johnny

Thanks Joe!

Time = money is a true statement, but i've found it to be true in every sense. You will get paid more the more you know, and the more you do. I took the entire course by Lynda on Unreal, and I am convinced this is the way of the future for architecture. What Unreal has that Lumion doesn't is the ability to have a video-game-like charter move and interact with the environment. You could send a client the file of their home, and they can walk around freely in it (full rendered), open doors, turn on sinks/showers/tubs, turn lights on and off, and even jump in their cars to make sure they can easily drive in and out of the garage just fine. Easy to use, pre-packaged scripts exist for everything I said above - but I can see where there is a fairly big learning curve on implementing this. I've decided to learn Unreal and dump Lumion, although I am still not clear on how Unreal will get paid. At this point it looks completely free, but that seems too good to be true (and you know the saying about that).

Here is something that might be useful... http://www.lynda.com/Unreal-Engine-tutorials/Unreal-Engine-Architectural-Visualization/370011-2.html

This looks impressive, but its actually not that hard to do. I downloaded a free version of Unreal and was shocked how easy it was - very similar to Lumion, but with more options. This is going to give me some pause next time I have to upgrade Lumion. The only real issue I am seeing with Unreal is the product licensing. They provide the app for free, but they want a piece of the "royalty". Im curious how this works for architectural.

Great vid Michael! I really need to get my brain working this way as far as solutions. I have to say though that Chief should give the Premier customers a pro feature that allows us to work on any 3D plane/axis we want "on the fly" in 90 degree segments. I've run into this issue even in 2D top plan mode working on non-standard angles. Until then good way around this.

That simply isn't true when it comes to print media. Other media types it may not be as important, but in print media (which is what this is), its very important. Whatever printer is printing this banner will have a dpi number that it can print to - a physical size and number of dots provided per inch. Yes, you can blow up the size of the image and scale down, but more accurately you can set the size and dpi for print. http://www.vsellis.com/understanding-dpi-resolution-and-print-vs-web-images/

Believe it or not "right up close" is relative compared with print media. You can walk right up to the banner, but the quality doesn't need to be the same as a brochure etc. In fact, even the material that larger media like this is printed on can only display so much quality. You can set the custom DPI in the raytrace settings. However, you could also just set the size of the pixels larger to accomplish the same thing.

I've had experiences where clients use a "web designer" that basically self-taught themselves to use the basic features of a program that created the website. I put them in the same category as the "1-hour" design guy advertising on this forum.

Id ask the person printing the banner, but the reality of the situation is different than magazine quality printing in that a banner doesn't need to be viewed close. Large billboard printing is often very low resolution since the audience if so far away. If you provided them a 2500 pixel (wide) x proportional x 300 dpi you should be more than adequate. They will increase the size and it will seem pixelated (somewhat) close up but look fine at natural viewing distance.

If a web designer doesn't know how to optimize an image for the web then they are a fake web-designer and you should tell your client to use someone else. The largest common size of a 2k monitor is 2048 × 1536. So giving them a 100dpi (72 would be enough actually but rounding up) at 2048 × 1536 should be sufficient for anything. 4k monitors can have higher resolution but its ultra-rare to try and design for people with that resolution.

Its always hard to judge a user's needs without seeing examples of work they are trying to duplicate. From some of the very-professional lighting renders i've seen, it will take an additional program to render final presentation quality design product. There is only 1 software I know of that packages professional light and render abilities into a single package, but I can also tell you from experience using that product that you'll spend MUCH MUCH longer learning to use the application to get where you need to. Even once you learn it, it will then take longer to produce design product - but the result will be better than Chief (but that is due to the fact it was designed for lighting etc). Just reading your posts and having experience in both Chief Architect and the other application - Chief Architect will be your best bet. However, you may need to add a 3rd party rendering package to your process down the line - depending on the level of "final" product you need.

Nice job Dennis...good option for interior shots.

Part of the issue is that nothing modeled in Chief is contained on anything but a floor. Unlike other apps, layers in Chief are simply view styles/options for the current layer. With reference layers you can get 2 floors with varying layer display options to work, but no more than that. This is probably nothing new to people reading, but what I personally dont like is the suggestion for a multiple reference set ability. Chief should bite the bullet, and redesign their layer and floor system so that layers can exist on their own "z" coordinate and have any combination of layer display options. Objects/model should exist inside their respective layer, and have a "view options" take over much of what Annosets do currently. That is my 2-cents.

Not sure if this would work for you, but if you had a sign or something you could set any image (including a text image) as a material and paint it to a 3D object (like a face). Again, you may need something diff but thought I would suggest this as well.

In fact, here is basicly Lumion without lumion - using just the engine. All most the programs that do this type of work are interfaces and pre-packaged objects in the Cryengine. My point is if you wanted to freely download cry, and manually create the files you dont have to buy Lumion. That route will take a LOT more learning. Unreal engine is fairly good too. Again, not nearly as easy as Lumion (no matter how easy this video looks). Although Unreal is now free too ...that is a change. Wow that that its free that is very cool. Unreal might be your best bet.

I dont think you are on the right path with intericad - what Alaska is saying is there are apps that can take a Chief file and produce much better walk-thrus (ie Lumion and a few others). Those apps are just for presentations. I use Lumion and love it - but its not cheap. I do believe they have a "rent" to own program as well though if you need. As a side point (perhaps worthy of its own thread) is the fact these types of apps seem to be springing up. I believe they are using the CryEngine....which CA could fairly easily implement into their app if they so wanted. In the future I see BIM apps having this element built-in.

Can we label lines? Id love to be able to be able to label a line (such as setback line or other). I see line styles that have text in them, but is there a way just to label a line on the fly?

lol.... wow - I think since the file I had didn't even have floors in that file it wasn't even in my mind. Thank you.

I just looked for backups of that file and ALL the site files for this project are like this all-of-a-sudden. Too odd. I'm curious if its my system. I installed the brand new nvidia driver - perhaps that is my issue. Although, other files ive done recently work fine.

(no need to read further - i was just a moron is all - i could make myself feel better and say its late) I have a plan i've been working on today, and all of a sudden nothing is showing in 2D plan view...but everything shows fine in 3D. I've quadruple-checked my layers being on etc, and I am stumped. Love the fact this happens to me when I promise a deadline on something. Any help is appreciated. Perhaps its just an issue with this file on my system...all my other files open fine. There is actually other layers not displaying even past the terrain etc. lot13.plan

I guess im not following on running parallels. So you aren't running a native version of Chief Architect for Mac? If you are not, then that is your problem and you should get a specific Mac version. Perhaps I dont understand what you're saying about this.

Can you do a search on your local HD and copy the font over under the system folder "font directory"? That is so odd - i used Mac a few years ago and the process was virtually the same as Windows then.

I've done daylight basements that are on 0....so am I doing it wrong? Now you have me curious.

Yep - it should work the same since fonts are installed in similar ways. The only difference with Mac is that I think you can install specific fonts for each "user" of that computer.

I dont think this is the case - you might want to check the system specs of both computers.