Renerabbitt

It's a roof plane cutting through the rooms ceiling. Either change the roof plane or change the rooms ceiling height

I have never asked chief this as I have never planned on stopping my subscription. They should update their terms because that info is counter to the terms on the website

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Getting Started With Raytracing in HD2026 (Beginner-Friendly Walkthrough) If you’ve never used a raytrace engine before, here are the key things you need to know to get good results quickly. These steps take advantage of HD2026’s new access to the full Chief catalog library and the rendering tools that come with your subscription. 1. Download the HDRI Backdrops (Backdrops No. 2) For the first time, HD Pro users have access to all catalogs. Go to the 3D Library → Download Backdrops No. 2 – HDRI. Using an HDRI backdrop dramatically improves realism because it provides: environmental lighting accurate reflections soft ambient illumination 2. Set Up Your Raytrace Lighting Once your camera view is open: Apply an HDRI backdrop. In Rendering Technique Options, set Backdrop Intensity somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000. Switch your Sun to Manual Sunlight and start the Sun Intensity around 15,000. Let the HDRI’s natural radiance contribute most of the lighting — this gives a softer, more realistic look than relying on default sun settings. 3. Add These Tools to Your Toolbar To control your lighting direction easily: Rotate Spherical Backdrop Rotate Sun These tools let you freely adjust the direction of the HDRI light and the sun without digging through dialog boxes. 4. Sample Rate Basics (Why Your Image “Cleans Up” Over Time) Raytracing works by sampling the pixels on your screen. When the camera is still, the engine continues refining the image until the sample rate target is met. Beginner settings: Start your sample rate around 30 when you’re working live. This keeps the preview responsive. Great for design iterations. Higher sample rates = cleaner final images Lower sample rates = faster previews with more noise at first 5. What Are Fireflies? When a frame is still “undersampled,” you will see bright pixel specks called fireflies. They are normal. As the sample rate climbs: The engine gathers more light data Fireflies reduce The CPU runs its neural network denoiser to clean up remaining noise 6. GPU Denoising (If You Have an NVIDIA Card) If your machine is compatible, certain NVIDIA GPUs offer real-time AI denoising directly on the graphics card. This: cleans up the render much faster gives near-instant previews dramatically reduces CPU load For more information on setting this up, see the DLSS video Optimizing Raytrace Performance on Older or Mid-Range GPUs (2000-Series RTX, A-Series, Quadro, M1/M2) If your computer feels sluggish while trying out Chief’s raytrace engine, you’re not alone. Certain GPUs — including 2000-series RTX cards, A-Series RTX, older Quadros, and Apple M1/M2 graphics — need a few adjustments to run Ray Trace efficiently. Making these changes to your DEFAULT camera settings ensures smooth design work without overloading your system. 1. Update Your Raytrace Defaults (Global Illumination + Samples) Start by opening 3D View Defaults → Rendering Techniques. Inside the Physically Based (Ray-Trace) panel, adjust the following under Global Illumination: Opaque Bounces: 2 Transmissive/Specular Bounces: 2 Maximum Samples: 20 These numbers significantly lighten the workload on older GPUs while still giving you clean previews. Click OK to save these as your new defaults. 2. Update Your Floor Camera Performance Settings Go back into Default Settings, then open the Camera Tools submenu and select Floor Camera. In the main panel for camera defaults, look for AMD FidelityFX. This is Chief’s upscaling AI, which renders fewer pixels and then intelligently reconstructs the image. Set: AMD FidelityFX: Performance (2.0) This drastically reduces render load and keeps the design process responsive — especially on older hardware. 3. For Final Renders (Higher Quality) After you finish designing and want a clean, polished final raytrace: Increase Maximum Samples to somewhere between 100–500 Change FidelityFX back to Native Resolution Higher samples = cleaner image Native resolution = sharper details Finals will take longer, so this is a good time for a coffee break. For even more clarity, you can also run the image through an AI upscaler like Krea.ai. 4. Need a Visual Walkthrough? If these steps feel confusing or you’d rather see them demonstrated, you can watch the full YouTube tutorial by double-clicking the link below.

I wouldn’t be able to do what I love without Chief Architect, and I genuinely appreciate the company and the community behind it. So this is my way of giving something back and helping HD users get even more satisfaction out of the software. With HD2026, HD Pro users finally get access to raytrace-style renderings. However, you don’t yet get to directly edit the custom accessory maps (height, sheen, emissive, AO, etc.) that make raytraces look truly realistic. As a technician working in the Premier line, I do have access to those tools — and I build materials for them every day. I sell add-on products for the Premier line that I develop for a third of every year, and part of that work includes high-end, raytrace-ready material libraries. And I want to give those materials to HD2026 users completely FREE. No catch. No marketing. No follow-ups. Just something useful to help you get better results with the new renderer. The pack includes over 1,000 textures I created specifically for raytracing, all organized with tags, boolean search terms, and consistent material definitions. Because these are the same materials I sell to Premier users, I do need to put a few guardrails in place so my paid work product stays protected — but none of this benefits me in any way other than keeping the files secure: Requirements (all for security, not marketing): Proof of purchase for HD2026 (any format is fine) AxCrypt (free-no affiliation) to decrypt the download one time This prevents redistribution and protects the library You can uninstall AxCrypt immediately afterward An email address to use for the AxCrypt key This address is only for the encryption process — never used for anything else A short non-distribution agreement so I can legally share my paid assets with you. Also a signed statement saying I won't be using your email for anything at all. Optional: Share your renderings! I’d love to see what you make, but it’s totally elective You can either contact me directly at renerabbitt@gmail.com or send a direct message through hometalk.

