TheKitchenAbode

Scott - You've identified correctly the techniques I used. Point lights, those vanity wall sconces, require a bit of playing around with to create a similar look without actually having them set as a point light. Just changing them to a spot light will not be good enough. In this example I just turned them off. Increase the glass luminance to make it look light and then aimed a 3d light directly at each one to make the wall behind appear brighter. It's important to turn the shadows off on these so you do not get the sconce shadow showing up from the front facing light source. You can then adjust the 3D lights drop off rate and beam angle to get the desired amount of glow behind the sconce. Given the speed of rendering you are now achieving you can now play around with different settings and see the effect usually with no more than 3 passes. That's only about 30 seconds and you will know the effect. Beats waiting an 20 minutes or more only to find out you need to make more changes. Graham

Looks like you are well on your way to happy Raytrace times. 10 passes in 1 minute and 48 seconds. Best I could do was about 9 minutes for the same scene and settings. Also, what this exercise has demonstrated is the significant difference that light settings can have on Raytrace times. For your system the original plan with all the lights on and those point lights it took about 1 hour & 45 minutes for 10 passes. By just shutting off non scene relevant lights and changing the points to spots you dropped your Raytrace time down below 2 minutes for the same number of passes. Now the real question is what are you going to do with all of that freed time. Graham

Scott - Here's the Riverstone plan with my camera settings. Just open the bathroom camera (identified in red) and run a Raytrace. The Raytrace is set to run 10 passes. After you can adjust the intensity, contrast, saturation, etc. Also recommend you try the suggestions provided above by Jon. He has a lot of experience with this and from the posted images from him that I have seen it really shows. Graham Riverstone_Abode.zip

Should be ok now. Abode 15026.zip

Does the attached zipped file not open? Things were a bit slow. Will try again in a few hours, just on my tablet now. Thanks, Graham

Hi Scott, I am only on my tablet right now but it looks as if there are no lights turned on in the bathroom or the direction angle is not correct or the watts are to low. From the other DBX shots the settings appear to be correct. What I will do is zip up my plan file and you can explore the lighting I setup. This is on my system at the studio so I will not be able to send it until tomorrow morning. When you run this I would be really interested in the time to render. Graham

This is just a guess. The wall angles in the original plan have a lot of decimal places. Maybe there is a limit on what Chief can handle. The sections I played with have only full degree angles.

Ok attached this time. Abode Curved Wall 15026.zip

Here is the original plan with my section. Maybe some one can confirm.

Don't know why, but I moved a section away and was able to join them properly. X7

For me there are times when I am working on several concept plans for the same project. Will have a layout file and then relink depending upon what I need to send to the client. As you can imagine, things can get a bit mixed up now and then. Need a safety switch just to make sure the wrong thing does not automatically flow through. Graham

Thanks Joe. For myself I would prefer to have a warning/option before things filter through. As Sherry mentioned, just an indicator as to which layout pages are out of sync with the associated plan would be ideal. I can the go in and make sure they are correct before updating.

I know the plan view gets updated upon layout opening but on my layouts the elevations do not update. I must open the elevation and then it only updates when I close the elevation view. Is there a setting that I am missing? Graham

That would be very useful.

I am in complete agreement with you. I was likely pointing out the obvious but thought it to be important to stress why shadows are such an important part of Architecture. This not only applies to design presentation drawings but also to the finished structure both exterior & interior. They must however be anticipated, used and controlled correctly to ensure they are working for you and not against you. Graham

There's been some great demonstrations presented here on applying shadows to elevations. An important consideration as demonstrated by Scotts examples and his client feedback relates to how this effect can be perceived. Adding shadows or any other effect will alter focal points, visual weight and either emphasize or deemphasize particular characteristics of the structure. As with any artistic effect it must be used with a high degree of consideration to these visual impacts so as to ensure an improved design presentation. Graham

I believe that the other formats are actually generated as images versus vector based elevations.

Some separate freehand drawing (sketching) tools would be useful. There are times where it would be great to have the ability to markup proposals in a more casual manner, especially in the earlier design concept stages. As the OP mentions, to do this currently requires an auxiliary program to either make the sketches up and export/import them as say jpegs or exporting the Chief doc into the sketching program. Would save a lot of time if this could be done in just one program. Graham

Scott had me intrigued with his comment/observation that with the room fill turned on then the material region CAD object could not be positioned between a fixture such as the toilet and the floor room fill. From what I can deduce it appears that the room fill object is treated similar to an Architectural Object and is therefore in the same Group as the toilet. On the other hand the material region is a CAD Object and as such it is a different group. Chief does not permit dissimilar objects to be moved (positioned) within any group other than it's own. When objects of dissimilar groups are superimposed you can only position one grouping in front of or behind the other grouping. in Scotts situation the solid white room fill & the toilet are considered to be in the same Group. A grid overlay derived by setting a fill in a Material Region or closed Polyline is a CAD Object and as such it can only be placed either in front of or behind the room fill & toilet Object Group. There is a way around this if one needs a solid colour background with a grid overlay. - Room fill "None". - Make Room Polyline, set fill to background colour. - Make Room Polyline, set fill to desired hatch. "Check" Transparent Pattern Background. You can now move the grid and solid background behind the toilet object grouping and everything will wrap properly. I used the Room Polyline instead of the Floor Material Regions as the Room Polyline is purely CAD based, no need to be concerned about changes to the floor in other views. Hope this helps, Graham

Forgot to mention. - Open Object (material region) - Line Style - under Drawing Group check "Back Group"

You can adjust the transparency of the fill if you are using X7.

Agree Joe - would be great to have full control over every element of a cabinet, including the box construction. Would really like to be able to lock those internal sections so they would not constantly readjust every time I change something. Just making a simple cubby hole wine rack can be a real pain, when the client decides a larger cabinet with 2 more 5 x 5 cubbies are needed. Have to reset everyone one of then again including the separations. Not sure about your approach but I usually build stuff like this with individual cabinets and then block them. Graham

Joe - was just demonstrating another way as you had already suggested the match front option. Have used this many times. Often however when I am just doing shelving units they area rarely based on 5/8" or 3/4" materials or traditional face framed construction. Need solid 2" - 4" look all around for a more modern/contemporary look. Plan, elevation & renderings must be correct. I am not aware of any other way to achieve this if I want to use the cabinet controls. Any suggestions? Graham

Posted 13 May 2015 - 03:39 PM Would this do the job? This has all of the functions and properties of a wall cabinet. Just change front doors as usual. This was done by making the cabinet box material 100% transparency. Added left & right side panels 1/16" to make sides solid. Used molding applied top and bottom to make tops & bottom. Alternatively you can use the symbol offset origin to place a 5/8" or 3/4" panel flush inside the cabinet boundaries versus using a 1/16" panel applied on the outside. Also shelves can be used to create the top and bottom versus my molding technique. Graham Open Back Wall Cabinet.calibz

Make the cabinet material 100% transparent and place side panels on it. You can use shelves to rebuild the top & bottom. I poste a model about a week ago on the same subject. Give it a try. Graham