What rendering style/combo is Chief using on their home page?

[Michael_Gia]

I don’t know about this whole Chief is being deceptive argument. 

Chief is a 3D modelling/designing/drafting program which is what you get. They’re not a rendering software or an image editing software. So to say that pimping up a 3D overview in Photoshop is cheating is a bit of a stretch. 

[DavidJames]

11 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

I don’t know about this whole Chief is being deceptive argument. 

Chief is a 3D modelling/designing/drafting program which is what you get. They’re not a rendering software or an image editing software. So to say that pimping up a 3D overview in Photoshop is cheating is a bit of a stretch. 

I guess it depends on how you really look at it. 

How would you feel if you bought a $3000 Canon camera based off of a promotional image only to discover that the only way you could replicate the same image was to purchase an $1800 lense that they failed to mention was used to generate the image? 

[rlackore]

I'm not interested in the debate over whether Chief is being deceptive - I'm interested in how the image was produced. As others have noted it doesn't seem like the effects can be achieved "in camera" - some tricks must have been used, whether in post-processing or by manipulating Chief's tools in unconventional ways. Besides the color difference between the window/terrain/building shadows, another thing I can't figure out is how to make the material pattern lines grey; as far as I can determine the Technical Drawing technique renders all lines - pattern, edge, etc. - only as black.

[Chopsaw]

1 hour ago, rlackore said:

another thing I can't figure out is how to make the material pattern lines grey; as far as I can determine the Technical Drawing technique renders all lines - pattern, edge, etc. - only as black.

 

Good observation.  Possibly the whole image was softened using Chief's Watermark tools ?

[HumbleChief]

 

2 hours ago, DavidJames said:

I guess it depends on how you really look at it. 

How would you feel if you bought a $3000 Canon camera based off of a promotional image only to discover that the only way you could replicate the same image was to purchase an $1800 lense that they failed to mention was used to generate the image? 

Each of us will have an opinion - of course - I lean to the above analogy but don't really care though at the same time have much respect for other points of view - of course.

 

Was wondering as far as technique goes could  a ref set be used? One with gray shadows and another with the green tech drawing? Hmmm...

 

Won't work as most knew already. Was hoping for that kind of flexibility with the ref sets, maybe next release.

[DavidJames]

What about this? A vector view overlayed on top of a technical illustration - both with the same angle.

I went ahead and erased the stone and some of the shadows in the technical illustration, bringing forth the grey color present in the vector view.

 

 
 

Revised.pdn

[ajohnson]

I created this image using Chief Architect X9. Since it's been a couple years I opened the plan and will try to share what I did to create the image to the best that I can recall.

 

The image was created 100% in Chief and it was exported with a transparent background. This is typically done so the image may be used in a variety of media such as a brochure or a website and placed over plain or colored backgrounds. In this particular case, if you right click on the image on the website and choose, "view background image" (this is in Firefox), you can see that we have used the image as a PNG with a transparent background floating over the green gradient image which was created using CSS in the web page coding. As has been demonstrated in this thread it is also possible to import custom background images such as the green gradient.

 

As for the shadow colors, I've attached an image of what the house looks like in render view and in technical illustration view with the settings that were used. I basically created a copy of the plan, colorized all the materials to be green, black, grey and white, then set the warm and cool colors to be black and white, 55%. There is also a short video on our website about how to achieve this look. Search for video 1918.

 

As for the grey lines, that wasn't an intentional effect. As best I can remember it could have been achieved in two ways that I can think of. 1. We've exported this image multiple times at many sizes, even as large as a billboard to go on our tradeshow booth. It is possible that when exported at a large size with a thin line weight, it was then shrunk smaller to fit the website and as a result the lines became so thin that they turned grey. 2. Chief used to have an option to adjust the line weight scale when exporting an image. This was available in X7 when the video referenced above was created and I don't recall if it was available in X9, but if it was, then it is possible that it may have been exported with a thin line weight scale which may have created a similar effect although I am unable to test it. If you examine the image on the website you will notice that there are some thicker black lines and some thinner grey lines. The thicker lines in the image occur in places where there are several lines close together, as you can see in the attached image. When zoomed out the lines bleed together and give the effect of a darker, thicker line whereas the siding and stone are single lines and appear thinner.

 

Hopefully this helps answer your questions.

[HumbleChief]

Well for me I'm going to give you and your technique and skills a huge awesome and thank you for the explanation. Really appreciate taking the time and must say even with the explanation it's still a bit over my pay grade but thank again for taking the time to explain.

[DavidJames]

Thanks for the explanation, AJohnson! 

[Michael_Gia]

1 hour ago, DavidJames said:

What about this? A vector view overlayed on top of a technical illustration - both with the same angle.

I went ahead and erased the stone and some of the shadows in the technical illustration, bringing forth the grey color present in the vector view.

 

 



 

Revised.pdn

Hey David that’s really nice work. 

Feel free to make a video and show us how you did this. Very creative. 

[DavidJames]

3 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

Hey David that’s really nice work. 

Feel free to make a video and show us how you did this. Very creative. 

Thanks, Michael! Much appreciated

I'm just about to go and hit some golf balls, but when I get back I'll definitely create a quick video for you outlining how it's done. 

[Michael_Gia]

Well, I for one, have  thoroughly enjoyed this adventure into discovery of yet another side of Chief’s capabilities. 

To think that I was apprehensive to post this question at first because I was convinced it was something simple like a toggle setting in a view or whatever. 

Instead as is often the case, simple is beautiful and not so easy to achieve. 

I admire the talent of this designer and I really appreciate Chief for taking the time to dig this up for us. 

 

Color me impressed! ( no pun intended)

[Chopsaw]

2 hours ago, ajohnson said:

Hopefully this helps answer your questions.

 

Thanks for sharing AJ.  Will definitely give that a try some time as it gives an attractive effect.  Glad we at least got the Technical Illustration and gradient background part right.