the right to use them to the benefit your business? and if you did use them do I have the right to claim infringement? Graham

Lew - Great discussion, thanks for participating. Now back to the issue. First, about the above article. The only material item that this disputes is my use of the term "required", even so it does caution that by not doing so one could severely impede their ability to substantiate their claim. The real issue is not whether there are laws or statutes that afford ones right to protection under the law. The point I made in my original posting was that these laws in them selves do not prevent someone from using, copying or distributing your property once you place your property into the Public Domain. For example, you in the act of going to another website, copying a portion of it and then distributing it on this forum, according to what I believe is your interpretation of things, was in fact an act of Copyright infringement, as I assume you did not obtain permission from the owner to do so. The law in itself did not prevent this from happening! Laws or Statutes, criminal or civil are not written in the context of preventing these activities. They are written to provide a means to determine when enforcement may be pursued. It is unfortunately the reality that a law is not worth the paper it is written upon if there is no means of enforcement. If it was other wise then there would be no need for courts or police. Graham

Public Domain refers to the situation where something is presented to the public , it is no longer an internal secret. It may be in any form, written or visual. To let the public know of ones claim of property there are additional legally recognized means to do so such as Trademarks, Copyright and Patents. If you have one of these you are required to identify the property as such so to inform the public that their rights to this property in the Public Domaine are restricted. Even this does not prevent someone from using, copying or distributing your claimed property. It only provides proof of your claim in the event that you take legal action against the perpertrator. Graham

As this is a public forum one has to keep in mind that once posted it is, for all intent and purposes, in the public domain. This is not only relevant to plans, but also all commentary, techniques, etc.. Even if one were to place a disclosure restrictive statement at the bottom of a posting there is really no way to prevent it's use. A statement is only as good as your capacity to enforce it, no different than a contract. If one feels that they are in possession of intellect property then it would be best to make no mention of it. Graham

There are only two valid reasons for not posting the plan. 1.) You have a non-disclosure agreement with you client. Working on a new Apple Store concept. or 2.) You are concerned that a member will make a judgment in respect to your capabilities. The first condition is understood. The 2nd should not concern you. I have found that members focus on the issue at hand and are not really interested in passing on judgment unless specifically asked to do so. Even the best designer out there has a drawer or more full of work that is not to their liking. Design is a process of exploring ideas and concepts in an attempt to find a combination that meets your expressive objectives, your clients expectations and ultimately their budget. As commonly said "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", who am I (we) to judge. Graham

Dennis - In your defense when you state that this should not happen. I did during some of my research encounter an article that evaluated the Chief rendering plug-in. Overall they gave it a high ranking but did specifically comment that they felt there were some short comings in the way the plug-in dealt with lighting entering a room from exterior sources. Possibly we are experiencing this when the lighting conditions are not ideal. Will try to find the article again and post a link. Would be interesting to know if those who upload their scenes to the full version of Pov-Ray experience the same issue. Graham

Thanks Sherry - I just hope my theory is valid and not just a bunch of sweet smelling BS. ​

Thanks Dennis. Otherwise Chief will need to add a "Caulking Gun Tool' ​

Dennis - from my playing around I don't believe the light is actually leaking through the wall, it only appears to be. From what I can deduce it is actually the result of reflected light rays concentrating in shadowed regions. These shadow regions occur where two surfaces are perpendicular to each other, such as a wall ceiling intersect, wall corners, window/door casings and furniture placed against the wall. Raytrace only assigns so many rays to compute for each type of light, under extreme or difficult lighting situations the reflected rays striking these shaded intersect regions show up as pure bright white points. As you continue to render, more passes, Raytrace tries to smooth out the transition between the bright regions and the surrounding shadowed regions. Unfortunately it can only do so much with this. When you change the sun angle or intensity you are altering how and where the light rays strike the shadow region intersects.The colour cast that can also occur is the result of the reflected light being influenced by the material it is being reflected off of. In your scene it is aggravated by the furniture and window shutter colour/material properties. Brown contains a significant RGB red component, the originating light entering the room is white, upon striking these surfaces the reflected light will be altered from white and shifted to incorporate some of the material colour properties. Now the light striking the shadow regions is not white and therefore it appears as a colour cast. That's the best that I can deduce. Graham

I think there is a bit of a misconception as to how Raytrace functions. It is not some type of auto finction that you would find on most digital cameras. It's the equivalent of operating your camera in manual mode only. Ratrace computes a scene based soley upon the light settings you define and the interaction of the light rays as they strike and reflect off of the surfaces within their path. If the results are unsatisfactory then either the lighting must be adjusted or the material properties that the light is refelecting off of needs adjusting. It's one or the other or a combination of both. When Raytracing one needs to take off their designer hat and put on their photograpers cap. Graham

Sorry, that one was the wrong pic. See this one.

Dennis - here's one with some light bleed. Not as severe as yours but still the same issue. See top of window casing, bottom left tub corner, where glass shower panel meets ceiling, left of window wall shelves and a few other places. This is a first single pass. If you compare to the first image I posted above you can see that I was able to adjust this out with a minor change. Yours is very extreme, however I am certain it could be fixed. Graham

Here is an example of what I mean when the lighting is way too intense. The 1st pic is straight from Chief Raytrace, 1 pass, about 50sec. The 2nd pic is the same as the first but 10 passes. Notice that the only difference between the 1st & 2nd pic is that the increased passes just refine the pictures overall quality. There are no drastic changes in the lighting per say. Most first pass Raytraces posted show the lighting to be way too intense. Raytace is not really designed to correct lighting. Believe it or not, there are only two area (3D) lights plus the sun for this scene. The area lights are only at 4% intensity. Graham

I am not saying that the light bleeding does not occur. From what I have been able to deduce it has something to do with how the Raytrace engine deals with light rays as they bounce off of the ceiling surface. This is most prevalent when both the exterior lighting and the interior lighting are of high intensity. It can be controlled by making adjustments to the lighting sources and at times the ceiling surface properties. Unfortunately I have not downloaded X8 and as such I am unable to look at your posted plan. Graham

Suggest you take Terrys advice and use the built-in library down load manger. I'm a bit hesitant to provide more details on copying program related directories and files for a system that I cannot actually see. If something is amiss you may have to reinstall Chief and then you are back to zero again. Graham

There are also files in your Documents, Chief Architect X7 folder that needs to be copied to the X8 folder. Graham

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