mrscott

On 11/17/2017 at 4:25 AM, Rich_Winsor said:

Who says that you can't achieve "photo quality" Ray Traces with Chief?

I would be willing to wager that the creator's of Chief never imagined that

this image would be generated with their software.

Rick,

This is the best example of RT ever...amazing results produced completely inside of Chief...I gave you thumbs up for this one too.

I just posted to DesignerInk’s beautiful work and step to reproduce. Would you do the same for with your image? Again, absolutely stunning.

Thanks for sharing,

6 hours ago, Designers_Ink said:

Here are some non-360 pano shots of the same room using the same Physically Based Rendering settings as above.  They are saved at 3000 x 1534 at 600 dpi as a .png file just using the export command.  When I did a raytrace on these before, it took about 8 hours to get about 15 passes due to the details and lights.  These took about 90 seconds to save.  Huge time savings, especially if you want to show clients a few different options quickly.    

 

  

 

Well, I can honestly say your work is the first  living proof “I have seen” that in the right hands quality results are achievable in Chief X10. Not that others have not shown us some good stuff, you Sir, have backed up your work up with “How it is done in the real world” example of what X10 can produce. 

This harkens back to a thread I started over a year ago (will send you the link) where “Chief Only” RT work could be shared so the “Rest of Us” could learn how to master RT without the aide of third party post production. The intent, which never took root, was for user to produce simple yet thorough video of their process. Showcasing ones work is nothing more than grandstanding but to share your fndngs shows the mark of a true gentlemen and professional. 

Absolutely stunning work. Thank you for sharing,

On 7/9/2014 at 2:37 AM, Rich_Winsor said:

Here is my latest entry in CA's Pool design contest.

In paying homage to the great M. C. Escher I have

created a self-filling pool. The secret is all in your

point of view.

 

 

 Nicely Done!

Do you know if these elements have been improved in later versions? Other than those two elements, how does it compare to Chief in completing a set of accurate CONDOCs including, materials, framing, etc?

Great thread and fine responses from a well respected group of users. I do have one question(s) to any that feel are qualified to respond.

THE FOLLOWING IS DIRECTED ONLY AT RESIDENTIAL DESIGN AND CONDOCS

With respect to Sketch 2018 Pro and Revit 2018 (EXCLUSIVE OF COST)...for a complete and structurally accurate (framing, etc) design and Construction software package, would you still choose Chief

Considerations:

I have heard Revit is complicated to learn but hey Chief is no Sunday Stroll in the park either, especially when it lacks...well, take stairs and go from there, and Sketch is relatively easy but requires a lot of plug-ins to do things that Chief does out of the box.

P.S. I love and have made too big an investment in time, if not money, in Chief to abandoned using it but must be honest. Lately, I have started looking at other options.

Thank you,

Michael,

For me, the bottom line is how straight forward and intuitive a program is to use. Some people catch on quickly to many challenging applications. Hell, I've been drawing with Chief since X5 but only in the past 2 years have I really started to seriously focus on it. You know, we've spoken, you and I. I am not and will never be the kind of user like you and many other power dudes are, and that's okay. I'm glad guys like you give us the time of day and guide us along the way through Chief! Funny, I can still see and hear my brother when I got the first Commodor 64. 5-1/4 floppies and all, he looked at me as said, "When you can tell that thing what you want and it does it, I'll buy one!"  Well, he's come around since and is an avid user. My point...Software needs to be intuitive enough for the mass audience a company needs to grow and prosper. You, my friend, are not the one to comment here because what comes easy and ho hum (because that's how you think and that's cool - I envy you!) but for many others, what you do in your sleep we have to struggle with for days. It's programs like Lumion that are doing it right, and that is why I did not hesitate to get onboard. I just wish I wasn't fighting Chief so much to get what I want done so I could spend time in Lumion, Where lumber need to go on plan by the CPU should not drive how we look at it. If I am on level 1 (first floor) then I want to draw and view everything that is associated with the 1st Floor on the 1st Floor. What's wrong with that? Let the computer figure out the best and correct place to print it and order it to the layout. All I want to do is sort by layer for the first floor. I know that was very simple and probably lame to all you construction gurus out there. I do understand a good bit about the process but!  The avg Joe just wants to draw a correct set of plans then move onto construction, and maybe make it pretty and realistic looking in the process to attract a potential buyer, Okay, I've gone on too long again, sorry. Perhaps I need to sit with someone does 400 plans a year that has a system of spiting these things out. Then maybe I'll get a system down. Chief is a LOVE HATE relationship for me. I will continue to renew my SSA each year and support those who are true guides and mentors. Speaking of...There is only one person I have met that has been a true inspiration and an honest help in me getting organize with Chief. Cudos to Jared Baehmer. His template work is amazing, straight forward and as help me more in the last few months than I have through all other channels combined. He takes his and is patient in explaining and work through areas until you get it. If someone needs REAL help getting established with Chief He's there man! I could rattle of a number of others, like yourself, that have helped and been and inspiration along the way, but I will probably forget someone so I will not try.

