Latest Rendering Techniques with X18 and A.I.??

[DB-Designs]

Hello all! Just curious to see what people are using and/or doing to make their renderings look more realistic with the latest version of Chief Architect? Are people using A.I.? Running it through a different rendering software? Attached are a few images of a house I'm working on for a client. Their comment was they are struggling to see the different wall depths/definitions of the house. I know it looks a little plain without landscape. Thanks in advance for all the help!

[Michael_Gia]

@DB-Designs

 

about 25 seconds in ChatGPT. 

My prompt:

 

Increase photorealism of this image. Improve lighting, global illumination, reflections, shadows, and material texture resolution. Preserve the exact architecture, materials, proportions, windows, doors, and camera perspective. Do not modify the design in any way—only enhance realism and render quality. 

[basketballman]

 

Gemini 

42 sec to enhance the lighting, contrast, and landscaping while preserving the architecture and exact camera framing.

[Chrisb222]

3 hours ago, DB-Designs said:

Are people using A.I.?

 

Yes. I'm done trying to decipher how to quickly and easily create realistic renderings with the software tools. Ain't worth the time and trouble, and never looks as good as AI. Just watch for changing architectural details.

[basketballman]

31 minutes ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

Yes. I'm done trying to decipher how to quickly and easily create realistic renderings with the software tools. Ain't worth the time and trouble, and never looks as good as AI. Just watch for changing architectural details.

   Changing details rarely happens anymore.  There is now real consistency.  Just gotta watch your prompts.

[DB-Designs]

This is awesome! Thanks for all your help! I will look into these options.

[Gawdzira]

Maybe overkill based on the previous prompts:

 

MASTER PROMPT — ARCHITECTURAL phot real

PRESENTATION STYLE

Transform this architectural rendering into a more photo real image for an architectural design development presentation.

Maintain accurate architectural proportions and perspective while converting the image into a high-end conceptual presentation rendering often seen in architecture studios, design competitions, and sketchbook presentations.

Add a small amount of drought tolerant landscaping like sage ground cover to the foreground that you would see on the Monterey Peninsula of California.

Preserve intentional empty paper space around the rendering.

ARCHITECTURAL PRESENTATION STYLE

Maintain realistic architectural lighting and material hierarchy while simplifying unnecessary detail.

Emphasize massing, shadow, glazing, roof forms, timber accents, landscape composition, and depth.

The rendering should feel like a premium conceptual presentation piece created by an architectural photographer.

LANDSCAPE STYLE

Loose and painterly landscaping with watercolor foliage masses, abstract shrubs, soft grass texture, and atmospheric tree forms. Add foreground drought tolerant landscaping that would be seen in Carmel by the Sea California with some low creeping sage groundcover

Avoid hyper-detailed botanical rendering.

Trees and plants should partially dissolve into the paper edges.

LIGHTING

Warm natural daylight or soft golden-hour lighting with subtle shadow contrast.

Preserve believable architectural depth while keeping the overall composition airy and artistic.

TEXTURE + DETAIL

Slightly enhance the materials shown in the image and preserve colors.

COMPOSITION

Centered architectural hero shot presentation-board aesthetic, elegant white space, professional architectural illustration balance, no heavy vignette, no graphic design overlays, no typography unless added separately.

AVOID

cartoon rendering, anime style, heavy outlines, cel shading, overly saturated colors, digital painting look, oil painting texture, comic-book style, sharp CGI edges, excessive realism, cluttered backgrounds, ultra-detailed foliage, fantasy styling.

 

[Michael_Gia]

I get downloaded every time, but I’ll say it again.
Chief should stop with all the unnecessary improvements in PBR Ray tracing, baloney. We don’t need it.
 

We need a decent stair tool.
 

The ability to design windows and not just mull them together.
 

Dimensions in elevations are still a major chore.
 

Cad tools are really underdeveloped and not accurate.
 

And all the other frustrating issues that have not been resolved for eons. 
 

It's still the best software of its kind, hands down, and I’m not going anywhere else. Just saying 
 

Edited Tuesday at 08:39 PM by Michael_Gia

[basketballman]

45 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

I get downloaded every time, but I’ll say it again.
Chief should stop with all the unnecessary improvements in PBR Ray tracing, baloney. We don’t need it.
 

