X5 3D View Issues

[keithhe]

I decided today to try the X5 Beta as I've been using X4 for about a year now.
Fisrt issue I see is that the 3D views (not traces) are really poor quality. Materials are all as if the outter layers are too thin. Not quite sure how to explain, but for example siding shows plywwod layer showing through in areas and entire 3D view is much darker than X4.

I recognize this is a Beta, but am I missing something here?

I have a separate GPU and like X4, have that default for X5, so as near as I can tell, I'm not doing anything any diffferent between versions.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

[kiwideziner]

What Scott was trying to say is post at least a picture, or even better the plan. We cant see your screen so can only guess.

[keithhe]

Thanks Graeme

Jpg attached. Again, this is same computer, monitor and best I can tell all settings are the same, but never had this issue with X4.

Just seems that all the "textures" like siding, roof shingles are nearly transparent at most any angle. Did a quick ray trace and those render fine, but it's very distracting to see this washed out image when looking at 3D details.

[keithhe]

Graeme,

Attached is the plan, in progress

[kiwideziner]

You have what is called Z fighting.
check 1. that the model is not a long way form the origin 0,0
2. that you have appropriate material thicknesses

[keithhe]

Graeme,

Not at all sure how to check the x,y axis position of the drawing, as I was under impression CA auto places this when you start a new drawing. Unlike ACAD where you can change this pretty easily.

I did manually change the generic library material to a much thicker layer and that does seem to fix the problem. Curious, is this something new to X5 as this is not a texture I made? It's just something close from the CA library. Good answer, and still has me wondering why this is the case, but does make it work.

[lbuttery]

Keith:

besides getting close to the origin

which I wish Chief would auto-magically do for the first wall placed

there is the front-clipping plane setting that can help

see this thread:

http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....light=FIGHTING

Lew

[VHampton]

Materials are all as if the outter layers are too thin. Not quite sure how to explain, but for example siding shows plywwod layer showing through in areas and entire 3D view is much darker than X4.

When materials are bleeding through, this is definitely z fighting at work.
The entire plan needs to be moved with a shift select while using the edit tool. You can move everything to the zero origin if that makes any sense.

Regarding shadows and the ambient lighting being off, everyone's graphic card is different and therefore each machine is going to render a view a bit differently. I had to adjust the preferences as I did when first setting up X4. The 3D setting for ambient lighting also need a tweak. And lastly, the sun shadows options were adjusted.

Attached is how it seems to work best for me anyway...

[keithhe]

Lew,

Great link to other post and a few experiments has this already working better. Material thickness also has an impact and has me checking those as well. Working better, and not nearly the distraction it was causing.

Thank you, great advice.

[keithhe]

Val,

I have not tried this yet. Would be great if CA had a grid to see plan in 3D space and it's relation to x,y origin. I'll try some moves and see what happens. Thanks for the screen shots of your settings and checking against mine. The thing I was confused by was a simple change from X4 to X5 and duplicating my settings that worked previously no longer worked. All advice given has helped and I no longer take for granted that things remain the same, as evidently, they do not.

Thanks again Graeme, Lew and Val !!

[VHampton]

You're very welcome Keith.

When I first opened a plan in X5 it was sort of disconcerting to see that the graphics weren't exactly the same as X4. Then I remembered that I had to initially make some adjustments (when I first set up X4) because my machine doesn't have the magic Nvidia card.

Val,

The thing I was confused by was a simple change from X4 to X5 and duplicating my settings that worked previously no longer worked.

[keithhe]

Val,
That was my first thought as well. I spent some time with X4 (my first foray into CA) getting the settings as right as I could via reading through this forum. I did the same for X5, but did not seem to be working.

The separate GPU is a huge help in the renderings and this computer was purpose bought for CA. I basically read through "gamer" forums as I reasoned they would place highest demand on graphics and that anything scoring high with them, would work well here. I have not been dissapointed with this machine at all.

[Chiefer]

I decided today to try the X5 Beta as I've been using X4 for about a year now.
Fisrt issue I see is that the 3D views (not traces) are really poor quality. Materials are all as if the outter layers are too thin. Not quite sure how to explain, but for example siding shows plywwod layer showing through in areas and entire 3D view is much darker than X4.

I recognize this is a Beta, but am I missing something here?

I have a separate GPU and like X4, have that default for X5, so as near as I can tell, I'm not doing anything any diffferent between versions.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

3 observations:

1) x, y axis is in the right position. No problem.

2) The terrain is large. Perspective overview will capture all that is in the plan making the building smaller. Zooming will result to material bleeding.

Avoid using Perspective Full Overview when dealing with large terrains, use Full Camera instead.

3) Structures facing North tend to be darker because of the default sun angle.

[Jim Rogers]

To avoid future problems with z fighting, what I did was I opened up a plan from my template plan, and placed a "X" at 0,0. I then saved it as my template plan.

Now every time I open a new plan to start drawing I start my first wall at 0,0 on the "X".

This puts the plan in a position where z fighting shouldn't be an issue, in my opinion and experience.

Also, there was a 3d symbol offered here once that has been passed around for many years.
You can search for this 3d symbol and put it in your library and place it in your plan pointing to north and it shows up nice when you need to remember which is is which.

[dshall]

Here is a link to the video exploring the issues. Very good video.

http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....346#post449346