BTW, I will get a Lumion video done :-)

On 1/8/2018 at 6:23 PM, Kbird1 said:

 

it plays in VLC but is only 2 secs long. ( 1mb file )  WMP didn't show anything....

 

Movies and TV App plays it too and showsa pic when finished unlike VLC

 

M.

Will have to try on desktop and not iPhone.

thanks

1 hour ago, jonboy112352 said:

Yes it is .... render time is only seconds, you can make a movie in minutes, adjust lighting in seconds. Very easy to adjust materials but just like anything it takes time to learn. This was a test that I did a while back. Nothing special.

Plams front 4.20.17.mp4

Johnny, it’s not playing! 

30 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

 

 

You say this, but I haven't seen any examples from you.  If its really that easy, can you just quickly render a scene and post an example?

Sure! Just been VERY busy get plans done for paying clients. Only break briefly to respond to these msgs. I will do one better.... how about a video show the actual process?

Later!

I think those of us the have it we were all trying to tell everyone that Lumion 8 TRULY IS "What you see is what you get!" And unlike Chief, VERY INTUITIVE TO LEARN AND FUN TO BOOT!

Welcome aboard!

7 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Hi Scott,

 

Happy New Year! Sounds as if you are having a lot of fun with Lumion 8, looking forward to seeing some of your results. 

Happy New Year to too! Only briefly as I have been very busy with Design projects and have been blessed in that area with more than I expected to be doing at this time. It's a bit of a mixed blessing as I would like to spend time in Lumion and dig in deep. I love modeling but really want to transform the model into a realistic animated show piece but have to focus on my customers first. I'm already booked for the next few months  and have and interview next Friday for another remodeling job so... Life is Good! Have you the time to delve into Lumion? 

On 11/8/2017 at 9:22 AM, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

"In the sample scenes below, I used Daytime Style for both Exterior and Interior. What you see in the Teaser is really what you'll get."

 

I'm not question your integrity or Lumion's.  I have repeatedly and always stated that this program can deliver exception results, way beyond the capabilities of Ray Trace.

 

I only choose that one because it was focused on more than the others. I did not state that the rendering was bad, just attempting to get a handle on what it really takes to get those spectacular results. Your demonstration of those new features is valid, but those one-clickers did not produce a truly photo realistic rendering.

 

Please try not to interpret my questioning as an attempt to undermine your efforts or qualifications, that is not my intention at all; and try not taking such a strong defensive position and I'm certain you would find the conversation to be far more fruitful and beneficial to all.

Graham,

I recently purchased Lumion 8 Pro and can Attest to the authenticity of Lumion 8's sample styles ARE "WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET!"!!!!!!  Open, Load, and push the button. UTTERLY AMAZING!!!!!  So, with all due respect.....Jintu is true to His word and one of the few I know of Real Integrity, like yourself, willing to help those like me with less knowledge but a work of interest and desire.

Thank you all! 

What happened to this post?

Hi mrscott, 
SMCDesign has posted a comment on a topic, Lumion 8 rendering teaser video 
 

— ChiefTalk Forum

1 hour ago, Chopsaw said:

Just let us know if you need specific clarification on an issue as you go and we will try to help.  This is a little beyond the general chief knowledge base or training video's so it is great to see someone like you giving it a try.  I just sent in a bug report today on one of the procedures that is a little confusing in the way it functions so that is how the software keeps improving when people like you and your customers keep on asking great questions.

 

If this ceiling is all you need to finish off a plan then it might be a good idea to make a test plan of the basic room size and try out some of the suggested procedures and then you can also post that file or create some screen shots so we can see your progress.

Well said ChopSaw! And yes, a tremendous effort on the part of ShowMeChief (SMC) to tackle such a complex ceiling. Assuming SMC is willing, we could all learn from a step by step with pics. Myself, I would record a video talking through the steps and forget all the text. User could watch and pause as they follow along.

