TheKitchenAbode

Joe, I know that the information and capability exists. Unfortunately not all software is written/designed in a way to easily accommodate full scaling. This issue is highly evident in Website design, in the past everything was based upon a typical fixed sized screen layout. Today screens vary widely in both physical size and pixel density. New properly designed websites now retrieve the screen characteristics which defines the overall available area, the inside layout/structure is then defined relative to this. Even this has it's limitations and as you mention graphic elements are a different challenge over text and layout structure. Pinch/Zoom on touch screen phones, tablets and now monitors are good examples where straight forward magnification is being used. Text is fine as fonts are designed for scaling but images start to fall apart if their base resolution is too low and the big penalty is that you reduce the amount of visible information as you zoom in. Graham

Unfortunately I don't think time travel has not been discovered here. I believe that the "Created Date" is the date that the file was placed in it's current directory, which may or may not be related to it's original date of creation. Graham

You must be wearing your more expensive glasses, font size has been lowered. Just Kidding!! Unfortunately there is no way to adjust scaling for an individual program. Windows settings does permit scaling, but it will effect every program. The only issue with this is that not everything scales properly, especially if you set things too large. It all depends on how the software defines the screen and positioning of elements, most use a combination of absolute and relative position and sizing values and as such an overall DPI scaling factor can result in some unusual effects. Things should improve in the future though as this is becoming more important due to the wide range of screen sizes coming into the market. Until then I, like you, have to put my reading glasses on. Graham

That's why I covered my butt by saying "just a guess". Looking closer the siding breaks do appear to align with the interior wall intersects as you noted. If the plan was posted then maybe it could be resolved in less than 13 posts. Only 7 postings left to go after this one. Graham

Just a guess, maybe you need to increase the thickness of the siding material region. Graham

Glad this helped Greg. I have learned over the years to temper my system tweaking and as a result I seem to have fewer issues. Too many times those tweaks that seemed beneficial at the time would only lead to unexpected issues later on. On top of that it was very difficult to resolve a problem as I would rarely remember what my tweak settings were or my premise for doing it in the first place. Also, I you need outside tech support it is really difficult or impossible for them to assist if you have altered things from their original settings. Some things are just best left alone, if it ain't broke then why fix it, or maybe better why waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel. Graham

Having everything on the SSD drive is as good as it gets. Use the other HDD for archiving, or infrequently accessed files if your SSD is getting full. Also, not sure splitting up core Chief files is the best idea, Chief has default locations for file storage and if you change these you will likely have to do this each time you upgrade. From my perspective you are best to leave things as per the software developers design, although it may not appear obvious they usually have solid reasoning for setting things up a certain way. Graham

Is the camera in the room or is it outside with clipping or looking through a door opening into the room. The lights used in camera views are determined by the lights that are in the same room as the camera. Also check the light fixtures light data DBX, at the bottom there are options to display the fixture in all view types, camera view only and raytrace only, make sure the appropriate boxes are checked. Graham

Not aware of any size limitations, might as well download them, you can always delete the ones you don't end up using. Graham

There is no tilt angle for a point light, it emmits light in all directions. You need to change the light type to a spot light, then you can adjust the tilt angle. Just remember each of those sconces have three bulbs, need to change all of them. Graham

Library, Bonus Catalogs, Kitchen Acessories, Cabinet Trim Graham

Karl, pleased that you found this helpfull. There are also a number of informative reviews and comparisons at this site. http://www.tomshardware.com/. They provide updated "best picks" within differing price levels. Graham

You should post the plan. It's not possible to provide specific guidance without it, just too many variables. Graham

From my investigations it appears that SSD's have about the same overall reliability as a traditional HDD. Most current SDD's have their own built-in software to manage everything so they are best to be left alone. Newer ones also have management software to address the writing limitations so the same cell is not being constantly written to. However nothing is infallible, "always back-up". Graham

The other thing to watch out for is if you mistakenly encompass a camera within your selection. The rotate handle will only display if all of the selected items are rotatable. Graham

Here's a link to a review several cards comparing 2GB & 4GB and high resolution performance. Worth reading. http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/6389/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-4gb-review-what-difference-does-extra-vram-make Graham

Not sure what the real advantage is with a software Ramdisk. When you boot-up the program still has to be loaded from your other drive into the dedicated memory ram area, this is no different than what happens when you first start a program. I understand that while the program is running in the dedicated memory area it is also saving/backing up the files to your Ram. This would be faster, but I have never sensed any system slowness due to this. Also, if your system crashes or there is a power glitch everything is lost as your working file and it's backups are only in your volatile Ram. Graham

