Designer1 Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 Any advice before I begin my first pbr vs raytrace? Ive done many raytraces on previous versions of chief but just got to the point where Im starting my pbrs. Do most of you use brushed or polished stainless steel for appliances? I did a quick view in pbr and noticed the polished SS seems mirror like and maybe not as realistic as the brushed? I also noticed the sun appears to be twice as strong as in raytrace. Just wanted to ask before heading into the water about some of these things to see what you all might recommend. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridge_Runner Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 Do a search for PBR and you will find a thread that has pages of comments, tips, suggestions, etc. I think Graham started it, best I remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted October 27, 2019 Author Share Posted October 27, 2019 Great, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 12 hours ago, Designer1 said: Any advice before I begin my first pbr vs raytrace? Ive done many raytraces on previous versions of chief but just got to the point where Im starting my pbrs. Do most of you use brushed or polished stainless steel for appliances? I did a quick view in pbr and noticed the polished SS seems mirror like and maybe not as realistic as the brushed? I also noticed the sun appears to be twice as strong as in raytrace. Just wanted to ask before heading into the water about some of these things to see what you all might recommend. Thanks! Both have pros and cons. That being said, IMO nothing outweighs the speed of PBR. Raytraces can produce great results, but getting there is very slow. All the lighting will need to be different than in a PBR which can make it confusing, and you'll need to wait a fairly long time to see the effect of any change. Then, if the change is not desirable, you'll need to repeat the waiting process. So, separate lighting scenes are critical for separate saved cameras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheKitchenAbode Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 Transitioning from RayTrace to PBR will take a bit of adjustment. Lighting and materials will show differently. The other major significance is that in PBR the sun contributes to the interior lighting while in RayTrace the sun does not. As such, in PBR the interior lighting effect is a combination of the interior light fixtures and the sun, finding the right balance can be challenging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted October 28, 2019 Author Share Posted October 28, 2019 Wow interesting thanks for the heads up! Yeah when I did the quick pbr in the scene the sun appeared so much stronger then even the lights in the house. The main thing I noticed was the stainless steel polished looked almost like chrome, that's why I was wondering if brushed stainless steel was better. In reality when I think of brushed stainless steel I think of a much more wire brush finish but in chief it appears more like regular appliance stainless steel. I can see this might not be as easy to transition from raytrace to pbr as I thought. I appreciate all the replies and additional info though, every little bit helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 PBR exterior. Time to render: 3 seconds. This is the real advantage. Great results for almost no effort which is needed for customers who won't pay for renderings. Small tip / note: the 'color' of the backdrop will affect the 'tone' of the shadows and materials slightly. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basketballman Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 32 minutes ago, robdyck said: PBR exterior. Time to render: 3 seconds. This is the real advantage. Great results for almost no effort which is needed for customers who won't pay for renderings. Small tip / note: the 'color' of the backdrop will affect the 'tone' of the shadows and materials slightly. Do you have an interior sample ? That seems to be where PBR needs a lot of work ... .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 4 minutes ago, basketballman said: Do you have an interior sample ? That seems to be where PBR needs a lot of work ... .. As a matter of fact I do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basketballman Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 Except for blueishness around top of windows ? that is one of better interior PBR's Ive seen ... I moved on to Lumion awile back and havent used Chief for rendering in quite awhile .. expensive andidote .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 1 minute ago, basketballman said: Except for blueishness around top of windows ? that is one of better interior PBR's Ive seen ... I moved on to Lumion awile back and havent used Chief for rendering in quite awhile .. expensive andidote .. That blueness is caused by the color of my backdrop, mostly a blue sky with a few clouds. If I change it to a sunset type of backdrop for example, it would be a bit pinkish or orange. I'd be all over Lumion if I had paying customers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basketballman Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 Ha, ha, I feel you bro .. Bought Lumion back when I had a few dollars ... version upgrades are now around $1000.00 a pop ouch still stuck 2 versions ago . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheKitchenAbode Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 56 minutes ago, robdyck said: That blueness is caused by the color of my backdrop, mostly a blue sky with a few clouds. If I change it to a sunset type of backdrop for example, it would be a bit pinkish or orange. I'd be all over Lumion if I had paying customers! The degree of the color cast is relative to the suns intensity, the more intense the greater the color cast. You can try lowering the suns intensity, might have to really drop it, best done with all other lights turned off so you are only seeing the suns effect. As the interior lights and sun work together you may need to also reduce the interior lights once you get the sun at the right level. Color cast can also come from other exterior materials, not just the backdrop. If the suns intensity is too high then that nice green lawn can cast a greenish color cast into the interior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 1 hour ago, TheKitchenAbode said: The degree of the color cast is relative to the suns intensity, the more intense the greater the color cast. You can try lowering the suns intensity, might have to really drop it, best done with all other lights turned off so you are only seeing the suns effect. As the interior lights and sun work together you may need to also reduce the interior lights once you get the sun at the right level. Color cast can also come from other exterior materials, not just the backdrop. If the suns intensity is too high then that nice green lawn can cast a greenish color cast into the interior. There is no terrain in that interior render. Same home, but 2 separate files for interior and exterior to help reduce file size, surface count, and lighting confusion (both mine and the computer's). Sunlight set to 500 Lumens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheKitchenAbode Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 8 minutes ago, robdyck said: There is no terrain in that interior render. Same home, but 2 separate files for interior and exterior to help reduce file size, surface count, and lighting confusion (both mine and the computer's). Just mentioned the terrain as another example of where a color cast can come from. In your case it's obviously due to the colors in the backdrop. Regardless, the degree of this is relative to the suns intensity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheryl_C_Crane Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 In my opinion, the out of the box PBR sun settings are strong enough to cause sea turtles to lay eggs in Cour d' Alean. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiefChris1 Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 Forgive me for my ignorance. I have been using Chief since 1997. What is PBR? Is PBR something that Chief does now in addition to raytrace? Or do I need additional software? I know the raytrace tool is still in Chief but I rarely use it anymore because I find it too frustrating. I have been thoroughly disappointed with Chief's ray-tracing since X9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 16 minutes ago, ChiefChris1 said: Forgive me for my ignorance. I have been using Chief since 1997. What is PBR? Is PBR something that Chief does now in addition to raytrace? Or do I need additional software? I know the raytrace tool is still in Chief but I rarely use it anymore because I find it too frustrating. I have been thoroughly disappointed with Chief's ray-tracing since X9. Forgiveness has been granted! Physically Based Rendering is a rendering technique. It's built-in to Chief and available for most camera types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiefChris1 Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 Just now, robdyck said: Forgiveness has been granted! Physically Based Rendering is a rendering technique. It's built-in to Chief and available for most camera types. Thank you. I hadn't noticed that option in the camera settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted October 28, 2019 Author Share Posted October 28, 2019 7 hours ago, Cheryl_C_Crane said: In my opinion, the out of the box PBR sun settings are strong enough to cause sea turtles to lay eggs in Cour d' Alean. Cheryl, what do you usually reduce the sun settings to before you begin the pbr? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_Gia Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 14 hours ago, robdyck said: PBR exterior. Time to render: 3 seconds. This is the real advantage. Great results for almost no effort which is needed for customers who won't pay for renderings. Small tip / note: the 'color' of the backdrop will affect the 'tone' of the shadows and materials slightly. Other than the car and a few exterior light fixtures your image looks cartoonish. I’m not trying to dump on you but I don’t see the benefit here over the standard view even if it took only 3 seconds. If it’s not going to impress your customer than I’d rather use a water colour with line drawing over top otherwise I’d be ashamed to send this to a client with the tag, “here’s a realistic image of your home mam”. PBR is too much work to use as opposed to RayTrace because of the setup time which you don’t mention. I would prefer online Raytracing performed by Chief’s servers and sent back to me when complete. This is because RayTrace is easy to setup and then always produces predictable results. The drawback is only the downtime you have to sacrifice while it renders. If this could be offloaded then we could continue making money while Chief does the heavy lifting. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 8 hours ago, ChiefChris1 said: Thank you. I hadn't noticed that option in the camera settings. A short CA Video showing most of the basic PBR Setup Defaults from the Lets' PBR Thread https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/2426/physically-based-rendering-technique.html M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 28 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said: Other than the car and a few exterior light fixtures your image looks cartoonish. I’d be ashamed to send this to a client with the tag, “here’s a realistic image of your home mam”. Ouch ...... I don't think Rob made the claim it was Photo-Realistic , just faster and better than some other views available....... 30 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said: I would prefer online Raytracing performed by Chief’s servers and sent back to me when complete. This is because RayTrace is easy to setup and then always produces predictable results. The drawback is only the downtime you have to sacrifice while it renders. If this could be offloaded then we could continue making money while Chief does the heavy lifting. Just set your Raytraces to run after you leave the Office at the end of the Day perhaps.... personally I am hoping for some changes in X12 now Nvidia is supporting RT in Real-time , of course we may not get it to X14 or Xxx?..... M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robdyck Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 10 hours ago, Michael_Gia said: Other than the car and a few exterior light fixtures your image looks cartoonish. I’m not trying to dump on you but I don’t see the benefit here over the standard view even if it took only 3 seconds. If it’s not going to impress your customer than I’d rather use a water colour with line drawing over top otherwise I’d be ashamed to send this to a client with the tag, “here’s a realistic image of your home mam”. PBR is too much work to use as opposed to RayTrace because of the setup time which you don’t mention. I would prefer online Raytracing performed by Chief’s servers and sent back to me when complete. This is because RayTrace is easy to setup and then always produces predictable results. The drawback is only the downtime you have to sacrifice while it renders. If this could be offloaded then we could continue making money while Chief does the heavy lifting. Of course there's a learning curve with PBR but I really don't have any 'setup' time anymore. Almost everything just got 'dropped in'. All my settings, and scene conditions are saved either in defaults or in my library. I didn't spend even 15 minutes on this; the only things not part of the actual plan are the plants, the car, the fence. Those 3 things took less than 2 minutes to add. Interestingly enough, I find PBR more predictable that RT. If I were being paid extra for a rendering for a home, I'd use RT or outsource to someone proficient with Lumion, or Twinmotion or Thea. However, in my market, my clients don't want to spend anything extra on 3d. That leaves me with a choice: I could tell them that I can't deliver any renderings without additional fees, or I can learn how to deliver (what I think are better than acceptable) renderings for virtually no additional time and exceed their expectations. And I'll point out that visualization is the claim, not photorealism. I'm in Alberta so photorealism would require a jacked up F350 and I haven't yet found a 3d model of a truck that truly meets my redneck expectations! Perhaps you should post an example of an exterior RT that one could be proud of and elaborate on the camera, lighting and RT settings you use. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheKitchenAbode Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 10 minutes ago, robdyck said: I'm in Alberta so photorealism would require a jacked up F350 and I haven't yet found a 3d model of a truck that truly meets my redneck expectations! You forgot about the need for Conservative Party campaign lawn signs. Points well made. I've never viewed CA's Raytrace or PBR as an attempt to provide absolute photo realism, just a means to allow users a built in renderer that can produce reasonable results. Comparing it to the likes of Lumion is interesting but it's a bit like comparing Windows Photo App to Photoshop. Keep on Trucking Rob. And by the way, thanks for blocking the Liberals' from a majority. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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