As an aside, and given my limited knowledge, I keep thinking how any element we use in a plan can one day translate to a material list. You can go to the lumber yard and order a soffit or a slab or a Psolid. Granted the Chief elements do make a beautiful model, as SMC has demonstrated, but how will Chief these parts in a Material list for pricing and ordering?

Again, great effort SMC and cudos to all who helped in the process.

5 minutes ago, ShowmeCHIEF said:

Chop & Solver, thanks for the suggestions here. I,ve only been using Cheif for about 9 months so I dont totally follow but I am going to give a try. Thanks

 

Don’t feel bad, I’ve been using Chief since X7 and I still have trouble. Thank the good Lord for all the Gurus here.

BTW, I love your handle “ShowMeChief”. I should change mine to “HelpMePlease”. LOL!

33 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

This^^^^ is Ed Zachary the first thing what came to mind for me as well.  And by "plan view" I think Eric was kinda assuming you would understand this meant you would be drawing it all parallel to the Z plane.  Just an aside to that, but I might personally draw all the beams as usual and only draw the trim per Eric's suggestion.  

 

That and/or using solid extrusions and boolean operations (could be drawn parallel/perpendicular to axes or not).  After inspecting the picture above a little better, I'm really thinking the solids might be a necessity at some point.  

 

At any rate, it's definitely doable but it will likely require learning a good handful of other tricks along the way as well. Probably a good exercise.  

Yup! Looks like PSolid subtraction operation to me. Could be done but has nothing to do with how it would be done in the real world. If you can’t make it ...Fake it! Kind of Sad really. We can drawn fully layered walls but not the ceiling in the picture.

2 hours ago, Jay_on_Cape said:

Yes, it is current.  I meant I'll hold off on Lumion for the time being.  I usually don't start using a new release until at least a few months to even another version after it is released.

Sorry,

I was seeing X10 when the new release of Lumion is 8. I love Chief and the PBR is great but not yet where Lumion has been and is now even better. Chief is making great strides but until it is as easy to use as Lumion I’ll build on Chief and finish in Lumion. It’s too easy to place materials, lighting and well control the whole environment in Lumion I made could no longer hold out waiting for an All-in-one package from chief. Yes, it’s $3400 but what you can do with a great Chief Collada model is frankly, Amazing!!!!! From furniture, textiles, materials to a 3D person walking a dog, even a piece of pie on the dinner table. It truly is a whole new world that will sell that model you worked so hard to get right.

if you have not tried the Trial don’t! Unless you intend to purchase it. Once you experience Lumion 8 you’ll be hooked!

1 hour ago, Jay_on_Cape said:

Sounds good!!  I'll hold off until X10 comes out.

Jay,

I think your ssa has to be current for the license to X10 is available in your account. Otherwise, you pay a higher price for X10.

54 minutes ago, Dermot said:

Scott,

 

That looks like a very nice laptop and Chief should perform very well on it.  I personally would have a hard time justifying the price though.  At almost $3000 it's pretty much on the high-end of the price range for laptops.  I suspect that you would also get good performance out of a machine that is half as much.  Typically, spending twice as much will not give you twice the performance of a good machine (on the low-end maybe but not on the high-end).  I would guess that you would only get something like 10% better performance.  Whether or not spending that much more for the added performance is worth it to you depends a lot on your business model and personal preferences. 

Dermot,

thanks for for your reply and honest thoughts. Your point is well taken. What concerns me is the rapid acceleration the demand of software is placing on all of us. When I built my Dual Xeon the decision was based mainly on the fact that ray Tracing performs better with more cores. Today, it appears Rendering has improved in many Design and rendering developers offerings with more demand placed on GPU’s and less on core count. So, I’m leaning toward I7’s-8700k 3.7GHz - 4.3GHz clock speed and 6 cores and dual GTX 1070’s 8GB each in SLI all in a Laptop. This will give me all I need on the road and at the office in one package....at least for the next few years.

Just now, Kbird1 said:

Ahhh ok , thought you were still asking for ideas/recommendations .....Sager has a great name , has for years as Mark said....  but with your budget any laptop should be incredible...

 

no way I'd go back to 24" monitors after switching to a couple of 32" ones though ...just saying..... but maybe you don't need to save a $1000 to get them too

 

Mick.

Mick,

The external Monitors are part of my Workstation config and don't plan to upgrade those anytime soon. I also have a 46" 1920 x 1080 display as my 4th monitor above the other 3. BUDGET....well, I would like to stay under 3K but as we have all come to learn with technology, Moore's Law is out the Window these days so, it is best to get the Best you can today are risk upgrading soon than expected and well, there goes the any sort of budgeting.

