Chief, It Is Time To Prepare For The Meta Verse

[Jwalton]

I have been using chief for the last 14 years and it has been an essential part of my custom home business as a designer/builder.  One thing that has always been difficult with Chief however was getting good renders out of it for client Presentations and mainly just as a display of work to future clients.  Today the common customer runs across super high quality renders and CGI all the time so they have no clue how difficult it is to produce great quality renders.  They have no idea how much effort goes into texturing objects and lighting.

 

Chief has always lagged behind in this area however the ease of use and ability to produce construction documents quickly has always outweighed the downside of the presentation side because I could get into another program like Lumion or even Sketchup with plug-ins with exports.

 

However, with the new technologies that are now just coming out. This glaring difference in quality visualization and functionality is about to leave Chief in the dust and my past 14 years of experience with it.  NVidia, Unreal, and Unity are releasing tools to make Visualization a seamless process for many other architectural products.  I am talking about movie quality real time functionality.  

 

Here is the bad part. All these tools are available now you just have to export and then spend a ton of time trying to retexture and relight a scene and as unbearable and time consuming as it is it can be done.

 

These new engines however are going to make the leap from Chief to the functionality of smart textures and lighting so far away from a reasonable amount of time when other packages plug right into them.

 

Why would chief put any resources into a render engine at this point when Unreal and Unity have free versions all the way up to studio versions.  All that time needs to be put into compatibility to link up to these technologies.

 

YOU ARE A CONTENT PROVIDER.  We need to get this through our heads. There is a new economy evolving and we as Chief Users are about to miss out on an opportunity.  If Chief had the ability to seamlessly connect to these new technologies it would provide an opportunity as designers to monetize our content for this new economy.  Wouldn't your client who is paying for the design pay even more money if the could buy the "NFT" (please research if your not aware of that).  Not only could we receive another fee source this is the ultimate passive income strategy for building wealth for creative people in the near future.

 

As a company looking forward why would a young designer pick up Chief Architect and pay for recurring features when it is a dead end source.  When a young person can get paid to design something for a client and if they don't purchase the NFT then the could sell it in an online market place.

 

The time to start this massive change is right now!!!

 

As a software company it is time to follow the trends of all the other companies in this space and make big announcements with well put together video of future abilities.  Quit that old world stuff of letting the users know a couple months before you release X.... what the small feature changes are.  Time to show us what the roadmap looks like for our skill set.  I have invested in Chief For years and it has always been a fair exchange of value between customer and company.  However, if the company is going to lead us to a dead end then we simply cannot fund that. Let us know that we should keep investing in you as that is what we are doing.  Acknowledge the seismic shift in things that are happening with in the digital world right now and gain some direction.  Set forth a plan for the user base.

 

This is a time to Grow Chief Architecture for the future. it is also a risk to be left behind. For the first time ever I let my continuing license expire because I do not see Chief as a company I can keep funding for future development if it is going in the wrong direction.  

 

What we need is easy connectivity to Unity and Unreal.  We need access to all the tools they have for texturing, lighting.  We need to be in a file format such as FBX or USD to take advantage off all the technologies.  We need to a direct connection so we can import/export or work directly in these new Tools such as NVidias Meta Verse.  We need to be able to make changes and they update instantly.  We need a market place where we can sell our digital products instead of sitting waisting away on our hard drives.  

 

We need the tools for the future. I write this because I care and I really appreciate the years I have dedicated to learning the software and the business that it has allowed me to create.  I am fearful that I have to leave in the near future if direction is not communicated to the user base about the future direction.

[dshall]

".....   Today the common customer runs across super high quality renders and CGI all the time so they have no clue how difficult it is to produce great quality renders.  ......"

 

So true ,  so true.

 

Back in the day,  we rarely provided 3d renderings (too expensive, 400.00/render minimum back in the early '80's).  For the last 16 years I have been providing 3d presentations, "'crappy RT's" in the beginning and now standard 3d's with lines on top....  and they are awesome,  until compared to the great quality renders that take too much of my time getting the lighting and materials just perfect.

 

Yep,  it a whole new ball game.  It would be super to get OOB high quality renders.

 

[Michael_Gia]

How hard would it be for Chief to offer a direct link to TwinMotion or Lumion?

 

Wouldn't it be easier on the resources for them than their present route of real-time ray tracing etc?…

 

This way they can focus on the meat and potatoes of what Chief provides us vis-à-vis drafting, 3D model and construction documents?

 

I don’t understand their philosophy. 
 

I’ve really leaned heavily on Twin Motion lately and the biggest frustration is that there’s no live link. I can’t go back into Chief and make a modification and simply re link the model. 
 

More of you should get off your asses and invest a small amount of time with TwinMotion. It’s not that difficult. It will actually save you time. 

[joey_martin]

@Jwaltonwhat software have you found that does all things you listed above? What is the cost of it?

[Jwalton]

Hello,

 

So NVidia, Epic Games, Unity and even Facebook among others are trying to define what the future holds for the Meta Verse.

 

Check YouTube out on Nvidia's Omni Verse.  It connects everything together to create one environment that Links your CAD, Rendering and materials such as Surface Painter all together live editing in 1 place.

 

We need to be able to take advantage of these tools and connect Chief to these tools and live edit 4k Textures and Mega Scans all in one place.  

