Are we getting built-in AI render in Chief anytime soon? Softplan has it already.

[Michael_Gia]

Check this out…

 

 

 

 

Edited Monday at 03:35 AM by Michael_Gia

[SHCanada2]

hmm, I'm not sure I would call that "built in". It looks like it snapshots the current screen to an image file, uploads it to the cloud, AI runs on it, then it shows it back to you, where you can then download it. And it doesn't look like you can alter the AI image.

 

Is this any different than capturing an image in CA, uploading it to an AI engine, getting it back and then putting it on your layout. seems like the same thing, no?

 

At least with an independent AI engine I can tell it to make it brighter, or change colours or pick the one I want.

 

If it was truly "built in", I could run it on my camera, see different options, pick one, then tell it to make it brighter, change colours, and that is all saved in my model.

 

This perhaps is softplan's step one before doing a truly built in and fully functional AI assistant for images.

 

[Michael_Gia]

@SHCanada2well I prefer that they have filtered through the myriad of AI engines and chosen one that works best for what we want to do. 
 

That is, make a great render and don’t touch the architecture. (or as little as possible)
 

Also the idea of allowing plugins and opening up the software to 3rd party plugins would also be great. 

This way Chief can direct all its resources to stuff we actually need and fix stuff that is broken. 
 

 

[PitMan71]

Seems like I saw some pictures from the KBIS where Chief folks were doing some AI stuff. Not sure what it was tho. I guess we will know soon enough.

[basketballman]

Nice work Softplan !

Chief better get the ball rolling b/c beautiful renders are just one of A.I. capabilities.

[Chrisb222]

1 hour ago, Michael_Gia said:

make a great render and don’t touch the architecture

 

The free online AI engines are getting much, much better at this, and fast.

 

I didn't see the ability to add prompts in those videos, so it seems like you get whatever the AI generates, whether you like the countertop material or not..?

[Chrisb222]

CA:

 

Free AI:

 

I told the AI to make it more realistic, add a strip of border tile on each side of the door opening, and add some bathroom stuff. It added a niche where there wasn't one but that's pretty standard anyway, and the perspective is wonky over the toilet, but overall a major improvement compared to the original. I did have to correct some weird stuff in post editing software but it was easy.

[Michael_Gia]

@Chrisb222Nice, I also get decent results with ChatGPT but would like some kind of built-in AI.  Not like SoftPlan.  I'm sure Chief can come up with an intelligent solution. 

 

Here is my Chat GPT workflow.

I upload a PBR render.

My prompt is: "improve the lighting and landscaping and material quality but do not change the materials or architecture."

 

Chief PBR

 

ChatGPT:

 

[basketballman]

There are 2 basic types of prompts: 

Positive -- tell it what to do.

Negative -- tell it what not to do.

Equally important ...

[robdyck]

I'm not sure Chief really needs a whole lot 'built-in' from a rendering standpoint...not while there are so many other options. D5 has some very interesting features like using AI to build out landscaping using the models and tools. The soft plan examples looked to be pretty heavily modeled prior to rendering enhancements and I find that creating landscapes is quite time consuming. Now, I can send basic renders to any client and they no longer need me to provide great renderings:(.

Here's an example that CoPilot generated. My prompts were minimal. I can't do that in Chief in 2 minutes! And yes, it still changed parts of the building.

 

Edited Monday at 03:27 PM by robdyck

[Chrisb222]

38 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

"improve the lighting and landscaping and material quality but do not change the materials or architecture."

 

Looks great. One of the best things AI does with exteriors is making the glass look so much more realistic.

[TCB_BdnMY]

 So here's a good question, and something I think having a built in, custom developed AI engine that doesn't affect the architecture would be ideal... but wouldn't it be amazing if it also worked the other way around.

If you do an exterior render, client wants to see different siding options... we need to be able to change JUST the building and leave the background etc the same.

 

I've noticed that trying to get the same setting / lighting / background / trees / shrubs etc to stay, even using my adobe firefly subscription is almost impossible. Krea AI's live image editing tool seems to do the best by using the previous image, then cutting out the image of the new siding and putting it ontop but its SO clunky and not 100% accurate. See the attached photo for example.

 

Anyway this confuses soooo many people "why is everything else in the picture different now" etc.

If we could do this with the AI image enhancement that would be ideal. Almost exactly like we have the button for "denoise view" we could have a "AI Image Enhance" that has similar controls to all the other camera views but is built on a code level to not change ANYTHING other than output image detail, lighting etc but with it using all of the already available model & material information built in as a custom prompt almost.... that's about as far as my brain takes it, but I'm sure some coding genius could make it happen! Our community here is pretty awesome. We. Need. Repeatable. Results.

 

I also thing people have been asking for years now that chief have render plugins available.

If i understand correctly what @Michael_Gia is saying, if we could link to Unreal Engine & Twinmotion / Enscape / D5 / Luminon for both repeatable outdoor settings and accurate architecture representation. But the kicker is that it HAS TO be a plugin / integration / built into the subscription already, no one else makes you pay extra they just include the plugin / functionality direct. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

@SHCanada2well I prefer that they have filtered through the myriad of AI engines and chosen one that works best for what we want to do. 
 