Thanks to Mark I have tabled the MSI unit and am actually looking at this one. 

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP9877-S.html

10 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

A 500GB PCIe 960 EVO (vs Pro) should be easily enough ( what I have in my Desktop) , save the money and get a 1 or 2 TB 7200RPM HD instead for Storage ( 5400 slow but ok for just Storage , they use them to keep heat down)

 

Possibly 2 x 960 EVO 500GB since you have the Budget....( do you need more than a Terabyte Total?) if the Computer is Raid 0 capable , not sure Raid is needed with PCIe .M2 drives though....

Kbird,

I can't modify the MSI unit so I model the two SAGER offerings as best as I could to mirror their "upgrade offerings"  to get the price as close as possible to the MSI. I agree with Mark as, too, would like the 8700 6 core at 3.7GHz standard clock speeds BUT, SAGER is not a on Lumion 8 recommended list of Gold level Laptops so, I will need to check with them first.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

33 minutes ago, MarkMc said:

You can get all that and an 8700k for the same money

Mark,

This is what I found.

Point me to where I can and I'll take a look. So far I am not finding it.

opps! Found it. https://www.sagernotebook.com/Intel-Core-i7-8700K/

Drives are smaller and less ram to stay under  $3K 

Thanks,

MSI GT73VR TITAN PRO-872 17.3" 120Hz 5ms Display Extreme Gaming Laptop i7-7820HK GTX 1080 8G 32GB 1TB SSD + 1TB

• Display: 17.3" FHD, Anti-Glare Wide View Angle 120Hz 5ms 94% NTSC 1920 x 1080 | Keyboard: Steel Series Full-color backlight with Anti-Ghost key + silver lining
• CPU: Intel Core i7-7820HK (2.9 - 3.9GHz)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8G GDDR5X
• RAM: 32GB (16G*2) DDR4 2400MHz 4 Sockets; Max Memory 64GB | HDD: Super RAID 1TB SSD [512GB*2] M.2 SATA + 1TB (SATA) 7200rpm
• Special Features: 120Hz 5ms Display | VR Ready | RGB Steel Series Keyboard | Nahimic 2 Audio | Thunderbolt 

I've passed my Laptop onto my wife and I need to have a laptop for field work. I also need this power house (i7-7820HK running 2.9 - 3.9 Ghz boost out of the box) it is overclockable, and the 1080 8gb Titan GTX GPU all to make Lumion 8 Pro sing! My Dual Xeon works okay with Lumion it is only slightly above the acceptable benchmarks recommendation so, it's time to get upgrade. Yes this laptop is bigger and heavier than my current Del (see specs in signature), I will also be able to take advantage of the Thunderbolt 3 port to attached my three external 24" monitors and essentially have a new Workstation all-in-one. Given how I am ranking the value for $2999.00, I'm confident there is little out there that will surpass it at this price point. 

On 9/28/2017 at 10:49 AM, Dermot said:

We use laptops for all of our trade shows and training computers. 

 

You can review our minimum and recommended system requirements here:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/sysreq.html

 

My personal preference would be to get one with an Intel I7 multi-core processor (7th or 8th gen), 16 GB of ram or more, an SSD drive, and a GeForce video card with a minimum of 4 GB of card memory (the 1070 with 8 GB looks like a pretty nice card), and as large of a screen as you are willing to haul around.

Demot.

What would you buy TODAY? I just passed my current Laptop (listed in my signature) and am looking at the 

MSI GT73VR TITAN PRO-872 17.3" 120Hz 5ms Display Extreme Gaming Laptop i7-7820HK GTX 1080 8G 32GB 1TB SSD + 1TB

• Display: 17.3" FHD, Anti-Glare Wide View Angle 120Hz 5ms 94% NTSC 1920 x 1080 | Keyboard: Steel Series Full-color backlight with Anti-Ghost key + silver lining
• CPU: Intel Core i7-7820HK (2.9 - 3.9GHz)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8G GDDR5X
• RAM: 32GB (16G*2) DDR4 2400MHz 4 Sockets; Max Memory 64GB | HDD: Super RAID 1TB SSD [512GB*2] M.2 SATA + 1TB (SATA) 7200rpm
• Special Features: 120Hz 5ms Display | VR Ready | RGB Steel Series Keyboard | Nahimic 2 Audio | Thunderbolt 3

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074ND6D14/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I2SUX5LBFQNDQA&colid=16GEH821OW0HN&psc=0

Thanks in advance for our thoughts,