 

The disadvantage Chief has that it is not making any headway to be connected easily to these tools.  The file Formats being used are not able to be "LIVE" edit between these tools.  The competition for Chief is making headway to connect directly to them.

 

Twin Motion is now owned by Epic Games and uses Unreal Engine to Render.  Omni Verse needs to be able to connect Chief With Unreal Engine or easily connect or Unity.  

 

Facebook Meta is developing right now on Unity but will eventually have their own engine.  Chief is being left behind because they don't play nice with any of these tools.

 

There is a digital economy being developed. Unity has People selling Digital assets on their marketplace already.

[joey_martin]

Chief does some of that now. I have Twinmotion and use it from time to time. Very easy export from Chief right into TM for renderings. I will attach a couple of TM renderings for example, and these are with me opening TM and knowing hardly anything about it. 

 

When you said you are not paying for SSA any longer, I thought that meant you had found a software that does all the things you described. What software are you looking at that does all those things, is as user friendly as Chief, and doesn't cost $5K/year?

 

Bear in mind, I am not defending the direction of Chief, I am genuinely curious about what is out there that could give me the ease

 of Chief, with the cost, and that will do all those things.

[Michael_Gia]

“The disadvantage Chief has that it is not making any headway to be connected easily to these tools.”
 

I think this is OP’s point.  Chief shouldn’t be trying to reinvent what’s already out there and available via direct link capabilities that Revit, Archicad, and VectorWorks have; all programs that are not as efficient as Chief for residential stickframe construction.  

[Jwalton]

Yes that is my point.

I want to keep using Chief. But Chief needs to not be investing their resources in any type of rendering tech but rather direct link into much more capable engines.  Then in those engines we can place furniture and lighting and textures.

 

Start looking at how Omni Verse is working and you will see that you Keep or CAD program. Revit, ArchiCad etc. but they all link into this and connect Unreal and Unity engines. This way you work in Omni Verse and can use Chief Within Omni Verse to make changes to the Model all with Real Time Graphics.

 

I will put a link.  Extending Chief into this way will create a clear path into the future.  The competiors already are connecting at this early stage.  Without connectors Chief is just going to fall even further behind but not just fall behind. It could be so far that has no future.  The time to react is now. 

 

Without these tools people are going to run into Movie Quality Graphics in the next couple of years and if we don't have a clear path people are going to start saying those graphics are so 2020.

 

 

[mtldesigns]

3 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

leaned heavily on Twin Motion lately and the biggest frustration is that there’s no live link

I couldn't agree more.  I like the OOB you get with Twin, but if there is a change to the design, you have to start over pretty much anew.  I am to the point now, and my wife will vouch.. because she hears me all the time, that I just provide regular camera views 99% of the time, no RT or PBR.  PBR just doesn't work as easy as it should.  Some of you guys out there are just experts and it comes naturally, it doesn't for me.  Playing with textures is cool, but having to mess with lighting, OMG just kills my productivity.  I'm not talking a fixture or too either, I'm talking sun angles and brightness, etc..  For example see my attached; the same ceiling material, the same exact material for both niches, the same lighting, yet.. well you will see. I shouldn't have to make it pitch black outside for this to be descent.  

 

I would love for Chief to focus on stairs, invisible walls, pony walls, and a whole list of architectural items to make our designs and construction packages even better, even just good quality renders even.. and provide a second party option to link with when we need to get more realistic.  My clients love the realistic, but they won't pay for it, so lets keep it simple.  I don't know if this was the OP original intent, but let the experts do what they do best and let Chief ARCHITECT do what they do best and figure out how to the TEAM the two with the least amount of effort. 

 

 

 

 

[para-CAD]

Is Twinmotion worth the $499 price?

I'm going to try the free option to see what I can do.  

I focus on plans for permit.  3D is not something people are asking for when wanting to get a project through the permit office.

 

If I was a builder, then maybe more marketing....3D would be sweet.  

I'll noob my way through the free version over the next few days.

 

[HumbleChief]

Great sentiment and perhaps a good idea if the horse hadn't already left the barn. Chief has already made the call to do 3D rendering in house and I would imagine has invested many thousands of dollars and man hours in same and to suggest they give up that investment and link to better more capable rendering engines while giving up their investment in their 3D rendering technology seems a bit naive. Is it a good idea now? Or was it good idea before Chief has committed so many resources to their own 3D tech? Can't answer either question but from a business standpoint it would be hard to imagine Chief not pursuing and refining their own tech since so much has already been invested. Should they do n both? Keep investing in RTRT and link to Twinmotion etc.? Maybe, but I personally would not hold my breath.

 

Will Chief fall behind the metaverse curve with their decision to keep rendering in house? This has been predicted for many, many years on the forum. Chief better do (insert new technology or plans to compete with ACAD etc.) or else they will be left behind and yet they just keep on trucking and are most likely gaining market share from their dogged focus on the small residential builder. The decisions on which direction to take a company are very easy to make here on a forum with nothing at stake, but when the business is at stake it's a whole different ball game and most of us do not know how to play that game as well as Chief has demonstrated that they do.

[Michael_Gia]

Probably an accurate and realistic take by Larry, but why can't Chief do both?  What does a live link cost in money and allocated resources?  I wish someone from Chief could comment on this.

 

By providing a live link to other rendering software you are opening up Chief to that audience as well.  Does Chief not see the potential exposure that this would provide?