Grout lines not visible in standard view?

[Nicinus]

I've been trying to get some separation between my stone pavers on a patio in the camera view, but despite trying with grout lines that are 6" wide, it all blurs together? In the vector view I see the pattern correctly.

 

Do textures and things like grout lines exclude each other?

 

[DavidJPotter]

I may be that the texture file has white grout and so the pattern file in vector view would have white pattern lines, which do not work well on layout, when I come across such a material duo I change the pattern lines to "Black" so that they show up on layout. If that is what you mean of course.

 

DJP

[Nicinus]

Hi David, and thanks for your fast response.

 

I've looked at the texture file, and it doesn't have any grout line at all. I guess it makes sense that you either use a colored pattern or a texture, but I somehow thought Chief would be able to squeeze in a grout line since that was a parameter.

 

I mean primarily in the camera view though, Layout/plan looks fine.

[Nicinus]

I've played more with it now and the grout lines obviously doesn't affect the textures, which is fine. However, It would be nice to overlay the vector lines on top of the standard view, the way it is possible in for example the water color view. Is there a way to do this?

[CJSpud]

The texture is basically just a picture of a particular material so for any available texture from the library, etc., you are limited to what is shown.  About all you can do with them is change the scaling or color. 

 

What you could try to do is find a real world example of a material the same as or similar to your material that has grout lines and take a photo of it (as square to as possible and with good lighting ... no shaddows) and attempt to create your own texture for that material.  You have to be very careful to crop it just right so that you minimize the "tiling effect" when the texture is repeated on a Chief surface such as a wall. 

 

I suppose you could also try to "assemble" your own material piecemeal and then use a polyline solid slightly behind the surfaces of the individual pices and give it a color/material that will make it show as grout joints (lines) as needed.

 

There might be an application available from the Internet that will allow you to create your own texture and grout joints.  Here's one I have bookmarked that a Chief user posted awhile back that I have not used:  http://www.bricksntiles.com/features/

 

Edit:  Here's another link that has LOTS of textures available ... you might find one here that is better for you:

 

http://www.cgtextures.com/index.php

[GerryT]

FWI -- If your interested in showing grout lines, the easiest method I've found is to use a program like Gimp or Photoshop or even Paint.net. Basically you take any stucco texture and overlay a colored hatch pattern on a alpha layer. The advantage is that you then have both a hatch pattern for Vector and the texture for Raster.

 

Fairly quick to do once you figure out the hatch line spacings. Playing around with the thickness of the hatch lines and some shading/blurring effects gives some realistic textures

 

YouTube has a number of videos on the subject using these programs. Gimp & Paint are freebees. Hardest part is learning the nuances of the programs as each is slightly different in available tools.

[Nicinus]

Thanks, but still, it would be really useful to be able to overlay the vector view on the standard, wouldn't it? Or I guess the same thing, a vector mode that allows for textures.

[glennw]

I just had a play with this and you can do a lot with the Watercolor with Line Drawing on top. 

I assume that the watercolor  mode uses the rendered (standard) view to start

 

Generate a 3D rendered (standard) view.

Open up the Rendering Technique Options dbx and turn ALL the options to  zero and OK out.

This means that you will essentially get a rendered view with straight lines, no overlap, etc.

 

While still in the 3D view (or go back to an elevation if you prefer), you can use Adjust Material Definition (the rainbow tool) to change the Pattern size and Offset (or angle if you want) so that it coincides with the Texture.

Or, you can go the other way and edit the Texture X&Y scale, Angle and Offset, so that it coincides with the Pattern.

Either way, with a bit of trial and error, you can get the pattern and texture to match up as I did for the bricks in the attached pic.

 

The first pic is a normal rendered view (Standard).

The second one is a Watercolor with Line Drawing where I matched up the brick pattern with the texture.

 

The third one I changed the roofing definition from an Area material (which doesn't have a pattern) to a Strip material and rotated it 90deg to get the lines on the roof to run the correct way.

 

This is all very flexible and you can display the materials any way you want.

You can even delete the brick texture and just have the pattern and brick color, as shown in the fourth picture.

 

The fifth picture I thickened up the Line Thickness to 10.

 

You should be able to get close to what you want using the above.

[Maddoxffd]

Hi, when I render a kitchen drawing in watercolor, with lines drawn on-top, I get ALL lines drawn on-top; even the cabinet shelves. Is there any way to have lines drawn on outside of cabinets only, unless there is a glass door?

[BryceEngstrom]

There really isn't much control over the line generation in that mode, and I do get lots of extraneous lines I'd rather not have.  Sometimes you just have to try and clean it up in Photoshop or something.

[DRAWZILLA]

By setting your line's to "0" in some of those settings, it helps greatly with the extra lines in watercolor w/ lines.

[KilgoreTrout]

"...even the cabinet shelves"

 

Cabinet shelves sometimes show through cabinets depending on your camera type, angle and distance.  I will sometimes adjust or even remove the shelves to make this problem go away.