Shiny Metal Materials

Hello,

I recently obtained Home Designer Architectural 2012 and I am dissapointed in regard to the screen colours and screen resolution.

When I place a metal kitchen sink or other metal object in the home-plan, it is shown as terribly grey on the screen. It does not look like metal at all.

I also noted that the drwaing resolution is relatively low.

I can imagine that Chief Architect is using a low colour and resolution schema to limmit the required computer performance. However I hope both aspects can be ajusted to better vallues.

Is there a way to make "metal metal" and to increase the rendering resolution?


Sincerely,


Louis

Chief Architect Inc software uses what you have, so if you do not like what you have the source of that quality is your own PC, its hardware and your operating system.
You may be able to improve what you have via settings within what you have.

Too much missing data to have anything other than a general opinion. I build my own PC's and have never been disappointed but we are of course different individuals with probably differing opinions. likes and dislikes.

DJP

Without being able to see a screenshot of what you are describing, I'd recommend taking a look at Article Number 897: How to resolve most 3D camera view display problems

Also make sure you select a Final View with Shadows, that will smooth out edges and add more realism to the view.

True photo-realistic ray tracing is currently only offered in the Chief Architect Premier version of the software, the Home Designer programs will be limited to rendering.

Hello,

Some people replayed that the problem is probably related to my PC. I can tell you that is not true. The actual configuration includes:
- WINDOWS7 64 bit
- 32 bit colours
- high quallity 24 inch IPS screen

So that is definitly not the problem

Sincerely,


Louis

It may be the memory of the video card. While 32 bit color is great for word processing and photoshop, it doesn't mean a thing in 3d modeling. If your video card needs @ minimum 512MB of DEDICATED (on the card, not shared with the system) memory to get what I consider acceptable results. (HD reqs may be different, I forget)

Hello,

Since some people asked for an example to show the problem, hereby a small picture showing a screenshot of a kitchen hood (taken from Home Designer Architectual 2012) which added a set of pots taken from some advertisement.

As you can see the colour looks quite different :)
You can also see the othe problem I mentioned, poor rendering resolution.

Again, I do have a high quallity computer including very high quallity IPS-screen and grafic board using 32 bit colours, the best you can get (appart from very high end display port displays).

To answer a few questions:
- video card. Do not wory its 1G. There really is no HW problem. PC is more than powerfull enough
- I was not awere of the camara "one moment" view options in the 3D menu. I agree it looks better, but nowhere near as it according to my criteria should. Colour is still grey and nothing alike steel or siver. Resolution is still poor. The improvement is not far more than the shadows

- open GL is of course OK. No problem with that. But as a private user the price of Premier X4 package is :(

- completely photo resolution is what you would expect to see, living in 2011. However a some what lesser quallity would be acceptable. However the actualy used colour depth and screen resolution in the package, is to low in my option given the fact that it is 2011 and not 1995.

Hereby a screenshot of a cooker.

Note that this is a 2012 edition. That is what surprises me.

Louis

What does it look like after you select "Final View with Shadows"?

Import a hi-res image of the metal you want and apply that to the surface. Try:

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

for a variety of free seamless and other textures.

However, like Kat said, if photorealism is what you are really after, then the entire Home Designer product-line is not for you.

Chief Architect Premier X4 allows a Ray Trace final render (HD titles are OpenGL only) and is much closer to "real". Beyond that... well, what's your budget?

jon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by louisb

Colour is still grey and nothing alike steel or siver. Resolution is still poor.

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To add to what jcaffee is saying regarding importing different metal materials if you don't want a flat gray color, you want to apply a texture to your objects, and not just a flat color. There is a selection of metal materials in the Formica manufacturer catalog that might suit your needs.

You could also do a Google Image search online for shiny metal pictures until you find something that is suitable for you to import as a material.

Attached are some images that demonstrate how these types of materials (when set as "Stretch to Fit" so that they don't tile across the surface) can look when applied to appliances in Home Designer.

Sooo, I've been thinking a bit since seeing this post about trying to bring a bit more realism to the shiny metal materials in Home Designer, and decided to use the same basic method as we use for creating mirror reflections now and combine it with using a thin cabinet partition with the material set to be partly transparent.

I think that if you are willing to put in the time and effort, you could come up with some pretty decent looking metal reflections, if it is worth it to you to put the work in. :D

(I just realized looking at the screenshot of the Dishwasher that I forgot to reverse the image before importing it as a Material, and applying it to the partition, but you get the idea.)

At some point though, I suppose that upgrading to Chief Premier which has the ray tracing capability might be a better use of one's resources.

Nice thinking of you Katalyst777 i m impressed ...