We need a decent stair tool.
 

The ability to design windows and not just mull them together.
 

Dimensions in elevations are still a major chore.
 

Cad tools are really underdeveloped and not accurate.
 

And all the other frustrating issues that have not been resolved for eons. 
 

It's still the best software of its kind, hands down, and I’m not going anywhere else. Just saying 
 

 

 My thoughts exactly ...

[mtldesigns]

3 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

I get downloaded every time, but I’ll say it again

No down vote from me. I agree totally.  Continue to work and improve the stuff that builds the house.  

[Renerabbitt]

4 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

I get downloaded every time, but I’ll say it again.
Chief should stop with all the unnecessary improvements in PBR Ray tracing, baloney. We don’t need it.
 

We need a decent stair tool.
 

The ability to design windows and not just mull them together.
 

Dimensions in elevations are still a major chore.
 

Cad tools are really underdeveloped and not accurate.
 

And all the other frustrating issues that have not been resolved for eons. 
 

It's still the best software of its kind, hands down, and I’m not going anywhere else. Just saying 
 

I know this is not what you mean by your comment but just saying
These are completely different development departments. Ryan and Dan and the rest of the rendering team don't develop for stairs and cad tools and the like which are handled by a different dev team...and trust me you need the rendering development team in order for this software to even produce an elevation. IOW stopping the development of rendering features doesnt hinder or benefit the development of other features.
Also, I for one would love if the rendering team continue on their path because programmatically, with more features in the style palette tool and a potential integration with ai tools which is actively being worked on, these renderings can become more accurate than a straight re-output from an ai engine. Everyone has seen a great first try first outpur rendering, but we've also seen 100 trys get it completely wrong.
This software is as much for IDs as it is for AD's, and for ID's they literally make their money from spec, so using Ai that changes their spec faucet and dishwasher is not an option

Edited Wednesday at 01:36 AM by Renerabbitt

[ComputerMaster86]

10 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

I get downloaded every time, but I’ll say it again.
Chief should stop with all the unnecessary improvements in PBR Ray tracing, baloney. We don’t need it.
 

We need a decent stair tool.
 

The ability to design windows and not just mull them together.

 

I would welcome more improvements to stair tools.  I sent them a couple suggestions over year ago.

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 07:34 AM by ComputerMaster86

[Rich_Winsor]

You aren't limited to photorealistic results.

If you prefer a more artistic approach you

can create any style image you desire.

 

[Michael_Gia]

[HartDeNoble]

17 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

I get downloaded every time, but I’ll say it again.
Chief should stop with all the unnecessary improvements in PBR Ray tracing, baloney. We don’t need it.
 

We need a decent stair tool.
 

The ability to design windows and not just mull them together.
 

Dimensions in elevations are still a major chore.
 

Cad tools are really underdeveloped and not accurate.
 

And all the other frustrating issues that have not been resolved for eons. 
 

It's still the best software of its kind, hands down, and I’m not going anywhere else. Just saying 
 

Couldn't agree more. We need focus on drafting tools. Stairs, front porches, so many more. The rendering capabilities with Chief are good enough and ai is going to continue improving, so its such a waste of development time. I no longer even try to get a photo real rendering in chief, to time consuming when ai can get really close (occasionally have to do photo real when ai can't stop changing things, but I am sure that will improve). 

[para-CAD]

Michael Gia wins the "Spits drink out" funny award.  
 

Damn bro.......tru-dat.  

 

The power of competing AIs will provide all the wonderful rendering that one would ever need.

Chief should incorporate plugins to these different AIs or maybe Blender and some other 3D tools instead of trying to in-house build their own system.

I agree with the other comments.

Chief should focus on what Chief does better than anyone else and refine those tools.

[Renerabbitt]

Fairly certain that no one in these comments is doing high end residential interior design spec...which AI is absolute hot garbage at staying true to spec.  
 

[ABBuilt]

Decent stair tool please!  You should be able to just check a box to start the stairs from the top of your platform instead of 1 step down every time.

