TheKitchenAbode

Just remember that if you wish the material orientation to show properly in all view & camera types you need to change the material rotation in both the "Pattern" & "Texture" settings in the Material DBX. Graham

I've solved the problem. "SSA regular price $540. Renew on or before your expiry date and save $95." Now it's not a penalty. It's a bonus for renewing Graham

Besides and Email notification, when you activate Chief there is a notice on the Welcome screen, bottom left, as to the date of SSA expiry and a Renew link. Graham

If you are operating a business then the SSA fee is peanuts, equates to about $1.35 per day, less than a coffee!! Not a bad deal considering how crucial this software is to my business. Having access to ongoing software updates and additional libraries benefits both myself and clients. The fee also provides Chief with additional funding to support software development, which if you monitor this forum, is being requested almost every minute of the day. I make money using Chief and Chief makes money by me using Chief, looks like capitalism is working the way it was intended. If the SSA fee is such a burden then there's a problem in the 1st part of this equation!!! Graham

Well said !!! I have been using Chief for about 12 years and have never encountered a situation where I could not accomplish something. Yes there are times when what I require is not attainable through some automated function, that's when you have to dig a little deeper and do it manually. I really do not see the latter as being a "work around". This combination of automated and manual function is prevalent in all major productivity software. Just take a look at Excel, it's been evolving for over 30 years and even with all the expertise at Microsoft you really can't do much with it unless you are willing to dig in deep. Considering the cost of Chief and the annual support fee I believe you would not find a better valued package out there. For those not paying the support fee consider this; how do you think Chief funds development to improve it's products? Graham

Pleased that I was able to assist. Just keep an eye on those point lights as they can be problematic and will increase your Raytrace time. Unlike spot lights, point lights require far more complex algorithms to compute the lighting effect. As the light source emits from within a lamp shade or glass surround then the materials for these will alter the lighting effect. Those "Firefly's" or excessive grainy white spots if not too severe should clean-up after several passes, if not then you need to make some adjustments. Maybe the best way to envision those "Firefly's" is to think of them as blown-out highlights as in photography. Just a theory but I believe these are points where too many light rays from differing sources are diverging at a singular point, which may be why reducing the light intensity or changing the light fixtures shade material resolves the problem. Graham

Select "custom" and set the percentage. Just tried 5% and that seems to work well. Graham

Reduce the light intensity. You can do this for all of the lights in the scene. The pendants are 100 watt each, drop them to 24 watt. This will help. Graham

The issue relates to the glass jar pendants over the island. The glass material is "Shinny White". Go to the material DBX "Properties" and set the diffusion setting to "0", it's currently set at 100%. Alternatively you can set the material to "General", reduce the "Diffusion" and increase the "Transparency". I used your first posted plan drawing. Here is the same scene with the diffusion set at 0. No other changes were made. Graham

​You will need to set the offset from ceiling in the recessed light fixture DBX. You can also locate the recessed light fixture in an elevation view and drag it down to the underside of the valance. The issue is that the valance is not seen as a true ceiling surface and as such the fixture automatically locates to the real ceiling above. Graham

Try adjusting the Interior Ambient light setting in the 3D camera view settings. This is equivalent to an overall brightness setting. In Camera View only 8 lights max will be used to brighten your scene and as such there will be a limit to using lights. Also, in Camera View lights are not computed as they are in a RayTrace so surfaces not directly in the light path often appear darker. Graham

Suspect that any LED strip light will have to be a simulation. Would not want to have each LED point count as an individual light source, RayTrace times would be totally unacceptable. Graham

​What driver/hardware is it? Graham

Perry, when you say can't upgrade what happens. Does it fail and then reverts back to your previous Windows version? If this is happening I know there are some issues concerning Dells original OEM recovery partition. Had this with a 6 year old Dell laptop, the solution was to delete the partition and then the uprade completed properly. Graham

The reality is that there is not and never has been a 100% guarantee that an upgrade will go through without a hitch. There are just too many variables in system hardware and software to cover them all. From my experience with Windows 10 and the many tech forums I follow on a daily basis it appears that Microsoft has resolved most of the major issues and as such your upgrade should go through. Should you encounter an issue it is now easier to resolve due to there being a lot more info available now online in comparison to when Windows 10 was first released. Graham

Have been running Windows 10 on 5 systems (2 laptops, 2 desktops & 1 tablet) since it's first release. There were a few issues back then but with all of the updates everything now appears to be running well. Quite comfortable to recommend upgrading to those who have been hesitating. As always, make sure you have all of your important things backed up. Graham

Just checked this 8 light limitation on OpenGL.org. They indicate that the limitation is the graphics card manufacturers and that OpenGL will in fact support more than 8 lights. Appears that most lighting in gaming is handled by shaders or other methods and not the built-in light function. Graham

I use the fluorescent tube fixture, adjust the width & length. Then place it under the cabinet and then adjust the height so that only a small amount of the lens/tube projects below the cabinet. Will give you the proper look and you can control the lighting effect. Graham

Same for me. Just use my TV for client presentations. TVs are designed to be viewed from a certain minimum distance, not conducive in a work desk/station environment. If you are too close you will likely experience eye strain and as mentioned above you tend to have to keep moving your head a lot to focus on a particular region of the screen. With a regular sized true monitor everything is within your field of vision. Bigger is not always better!!! Graham

I use the partition under cabinets. When I use this technique every element can not only be controlled as far as size, position & material but every element can be dimensioned. Just depends on the detail you require. Graham

I always build shower enclosures using partitions for everything. Just size and stack accordingly. Find that this gives me full control over every element. If the shape is odd or curved then I use a countertop, slab or psolid. Just change the partition material to tile, glass or whatever. Graham

Not aware of that ability either. However in the Raytrace settings DBX there really isn't that much to play with, especially if you have Photon Mapping & Caustics on. Setting these on tends to override or minimize the effect of the settings in the general settings section. Is it the Raytrace settings or the light settings in your plan that you are needing to constantly adjust? Graham

Hi Johnny, I'm in full agreement. Having the capacity for 4K and actually delivering acceptable performance are two distinctly different parameters. I understand that from other postings that some users who have gone the 4K route have been experiencing performance related issues. That's a lot of pixels to crunch and without some top notch hardware one is likely to experience some lag, especially if they are multi-tasking at the same time. Just imagine running a video, having a Raytrace running in the background while working in Chiefs camera view. Graham

The GeForce line from the 660 and up have 4k capability, including the Titan series. Johnny makes a good point concerning image quality on a Tv versus a true monitor. Keep in mind that on a very large screen Tv that those pixels are spread out over a very large area. Sharpness is a function of pixel density, the bigger the screen the more pixels just to keep the same image quality. Graham

There are many models and configurations in the Envy lineup. Could you be a bit more specific? I checked on some models from 2 years ago, even if you only have the integrated graphic, most likely hd4600, it is capable of higher than 1080. Specs indicate about 3k for the HDMI output. It would appear that the Tv is not being setup properly within your laptops display settings. Graham