X5 Vs Thea...

[Chad Cardin]

Glen,

Thanks so much for clearing this up for me. Yes you are correct and thanks for showing me how this works, it was in the template. What method do you use when you render? It seems in Jintus simpler sunlight dbx its just two choices in the more comprehensive there are different selections. How would you accomplish this same task in the more complex dbx should a chief user want to use this?

[Glenn Woodward]

Chad,

Once you place a Sun Angle arrow in the plan, you loose the default sun.
I normally have Sun Angle arrows in my plan because I normally have to do sun studies for submission to the approving authority.
Usually one of these will give me an OK render.
If not, I can place another one in the plan to use for renders and turn all the other Sun Angle arrows off.

One big advantage of using a Sun Angle arrow and it's Sun Angle Specification dbx is that you can generate a 3D view, and arrow key through the various Date and Time boxes and the shadows will dynamically change in the render view as the date and time change.

This allows you to more quickly assess the shadows as they change, and to then choose the best shadows for your render - instead of opening the Adjust Lights bdx and the Default Sun Light Specification dbx all the time where you have to close both dbx's to see the changes, and if it is not what you want, you have to open them up again, make changes.......

But, if you know what settings you need and it is usually the same, just use the Default sun.

[Chad Cardin]

Nice! Thanks Glen for the explanation. It seems even though the one dbx is more complex it may make the job easier in the end with any adjustment to date and time like you pointed out. Thanks again for all the help with this!!

[dr0591]

Yes, I like using the Sun Angle dbx for renders because if you check "Make Shadow" in the dbx, you can see the exact angle and length of the shadows in plan view, and use that to select the best sun angle for the shot you're setting up.

[Chad Cardin]

Kathleen, since you do so many renderings Im curious if you ever tinker with any of the other adjustments on the raytrace tab for interiors? Currently, Im not venturing out too much from what guidelines and recommendations Jintu has given because I dont have that much experience. Im just curious as to what differences the other selections on there make.

[Doug Park]

I highly recommend experimenting with simple small scenes to see how various settings affect things.

[jcaffee]

Include materials and material settings in that experimentation.

jon

[dr0591]

As I've mentioned before, Chief's rendering engine -- or my skill at using it, more likely -- has improved to the point where I am much more comfortable using Chief for interior renderings. Here are two from a current project for comparison -- the Chief version ran for 25 passes on Indoor Quick and took about an hour. The Thea version ran overnight (about 8 hours) and still isn't as clear as I'd like it. Since it's a night scene and lit fairly dramatically, both required some significant balancing in Photoshop. But I wouldn't say that I tweaked one more than the other.

Can you see many differences between the two?

Chad, I will write down my typical interior render settings and post them for you later. But a lot depends on getting your materials set up right. I don't really like Chief's "polished" preset at all, and the "reflective" preset has to be adjusted very carefully. Also, Chief's bump map function annoys me -- if you turn on bump mapping for a material, it should just use the material's texture for the bump map unless you specify a different file, but instead it does nothing, as far as I can tell. It's a pain to go hunting in my files for the same darned texture file that's already being used, just to specify it in the bump dialog. :-(

[dshall]

I say Thea is on left and CA on right. Great comparison exercise. There are things I like more on one than the other. But if I had to choose, I think I like the one on the right more, and that is the one I think is CA.

Nope, after looking again, I think I like the lighting more on the one on the left, assuming that is Thea.

Can you give me a hint on which is which?

[dgavin]

Scott - it is the title of the picture.....bottom right

[dr0591]

Yes, you're both right -- left is Thea, right is Chief. I think it says a lot that's it's not a slam dunk on telling which is which.

[dshall]

Yes, you're both right -- left is Thea, right is Chief. I think it says a lot that's it's not a slam dunk on telling which is which.

It does say a lot. I wonder how much better CA would of done if given more time.

[dr0591]

Yes, I will try it on the Indoor-High Quality setting as another test.

[Gene Davis]

The giveaway was Chief bleaching out in the kitchen, and failing to do the background hall in sufficient shadow, but otherwise, WOW!

Kathleen, from where did the pillows come?

[dr0591]

Thanks, Gene. Those pillows were a gift from Kay Nordby (not sure where she got them). I love them!! The UVs work pretty decently for most patterns I put on them.