Beginning with Chief Architect X13,
there is an entirely new rendering engine that includes real-time ray tracing.
Chief Architect's new rendering engine has improved quality and performance.
You can create great renderings in a fraction of the time,
and it offers many new rendering improvements. With real-time ray tracing,
you'll be able to easily generate artistic or realistic views for your clients
in a matter of seconds. So, why an entirely new rendering engine?
In 2018,
Apple announced it would not be supporting OpenGL in the future.
OpenGL is a high level rendering interface for cross-platform applications,
and it really was the first 3D API available around the same time Chief
Architect originated. For continued support on the Mac platform,
we needed to make a change.
Both Mac and PC have 3D interfaces;
DirectX on the PC and Metal on the Mac.
These interfaces are lower level than OpenGL,
which means it's more work for us to initially support them.
But since they are platform specific, they can be more efficient and faster.
Ray trace rendering can now be performed on the video card -
The GPU versus the computer's CPU.
These new video card GPU's are highly optimized for 3D rendering,
and Chief Architect X13 takes advantage of these GPU's.
Here are a few results to share. With this kitchen scene,
the CPU ray trace took 90 minutes to generate,
and the GPU ray trace took 20 seconds, and,
faster using a higher end video card. For this
exterior scene, the CPU ray trace took two hours to generate,
and the GPU Ray trace took seven seconds,
and even faster using a higher end video card.
Camera defaults have an added option for the display of color.
If you remove the mark, the color will be disabled.
There's also a new option to add a watermark for cameras and walkthroughs as a
default setting.
A new line drawing option has been added for the standard, duotone,
watercolor, and physically based render styles. In this standard view,
line drawing is enabled.
Let's take a look at the new real-time ray tracing option that is available for
the physically based camera and the new clay render camera.
First, in your preferences,
you can determine if your video card supports real-time ray tracing.
You can see that this NVIDIA card does support hardware ray tracing.
Please see our system requirements on the webpage for additional information.
When I switch the camera to a physically based technique,
this view will look a lot like it does in X12.
To enable the real-time ray tracing,
I'll open the technique options in the global elimination area.
There is a new checkbox to use ray tracing and enable refraction.
When I enable ray tracing and return back to the view,
you're going to notice the real-time ray tracing begins.
The view will continually improve with render passes depending on the speed of
your video card. In a few seconds,
you can see that the results are fast and impressive.
You will find a new clay render technique for abstract style views.
The clay render supports real-time ray tracing.
You can further modify this by enabling line drawing and changing the coloring
with a solid color, using the layer color,
or by using the material color.
As I make these changes, you can see the effects on the scene.
For walkthroughs,
there's a new preview panel so that you can see and interact with the
walkthrough before recording.
You can use the timeline scrubber to scroll through the walkthrough path,
skip between individual frames, and skip between key frames.
For each key frame, you can edit the angle and tilt directly in the 3D preview.
You can also manually adjust each of the key frame values.
Walkthrough path settings have been consolidated in the walkthrough path dialog
for the key frame data, resolution, frame rate,
rendering technique, lighting, layer set, and backdrop.
To preview all these settings, you can toggle the recording quality on and off.
You can render a video of the entire walkthrough path or drag the
sliders to define start and end frames,
allowing you to record just a portion of the path.
You can generate a 3D camera view from any of the walkthrough frames to see that
exact view from your walkthrough path.
From any perspective camera view,
there's a new create orbital walkthrough tool.
It will automatically generate a walkthrough path in circling the focal point of
the camera. There are several other improvements made to 3D walkthroughs.
Please see our detailed feature list and explore for yourself.
There are several great new features in Chief Architect X13,
and you can expect to see it this Summer. And remember,
all new software purchases include a year of Support and Software Assurance.
So, if you're not currently a customer, get started today with Chief Architect.