Cheryl_C_Crane

Crazy Good Stuff that I would NEVER have figured out!

Rene has a PayPal link - I'm using it because these, Symbols, Materials, and Tips will improve my work and save my time & $$.

Many Thanks, ~Cheryl

Nice looking kitchen, Scott, even in this dark state.

I'd like to tag on to what Eric, Chris, Kbird, and Eric have given you. After watching the videos, you'll see that you can adjust the Materials, to make a difference, too. Those white spots on the floor can be removed by making the floor less reflective by adjusting the roughness up. 

I have found that by turning on all lights to have 'show position in 3d' helps. Why? Because it shows which way the light is pointing and whether it is contained within the fixture. I thought that all the lights in the CA Libraries were good to go, but they are not. Some are Point that should be Spot and vice-versa. Spend some time on the cut-off angle and Drop-off Rate, too.

Right now, we don't have an easy way to soften shadows, so on a 5 light fixture, you may only want 1-2 to have shadows. You may want to soften lighting by using a very very light yellowish color. 

Each of us are finding our own favorite settings. I find some of the lighting fixtures have Lumens to lure nesting sea turtles to Montana! 

Again, that's a smart looking kitchen!

Oddly, it doesn't take as much time to do everything from scratch as you might think - going 20-20 to CA, or CA to 20-20. I do it all the time.

I work for fun, not $$ at big orange 24 hrs a week. I will NOT work there full-time. I enjoy working with customers - face to face. I really enjoy seeing their faces light up with a good CA rendering. Orange's ver of 20-20 is crippled and can't import or export in any format. 

Some only want to sell/advise/design cabinets. I'm a whole project thinker and cannot stand the limitations of 20-20. If they have a coffered ceiling, windows matching the roof slope, bay window, stairway, etc., with good measurements, I can very quickly model it in CA. We have libraries for most of the major brands of cabinets, so graphically representing their door of choice, or getting close, is quickly done, too. In my opinion, 20-20 is best suited for box-jockeys and not designers.  I sold so much per hour that they had to change their way of ranking K&B associates. They are still trying to get rankings right, and I'm still raising heck about it. 

5 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

 

You can use the Free Version 8 Viewer to "convert" the Files I am surprised this didn't come up in a Search either here or on the KB....

 

Check the GREEN text box and the link in it ,  in this KB Article

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00279/opening-legacy-files.html

 

Not sure if SSA is needed though ?

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Mick!

Thanks, Rene, but what is that wonderful brick in the FP?

Depending on the object and angle, adding Specular reflection aides in giving it sparkle.

10 hours ago, Chiefer said:

Quick PBR glass material for curved surfaces, no other material is needed. Place dark gray color in your normal map slot and you're done:

 

Specs:

Roughness: 0

Transparency: 24 to 51+ (51+ if you want lights to pass-thought)

Funny how, given time, things come back around!

if you have a Koch catalog, you can modify the cabinets in any of the cabinet libraries to the specifics of Koch (dim's, OL, color, accessories, etc) and save them in your own library.

By chance, are there any other cabinet brands manufactured by the same manufacturer? hth, ~Cheryl

Rene, Thanks for this! Looks great, I'll be using it often.

2 hours ago, parkwest said:

Once you go PBR there is no going back!

True dat.

PBR is so fast and you can edit on the fly.

Yep, if you open the textures, you'll find quite a bit of modification, somewhat camera dependent. I'm getting some l o n g material lists.

Graham, Thank You! I thought that I had copied that from the one over the table. I think that I sometimes suffer from staring at things too long. Glad that you caught it and it's an easy fix! TY.

BTW: I used your technique on the glass and like the results much better. ~Cheryl

Mark, thanks for all you do including sharing this great symbol! You are a master!

I suppose that what I really want is for LG, Whirlpool/KitchenAid & Samsung to make .calibz for Chief Architect, or at least make 3-d symbols for all of their appliances available in 3-d Warehouse. GE products are in most of my kitchens because they were good enough to give us a .calibz file.

