Physically Based Rendering Issues - HELP

[Designer_Maddee]

I am working on rendering a kitchen and the appliances are all stainless and the cabinets are green. The textures and materials all show up true to how they should except on the 4th wall. The fridge is appearing black and the cabinet above showing a dark dark green tone. I have tried toggling sunlight, adjusting sun direction and strength, adding lights and adjusting lights and nothing has had any effect on the way it's showing up. Any suggestions? I've included screenshots below.

 

I am using X16 on a new M4 Max Macbook

[VHampton]

Hi there — that definitely sounds frustrating, especially with everything else rendering correctly. Here are a few things to try that often help resolve rendering inconsistencies like you're describing, especially with newer Macs and Chief Architect X16:

1. Check the Material Definition

• Even if the materials look correct in the plan or library, double-click the fridge and the upper cabinet on the problematic wall.

• Go to Materials > Diffuse color and texture, and confirm that the correct material and texture are applied.

• Sometimes a black appearance happens when a texture path is broken or the material doesn’t have a texture map assigned in PBR (Physically Based Rendering) mode.

2. Switch Between Render Techniques

• Try toggling between Standard, Physically Based, and Vector View in the 3D rendering toolbar.

• If the problem only occurs in PBR, it's often a material or lighting interaction issue.

3. Check for Overlapping Walls or Geometry

• Use a top-down view or the "Back Clipped Cross Section" tool to make sure there’s no accidental duplicate wall or object that could be casting unwanted shadows or blocking light.

4. Adjust PBR Material Settings

• Select the appliance or cabinet, open the Material Definition, and under Properties, check the Roughness and Metallic sliders.

• If they are maxed or too high, that could make stainless steel appear unnaturally dark depending on the light angle.

5. Light Source Position

• Add a temporary point light or area light directly above or in front of the fridge and see if that changes the rendering.

• Also verify the sun angle in the Sunlight Specification dialog isn’t casting shadow directly onto that fourth wall more intensely than the others.

6. Mac M4 Max Optimization

• If you're using hardware ray tracing, try toggling it off in Preferences > Render Settings and re-render.

• Also, ensure you're running the latest update/patch for X16, as Chief has been improving M-series support rapidly.

[scottharris]

Can you post your plan (.zip file with the backup of textures) ?

[Michael_Gia]

13 hours ago, Designer_Maddee said:

I am using X16 on a new M4 Max Macbook

Just curious, but could you tell us how long this scene takes to render and at how many samples? 

 

A few of us on here want to know how the M4 fairs against M3 or older Macs. 

[Designer_Maddee]

3 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

Just curious, but could you tell us how long this scene takes to render and at how many samples? 

 

A few of us on here want to know how the M4 fairs against M3 or older Macs. 

I have yet to use ray trace, but I will give it a go and let you know!  

[Designer_Maddee]

11 hours ago, scottharris said:

Can you post your plan (.zip file with the backup of textures) ?

Hi there, Here is the link to the file! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hdyegViQdufbpJTJHFFjodM66l4HTOF5/view?usp=drive_link

[Designer_Maddee]

3 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

Just curious, but could you tell us how long this scene takes to render and at how many samples? 

 

A few of us on here want to know how the M4 fairs against M3 or older Macs. 

This is the 39 passes at 8 minutes !

I am not overly familiar with using the ray trace render so its probably not the best quality

[Designer_Maddee]

3 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

Just curious, but could you tell us how long this scene takes to render and at how many samples? 

 

A few of us on here want to know how the M4 fairs against M3 or older Macs. 

And this is 69 passes @ 15 min. 

[scottharris]

I opened your plan, made some adjustments to your render settings, most notably the number of max samples.  Then, I noticed you are using X13 on a Mac.  We added real time raytracing for the Mac in X16.  You might download the trial version and see how it looks.  Be sure to lower your max samples on the Mac since they are slower at rendering than the PC (on my PC 4080 laptop these were about 10 seconds; on my MacBook Pro M4 laptop for 250 samples it took 90 seconds).

[Designer_Maddee]

9 hours ago, scottharris said:

I opened your plan, made some adjustments to your render settings, most notably the number of max samples.  Then, I noticed you are using X13 on a Mac.  We added real time raytracing for the Mac in X16.  You might download the trial version and see how it looks.  Be sure to lower your max samples on the Mac since they are slower at rendering than the PC (on my PC 4080 laptop these were about 10 seconds; on my MacBook Pro M4 laptop for 250 samples it took 90 seconds).

Thank you! My signature is wrong. I'm using x15 on a m4 macbook!

I will give this a try and see how it adjusts! Thank you! 

[Michael_Gia]

50 samples on M3 took 22 seconds. 
 

So, M4 is about twice as fast. (unofficially)

 

Thought it would be faster.  Maybe the M24, whenever that drops?….