No Raytrace option in X17

[Pat-CW2]

I just upgraded X16 to X17, now I don't see any way to raytrace. Any help would be great.

[Chrisb222]

13 minutes ago, Pat-CW2 said:

I just upgraded X16 to X17, now I don't see any way to raytrace. Any help would be great.

 

Do you mean CPU ray trace? If so yeah it's gone.

 

From X17 Help:

Quote

The obsolete CPU Ray Tracing tool has been retired in favor of real-time GPU Ray Tracing. See GPU Ray Tracing.

 

[Pat-CW2]

I sure hope that doesn't mean I only have the PBR ability. That quality sucks

 

[Rich_Winsor]

                  I feel your pain.

 

[scottharris]

GPU ray tracing is the core rendering technology in X17; the CPU ray tracer was removed – info why in this post.  

 

If you want to improve your GPU ray tracing, here's a video 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/1972/ray-tracing-gpu-lighting.html

[JonathanK]

19 hours ago, Pat-CW2 said:

I sure hope that doesn't mean I only have the PBR ability. That quality sucks

 

 

I'm curious...what are your issues with it?

 

The attached is OOTB settings with CA and the Physically Based camera (I did add lines in for clarity).  But you can see, I don't have a backdrop, I don't have a ton of lights, I spent very minimal time on setting the sun angle so it's physically accurate for the homeowner.  And all of the materials are generic CA materials.  Nothing special.  But the result looks very good and clean.  No light leakage like the past, no stray lighting, no weird reflections or overly reflective.

 

The Physically Based camera is very impressive compared to even the old "CPU Raytrace" method.

[HeidiMikalsen]

I was shocked when I upgraded from x16 to x17 and discovered that the Ray Trace ability is lost. My solution was to use RederAI to improve my pictures. Too bad that Chief goes back in development regarding photorealistic pictures.

 

 

original X17:

 

ReRenderAI:

 

ReRender AI with some more brightening.

Edited August 5 by HeidiMikalsen
Extra picture

[jonathanj]

I to am upset that I can no longer CPU trace, I can upload the file back into x16 and do it but thats an extra step. My 3080TI GPU looks great on interior shots, But I do mostly light commercial and its important to have a detailed exterior rendering which looks much more realistic with a CPU rendering. I have tried AI rendering, but that is hit and miss since it gets the proportions off a fair amount of the time.

[kellyh]

Some things that I've done in the past to increase the quality of my exterior ray traced views in X17. All of these settings except for the grass region and sun are part of the PBR rendering techniques dialog:

• Change Tone Mapping Operator: Try switching to ACES instead of Hable
• For the exterior, if you're using a backdrop image, try increasing the Daytime Backdrop Intensity to something like 10,000. I wouldn't recommend this for interior views but it can help with blending the background and the building together in exterior views
• Also try playing with the Color/Hue/Saturation sliders. Those can also help increase the realness of the ray trace

Other things I've tried include using a grass region to make a more realistic looking grass and using the mid-morning sun brightness, around 75,000 Lux, to make a more realistic look to my renders. Also, using the Move Sun tool to control the shadows can create more realism to the lighting.

 

Unfortunately each render is unique and different and what may look good in my eye may not look good to you. These are just suggestions I've used in the past to try making some good looking renderings. I hope that helps point you in the right direction!