Bottom line: we sell their goods. Manufacturers should make it easy.

HSV, AL is home to a lot of STEM professionals. They often are aware of advancements in tech years before the public. So for them, the latest and greatest is old news.

I'm stumped. What is causing the white spot on the left dining area wall? I have played with the sun angles. I have played with the light over the dining table (angles, spot vs point, etc.) I've adjusted lumens. 

I've attached a zip of the area. If you have time, I'd appreciate your thoughts. TIA, ~Cheryl

Bone Trevor Alt 1.zip

I'd really like to have symbols for today's best selling refrigerators: LG & Samsung with Showcase Door +/- 2 Exterior Drawers. They need to also have ice & water in the door. I'm not seeing them in 3D warehouse. I've also looked on LG's & Samsung's websites to no avail. Any suggestions? 

Also, does anyone have a good "Black Stainless Steel" material?

Thanks in advance, ~Cheryl

Larry,

Click on the Adjust the Material Definition Button > With that loaded, click on the Material that you want to change > Under the General Tab you'll find the Color for the Material. You may have to experiment a bit. I find that a deeply shaded blue-green works well for me. HTH

Just now, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Good Catch - The plain straight edge on the model just looked bad. Yes, I added a molding and changed it's color slightly from that of the main top. Would have likely come out better if I had deleted the glass top surfaces out of the symbol and then used a custom counter top with an edge profile as the top.

Great idea! ~C

4 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Cheryl, you are more than welcome. If you wish to alter the glass effect, play with the texture stretching X/Y planes and the amount of bumping. Also, how it appears will depend upon how it is being struck by the surrounding light.

 

If you wish the glass look to be less defendant upon your other lights open up one of the wine glasses on the main table. I converted them to an electrical light symbol. Each glass has two attached light sources to control the glass effect. If you shift the light source positions or adjust their intensity you will see how it effects the glass appearance. Also did this to the wine bottle, it's actually an electrical light fixture with 4 light sources.

 

You could for example take the vase, symbol convert to a light fixture and assign lights to it.

These are very interesting ideas with pro-active PBR fiddling instead of waiting (and praying) on RT.

I noticed that you added a molding line to the table to get the slight greenish edge - sweet!

Graham, Thanks so very much for sharing and letting us delve into your glass(es) and other materials.

Here's a PBR that I had done - but was not especially happy with the glass of the vase and the Dining Light Fixture. And, The same camera with Graham's Crystal Glass (my library name for it). applied to the vase & light fixture. WOW! What a HUGE IMPROVEMENT!

Excellent, Graham, Thank You!

17 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Many Thanks Rene. Nicely done.

 

For fun I dropped it into a kitchen plan I'm working on and ran a PBR. Just adjusted the glass to my current glass properties settings.

 

 

Graham, your glass is excellent! The wine glasses look like RT. Have you shared those settings in another thread?

Thank you for sharing you, ~C

Thanks for your Time & Talent!

30 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

If you just change the molding height on the pantry by 1/16" up or down it will disconnect from the other molding and it will be treated individually. No one will notice the slight 1/16" position change.

 

 

Perfect & EASY!

It's my understanding that CA engineers are working on a way to have cabinet moldings go on more like the real world and the schedule show the totals for each profile and color. Hope so.

Thanks for all who responded! 

I searched this forum for the answer to this, please accept my apologies if it has already been discussed. I would think that this has happened a lot.

I have a tall pantry cab 24"d of a grey color next to a Wall cab 12"d in White. I can't seem to have 2 different molding colors - which is what our customer wants.  Please see the attached file and screenshots. The young men that are remodeling this  home for sale want renderings to use in the listing. Of course, there is no problem ordering the molding materials. It renders correctly in 20-20 (UGH).

Cleveland Modified Kit.zip