 

PBR... just recently watched that A.I. Documentary on Netflix and SOON the clients will just be able to produce the plans, renderings, whatever themselves, so CA and everyone on this thread will be just hobbyists drawing squares on computer screens for fun.  

 

The crayon elevation is actually good work.

[Renerabbitt]

22 minutes ago, ABBuilt said:

SOON the clients will just be able to produce the plans

no, no they will not, not in my lifetime, ai is not cognitive, it needs billions of parameters to train its models.
You would need 24 billion homes as a data set if you want Ai to generate homes and there arent even that many homes in America to train that data set

 

Edited Wednesday at 11:55 PM by Renerabbitt

[MollyNDG]

3 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

Fairly certain that no one in these comments is doing high end residential interior design spec...which AI is absolute hot garbage at staying true to spec.  
 

This is exactly why I don't even waste my time messing with AI to change my renderings, I make every fixture and material to be exact and I don't want an AI messing it up. Even one error means I have to mess around with it. My time is more valuable making the fixtures and materials then dialing in my renderings, which does not take long when you have it set to what you need already. All we do is high end residential interior design and it has to be 100% accurate or it's a no go.

[Michael_Gia]

On 9/22/2026 at 9:35 PM, Renerabbitt said:

This software is as much for IDs as it is for AD's, and for ID's they literally make their money from spec, so using Ai that changes their spec faucet and dishwasher is not an option

René, visualization and specification are two different functions, and AI changing an object in a 3D visualization shouldn’t be confused with changing the actual design specification. 
3D renderings should not be used for spec. That’s what detail drawings are for and perhaps references to manufacturers’ PDF specs for any given product or material are for. 
 

OP posted a question. My first response showed what ChatGPT can do with a simple prompt and 40 seconds. Show me how a Chief user (Not René) could do the same in that amount of time and effort. 

[para-CAD]

I don’t think anyone who is doing 3-D renders in any platform will have much success when they try to submit that render for a permit. There is so much involved in each local jurisdiction that AI cannot compete. Maybe in a few years, but for now, human beings are still required. The pretty picture might get you the client’s signature on a contract, but the plan for permit still needs human input.
 

As far as specifications go, that’s always text-based in my world. When it comes to hardware in a kitchen, my plans never have that stuff, but that could be put into a schedule, I suppose, with vendor specific language

[HartDeNoble]

18 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

Fairly certain that no one in these comments is doing high end residential interior design spec...which AI is absolute hot garbage at staying true to spec.  
 

I am in the high end design here in Wisconsin. I do not do interior design, but we are still in the high end market regardless (and some of the interior design teams we work with use Chief). The problem for many users, including myself is that it feels like way too many resources or people are being used to develop the rendering features/improvements. I get that there is a seperate division for rendering/3d but I think there is a decent amount of frustration from many users that want the main focus for at least a couple of versions to be on drafting tools (stairs, porches, etc). Chief is so far behind in those areas, that in my opinion, the resources and all departments should focus on those things and cool off on the rendering features for a while, especially with so many other options for rendering now. Just my two cents. Chief is so user friendly and is such a great program, there is just a need for more user control with a lot of their tools/features. 

[DBCooper]

You guys are too funny.  I just re-looked over the what's new in X18 list and there wasn't a whole lot in there related to rendering so it certainly doesn't seem like Chief is making it their main focus.  Of course, there wasn't a whole lot in there related to stairs either but that really wasn't the topic of this thread was it?

 

https://cloud.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/marketing/x18-new-features.pdf

 

[HartDeNoble]

7 minutes ago, DBCooper said:

You guys are too funny.  I just re-looked over the what's new in X18 list and there wasn't a whole lot in there related to rendering so it certainly doesn't seem like Chief is making it their main focus.  Of course, there wasn't a whole lot in there related to stairs either but that really wasn't the topic of this thread was it?

 

https://cloud.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/marketing/x18-new-features.pdf

 

That is also fair. I think the frustration is mainly from stairs, front porches/screen porch control, and some other key areas that have been neglected. But you do make a good point that the last update did have a better focus on other areas besides rendering/3d. I should be more careful with my wording because the programmers who work on chief do an excellent job and they are put in a tough spot on deciding what features/tools to update or add.