Perry, could do, it just depends on the number of programs running, their RAM requirements and the number of active working files. Checking Task Manager will show RAM usage so you can see how much of the 12 is being used. I know that some video editing software and Photoshop, depending on the working file size, can really eat up RAM. Most other regular programs such as Office including Chief are not overly demanding and 8GB should rarely be exceeded. Graham

To get the maximum performance from an SSD it must be setup as your primary boot drive with the operating system, programs must be installed on it and your active files must be on it. It will now be your "C" drive. If you have retained your former hard drive it will now be "D" and you would use it for archiving purposes. The SSD only improves program/file read/write operations. Once your program and file is loaded into Ram then the SSD does not have much impact, It would only provide a benefit if you have too little Ram which would then necessitate file swapping which should not be an issue if you have 8GB of Ram or more. Graham

Just an added note. From my experimentation the speckels/grains appear to be somewhat related to the how light is treated as it passes through another material such as a window or lamp shade. Point lights and sunlight are prime examples. If you turn off the point lights or sunlight and the speckles/grains disappear or significantly reduce then this is where the main issue is. If the lighting is needed then you can either reduce the light intensity or adjust the lamp shade or glass properties to minimize this effect. Increasing transparency or reducing diffusion or both can help. Graham

As Mike suggests, you can turn off photon mapping to eliminate this or run more passes, might take 50 or more to clean things up. If you want the look that photon mapping provides with less speckles you can try reducing down the intensity of your lights, turning lights off or decreasing the diffusion on some of the materials. From the pic it looks like the floor standing lamp by the wall pics is way too bright. Even if your overall scene appears on the dark side you can always use the intensity, softness and brightness controls to correct for this. Graham

Agree Larry, I give Cinebench a high level of consideration as it is based on Cinema 4D which is a 3d rendering program that is highly CPU and Open GL dependent. As you mention there is also Passmark and several others such as WinZip and SiSoft Sandra Benchmarks that provide a good indication of CPU performance. Tom's Hardware also provides benchmarks for Blender, Photoshop, Word, Excel and other specific programs and games. All of these should be taken into consideration as our systems are used for more than just Raytracing. The challenge for most is finding the appropriate balance that addresses specific performance, multi-tasking and video needs within some budgetary restraint. Unfortunately there will always be compromises until the day comes that we can get a quantum computer for $1,500, at which time we will no longer be needed ​ Graham

Andy, not sure what CPUs' or benchmark test(s) you are using to base your rendering speed conclusions on. I primarily focus on the Cinebench comparisons as strong indicator of Raytrace rendering performance. Currently Intel I7 4th, 5th and the newest 6th generation series easily outperform the AMD FX8350. The AMD is less expensive but if one considers the performance gain of say an Intel I7 Skylake 6700k provides I think the extra dollars are well worth it. Graham

Personally Chief in itself is not a particularily demanding program unless Raytracing or using live camera views or walkthroughs with shadows and lots of line smoothing are required or your models are huge. I have run Chief on 10 year old systems with integrated video without any real issues per say. However, for most users, including myself, Chief is not the only program that is being run on their system and as such you have to take into account the cumulative effect of all of these programs and their demand on your system resources. Keep in mind that they all have to share to some degree the CPU, GPU, RAM and Disk Storage. Most real problems occur when two or more programs need to utilize the same resource at the same time. For example, a Raytrace is running in the background and a pic is being edited in Photoshop, both of these programs are highly CPU dependent and as such there will be a slowing down in their completion time and quite likely a noticeable lag as you execute commands or movement. In order to anticipate potential system bottlenecks requires one to take a hard look at the software being run and your workflow setup. From this you can then establish a prioritized list of where system resource sharing conflicts are most likely to occur and therefore where your dollars will deliver the greatest return on investment. Graham

Well said Dennis. There are settings, lights and, material types & properties that all impact on a scences final look. Add to this the users intent and the time one is willing to spend, there are many variables one needs to get thier head rapped around in order to generate a predictable and consistent scene. As you indicate, there is no simple single type of switch one can flip to make it all come together. Given this reality I can only suggest that one must take the time to systematically experiment with a scene in an attempt to understand how it is impacted by a particular setting adjustment. In the meantime, as Shelby did, post your issue and there are many great people here that are more than willing to share their experiences and knowledge to assist. This original posting is a great example, within about 4 hours the improvement in the Raytrace result is Night & Day. Graham