Ray Trace - Best Practices with Reference File

[CarolinaDecks]

I'm looking for advice on how to best render an addition where the addition is in one file, and the original house is in another file but visible as a reference file. This was my first time trying this approach (the purpose was to be able to split out new framing from old framing, etc.) and it works great - until I went to Ray Trace the whole project. Is there a way to make the reference file visible in the ray trace, or is there a better way to combine the files at the end for the final rendering? Thanks! 

[SHCanada2]

i think they added some features in X15 for this. you might want to check out CA's video

[Ryan-M]

2 hours ago, CarolinaDecks said:

I'm looking for advice on how to best render an addition where the addition is in one file, and the original house is in another file but visible as a reference file. This was my first time trying this approach (the purpose was to be able to split out new framing from old framing, etc.) and it works great - until I went to Ray Trace the whole project. Is there a way to make the reference file visible in the ray trace, or is there a better way to combine the files at the end for the final rendering? Thanks! 

If you're talking about CPU ray tracing, then reference plan geometry won't display.  If you're talking about ray traced PBR then it should display.

 

To get it to show up in a CPU ray trace you could export the reference plan as a symbol (e.g. via 3DS export) and import it into the plan you want to ray trace from.  This assumes you want your reference geometry to show up with materials.  If you want it rendered in a different technique (like Glass House) then I'm not sure you can do that with CPU ray tracing.