Tony_Sterba

I would love to show a clay tiled roof on this plan - but can't because all the roof patterns/samples that are supplied are flat and 2 dimensional. The attached jpg just shows shingles for now, bu when I use the roof tiles (Spanish look), it looks... not even close to real. Is there a way to have clay roof tiles on a roof that looks decent? I downloaded some 3D tiles and tile ridges - but they are individual and can't be used as an entire surface. There are a lot of professional geniuses on this board that use this program.. any advice to steer me in the right direction??

This is my first house in Chief X9 that I have modeled, and i noticed the trees and shrubs are not producing shadows the wrong way. It is almost like the shrubs are at a 60 degree angle with the light source causing the 2D images to create slivers of shadows as opposed to regular shadows. Is there something I am missing? This never happened in X8 or previous versions.

Thanks Michael. i am duplicating what the client picked for exterior finishes - and the stone that the client selected in reality - trying to match as best I could. I ended up google searching the same stone and created my own material. Not my preferred way - as when the material is replicated - the seams done't line up as nice as they should. Oh well - that is why it is only a rendering Thanks for your response!

This is a quick 2 pass rendering - but even if I let it go for 30 minutes, it will pass around 90 times. Even after 90 times - the stone looks fluffy. I am using cultured stone - black rundle - bump map set to 0.05......still - I can't get this to look sharp. I notice there are a few stones I use that don't work out to well for sharpness. I have never had a client complain about it - but it bugs me. I use Chief for exterior renderings only - so I guess you could say I am a softcore user. IS there any hardcore users out there that can give me some tips for raytrace settings?

You're a genius! That worked perfectly. I will re-render and make sure I create a separate layer/material just for this purpose. Thank you!! That saves me (and someone else) time - plus it makes me look like I know what I'm doing Thanks again!!

Thanks for the input Michael! I have plain white as my color, no texture. If I turn the perimeter layer off - I see all the foundation and footings- which I don't want (client doesn't want) to see. I downsized my terrain area to be almost a cookie cutter of the house - and stretched it out minimally so you can't see the footings - but still have 2 shades of white. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

This may be silly - but I have a client that likes their renderings in both landscaped and simple mode. When I do simple mode (white back ground), I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of the horizon line. I removed the background image and went with white. When I pick the material for the land - I just went with white. I thought it would be seamless - but I am wrong. I know photo shop will fix this - or any other graphic program... but renderings are a very small piece of my business and I don't want to spend more time than I have too. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get a pure white background and land base without affecting anything else? Thanks for reading!!

Thanks everyone! I did not have that library installed. Now I do and am in for a good laugh. Thanks again!!

I thought in earlier versions of Chief, there were Garden gnomes, snowmen, and a lot of other cool bizarre 3D objects. Did they get rid of them? I want to mess with a client and put an army of garden gnomes on the front lawn of their rendering. Does anyone know where I can get them?

I apologize for marking it answered in my own post. I did what Joe Carrick mentioned and opened the "Deck/Porch" Room and changed the Wall Material to siding. It worked perfect. I didn't think anyone else needed to attempt to fix the problem seeing that it was resolved. Sorry about that everyone.

Bloody hell people!! I have to go back to Chief Architect kindergarten and review everything. Thank you all for your time and comments. I use Chief for exterior renderings only - not actual blueprints. Some things are "pieced" together to print a pretty picture - and not actual constriction drawings. Hey dshall - did you do something to the camera, light settings or anything? Your quick jog image looks a lot better than mine! Thanks to all who responded. Your opinions and advice make me a better user of CA.

I attached the plan in *.zip format. If anyone can give me any info - that would be great. Thanks in advance!! 182 Canyon Estates Way - 3D Rendering.zip

The wall is not reversed, it is normal to all other exterior walls. Any other ideas of what it might be? Thanks for the response.

This has happened many times before (see attachment) , and I usually draw a thin 3D poly overtop to fix it. There has to be an easier way and/or an explanation for this. I have the same techniques for every house I do - and about 5% of them have the same problem as the attached jog shows. Any advice as to why this is happening? I am using X7 - but this has happened in every version since X2. As I mentioned - maybe 5% of the time this happens, so it is easy enough to deal with -- just want to know if there is a solution. Thanks

The material selection for gutters is not available. I can remove gutters from each roof lines and call it a day - but I would prefer not too. IS there a specific reference for gutters and material/color that I can access?