That is, make a great render and don’t touch the architecture. (or as little as possible)

 

 

Edited Monday at 03:43 PM by TCB_BdnMY

[Chrisb222]

14 minutes ago, robdyck said:

I'm not sure Chief really needs a whole lot 'built-in' from a rendering standpoint

 

I agree, and that rendering looks fantastic.

 

15 minutes ago, robdyck said:

And yes, it still changed parts of the building.

 

Do you send it out like that, or keep trying to get AI to fix it? I find that asking it to fix things repeatedly just keeps getting further from the goal.

 

And if you send it like that, do you explain it was altered by AI?

[TCB_BdnMY]

After the long rant I also totally forgetting to mention prompts... Imagine the possibilities and accuracy if there was something referencing the direct model & material information as a prompt in itself.  (check out the enscape chaos engines)

A DBX like the PBR one for controlling ai effects, what it touches, what it doesnt etc. Save a rendered background as a default setting etc.. 

Edited Monday at 03:52 PM by TCB_BdnMY

[robdyck]

32 minutes ago, Chrisb222 said:

Do you send it out like that, or keep trying to get AI to fix it?

No, I don't send any AI altered renderings...ever. They can do that themselves, right?

[basketballman]

2 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

@Chrisb222Nice, I also get decent results with ChatGPT but would like some kind of built-in AI.  Not like SoftPlan.  I'm sure Chief can come up with an intelligent solution. 

 

Here is my Chat GPT workflow.

I upload a PBR render.

My prompt is: "improve the lighting and landscaping and material quality but do not change the materials or architecture."

 

Chief PBR

 

ChatGPT:

 

 

Sunlight & landscape in A.I. renders makes such a difference ..

Chief renders are, in general, pretty lifeless ( or light less ) without some work 

[ComputerMaster86]

On 2/23/2026 at 10:01 AM, Michael_Gia said:

@Chrisb222Nice, I also get decent results with ChatGPT but would like some kind of built-in AI.  Not like SoftPlan.  I'm sure Chief can come up with an intelligent solution. 

 

Here is my Chat GPT workflow.

I upload a PBR render.

My prompt is: "improve the lighting and landscaping and material quality but do not change the materials or architecture."

 

Chief PBR

 

ChatGPT:

 

I played around with Chat GPT and used various prompts and wordings.  it always seemed to change things I didn't want changed or made small mistakes I didn't notice at first .  When I noticed the quirks you couldn't unsee them.  Maybe Chat GPT gets better with each iteration.  I just hope Chief doesn't waste boat loads of resources on A.I. and other non A.I. new features have to suffer or be put on the back burner.

[Michael_Gia]

@ComputerMaster86

I think the key is that you have to give AI a lot less to do if you don’t want those AI “hallucinations” as some people call them. 
 

In my example, I started off with a decent pbr from Chief with the actual materials I wanted and as good as I could get the lighting and perspective. 
 

ChatGPT did a good job because it didn’t have to invent too much. 
 

When it does I will usually reply with “pretty good but change even less from the original image” I rarely have to use this, so I do think ChatGPT is learning. 

[Michael_Gia]

This is worth a 10 minute look…

 

 

[Chrisb222]

28 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

This is worth a 10 minute look…

 

Gemini is pretty good. ChatGPT is way better than it used to be so at this point they're similar in usability but different in interpretation. I just copy the prompt and send it to both. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other.

[dskogg]

I tried Gemini 3, uploading a pbr plain render of a house with no landscaping, 

Here are results, it changed the perspective to more face on, i think so it could add the curb, sidewalk, boulevard and adjacent houses to work in the image.

What do you think?

 

This is my first try, I had to reduce night image size to fit in upload limit.

 

  

[SHCanada2]

3 hours ago, dskogg said:

I tried Gemini 3, uploading a pbr plain render of a house with no landscaping, 

are those the real houses beside it...as in you gave it an address?

[Michael_Gia]

3 hours ago, dskogg said:

What do you think?

beautiful!

 

You got it to improve the lighting, landscape, perspective all while preserving your structure and design elements. 
 

well done, human. 

[SHCanada2]

Sooo in pondering this some more I'm guessing softplan tested out some ai engine and through trial and error found a command sequence that does not alter the architecture. I'm guessing they are working on some more wrappers. For instance the next improvement they may give is an option to make it brighter but behind the scenes it will execute certain commands they will have tested because, to basketballmans point you also have to tell it what not to do.  If they gave people direct access to the ai engine they would be flooded with calls that it altered the building. Or maybe they are trying to find tune ai to do that testing for them

[ComputerMaster86]

Here is an image I exported from Chief and tried in chat GPT a few months back...

 

 

Here was the output from chat GPT...

 

 

It added a shingle ridge cap to a steel roof.    It misinterpreted the porch beam and that was a little off.

 

I used "Create photo realistic rendered image. Keep integrity of original image."  I probably needed to use a better prompt.