I drew 4 houses in one file - and am now tweaking each house accordingly. I can not change the gutter colors to suit each house. When I do - ALL the gutters change in the entire drawing. I would prefer NOT to do each house in a separate file, convert to a 3d Model, and import each file. IS there another way I can do this??? It seems so simple, there has to be an easier way. Thanks

Thanks people. My walls are straight and everything "appears" to be good in the drawings. Sometimes when I fix it in 3D - the 2D is all screwed up. eventually working back and forth I can get it to look decent. I was hoping it was a setting issue or something to that effect. That's ok, I just thought someone else out there could explain it. Thanks again to those who replied.

I have had this problem ever since the beginning in Chief X6. I put a trim accent or molding around something - and in plan view it works - but in 3D view it extends way beyond what it should. It is not a huge deal.. I just fix it. But is there a reason as to why? Anyone else have this issue?

I finally got around to rendering this house - and your comments helped me out a bunch. The methods mentioned above worked perfect and easy!! Thank you! I am an amateur Chief Architect user at best - and this really helped me out.

I have been asked to do a rendering for a home builder, and they have flared walls at the bottom third of all the walls in the front elevation. I used a 3D polyline - created the shape I wanted, and stretched it to the length of the wall. Now that I am at the corners - I have no idea what to do! Is there a way (or a different way) to draw flared out walls and have them join nice and clean at the corners? Or is this something I have to airbrush in once the final rendering is completed?

GerryT, Thanks for posting your settings. Truth be known, my model s starting to look really cool. I put your settings above into my file and everything seems to be working smooth. By cropping - I meant clipping - and having my exterior finishes disappearing, etc. Your solution worked really slick and everything is as it should be. Thanks for downloading my file and letting me know what setting work. I am an amateur user so when I get professional tips, it really helps. Thanks again!

Kilgore Trout..... thank you soooooo much!! That was my problem. I did what you said and it worked perfect. Everything is up to snuff. Thanks again!! Just for the record - I have never done a subdivision before - so I will probably be posting a lot of issues on this board. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to review my concerns and post a response. It is appreciated!

So I purged out any unwanted/un needed info of my *.plan file, and compressed into a RAR file for fast downloading. It is about 8 MB compressed. If anyone out there wants to take a peek and see what I am doing wrong - your input would be valuable. As for turning off the terrain, the terrain is turned on - but ends where you see in the overall 3D view. In plan view, it extends way upward. It is almost as if the 3D view is not being regenerated. I did click the "rebuild 3D", but I am still have the same problem. Thanks P.S. I have never used drop box before, so I am hoping I sis this correct. https://www.dropbox.com/s/mluc755lol5kw1m/Subdivision%20Plan____Rev%231%20purged.rar

So I still can't seem to get this to work properly - even though I have been given advice. My new issue is that I have extended the terrain to the north, and added a pond, a trail around the pond, and some nearby roadways. I do all this in plan view and it is no problem. However, when I do a 3D overall view - nothing has been updated. All my layers are turned on, and I can't figure out what the problem is. Any advice out there form the experts? Also, I have created 7 multiplex buildings (all different), and inserted them as symbols. My basic file size is 65 MP. Is this normal? That seems awfully huge to me. I know there is a lot of information in there. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

So I posted questions about this before I started in regards to "what to charge". I tried to add this update to that post, but couldn't figure out how to add the attachments - so I started a new post. Having said that - I have three main concerns with my overall subdivision rendering that I need some advice on. The concerns I have are as follows: #1 - Does anyone know why - in vector view - my exterior patterns are being cropped? They do NOT do this on an individual file basis - but now that everything is inserted into one file - I am having crop issues. #2 - I really do not want the shadows casted across the street from the buildings. I Googled my longitude and latitude and inserted that info in my drawing for my location. Is it just a matter of goofing around with the months and time of day to eliminate the large shadows casted? #3 - the rendering seems dark. I have the direct sunlight turned up to 6.0 - which is higher than I usually do. I don't want any white blow outs - so I am trying to keep the direct sunlight to a certain level. I do have tone mapping turned off. It seems to look better (brighter) when turned on - but still not that great. For some reason, when I do individual renderings of single buildings - I have my normal settings that typically work. For some reason, in this overall subdivision view - I can't get the sun/shadows correct. Any help, comments or insight to the above three issues would be greatly appreciated. This is only a starting point. Once I get the above three question figured out - I think this could potentially look amazing when done. Thanks in advance for any input from other users.