it makes sharing groups of files, including any attached pdfs or material files back and forth to other users or machines. It is also a stepping stone to a cloud service chief is developing. One of the benefits is that you can build out pre established views in your layout via a project and then duplicate that project to use as a template where your views are always pre-populated as soon as you start drafting. If you want to duplicate your install to another machine you would use the back feature. If instead you want to share a project (via onedrive) you would export your project. Recommendation is to delete+export as the export will be the current copy and the copy in project management would be outdated. This process is similar to saving externally. There is a video you can check out here: and this one I made here: This is raytracing. You can change the preferred rendering technique options in the top of the preview window I believe. Raytracing takes a little bit to denoise the texture but will look a lot more realistic than previous versions when complete. You might want to check this video out:

I get to keep X15.. The last non subscription version

This of course is accurate and typical of most JR suites. Last conversation I had about rough numbers was that the HD line was in the 2.5M total seat range and the Premiere line was in the 50K total seat range (though these numbers were given to me, I can't account for the accuracy). I already thought that there is a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario for the development of the two products. The JR suite allows the Premiere line to be funded and secure more robust development, such as building the raytrace engine, and then they release some year-old features for the upper line. This is pretty standard. All educated guesses. An aside, the 3d view temp dimensions in HD2026 singlehandedly would make up for the cost of the software in efficiency for the seasoned technician... It's really that impactful of a feature and it's not listed in new features Honestly, I would guess they may lose 5–10%…just wild guessing, but the trade-off is that they have secured their core development funding at the start of the development cycle. For everyone here, I am not trying to sell something… BUT I develop products, and I can't tell you how difficult it is to GUESS at what amount of investment I can put into the development. The core code of Chief Architect is so old now and so complex to integrate into that they are currently developing for X19 while we still await X18 Beta. This subscription model has NOTHING to do with greed. The volatility of the upgrade cycle is what caused this. Many of the users here already mentioned they were skipping versions… THAT is why this change had to happen. I do think that the hobbyist is the one suffering here. There are no other perpetual-license software options on the market that I have found that come close to the efficiency of Chief, and certainly not with the same level of support. At the end of the day, I would say what is everyone's time worth? Again, I agree that the hobbyist loses out here. I mentioned it earlier, but I would like to mention it again to the group: to my recollection and knowledge, Chief Architect's current license price has not increased in line with inflation and the average salary rate of increase. This begs the question: What do people feel about the employees of Chief Architect? They are all in North America, their wages have clearly not improved over time relative to the rate of increase in the software price, so that means volume of sales has supplemented their wage increases. Is it so bad that we secure the futures of employees who have kept this software relevant for 30 years? I know people here are mad, but I would say step back from it, remove the emotion, and take a look at it. I would also encourage you to go meet this team in person—they are very accessible.

There is no legacy non-subscription model, we have all been paying subscription, legacy or not, for several years now. I don't personally think we are anywhere near this at the moment. I am deep into the AI ecosystem, and there are far too many big data sources that are a stockpile of designs grabbed from all edges of the world with no distinguished organizational system. AI is trained on data, and it's far too difficult to create a rule set of data to train a model to make educated choices—which brings us to the fact that currently AI does not make educated choices; it's just a very complex probability engine. It's still very difficult to produce a pixel-to-pixel accurate depiction of an original design in high fidelity with AI. Currently, any 8K spherical renderings are pretty bad, and it's nearly impossible to get a long-cut 4K rendering. I wouldn't count on this driving the market down. That's just my two cents. The analogy I often give when it comes to AI is that AI is trained on large data pools that are published with intent to limit liability. So if you ask AI how to change an outlet, it will often tell you that you may need a permit, and that you should consult an electrician, and that you may need to contact the power company or turn off a breaker, and that it requires specialized equipment… whereas a seasoned technician may just go in there with some wire strippers and a screwdriver and wire it up hot. I also give an analogy about a deck over living space—there is an entire section on that in a blog over here if it's interesting at all. https://www.rabbittdesign.net/rabbitt-blog/ai-resource-handbook-1

See the video and let me know if you have any questions. video starts at 08:11, the first 8 minutes is discussing the state of the subscription model

I would call CA support on this, pretty sure you will be able to open your models using your previous HD versions. That's how it works with the premiere line, no reason you shouldnt be able to. That's precisely why people are talking about keeping their 2025 HDP plans I do not work for Chief Architect I'm not sure why you don't want to wish me well, generally a good natured fellow that tries to help the community There are over 2M seats in the HD line, I would venture that 80% are non-professionals, and though people may not like the subscription model, there are very few comparative and price competitive software's out there that aren't subscription. 2020, revit LT, cabinet vision, sketchup pro, they are all subscription. and it truly isn't a cash grab, this doesn't change their revenue, they are still seeing the similar numbers, +/- 5%, but this ensures they have dependable development capital. The premiere line has been on subscription for 2 years now...it didn't increase their revenue, only volume of sales increases their revenue. With more start up developers in the industry chief needs to account for volatility. This has been an all-internally developed company for 30 years where the avg employee has worked for 10 years. Not once in 10 years have they even increased the cost of the software at the rate of inflation over the course of the same time. You've all been paying nearly the same price while inflation is at 3% and net avg wages at 3-4%, and this years annual subscription currently is 20% less than last year pay-to-own? We've been fortunate for them..they aren't taking advantage of us. Also giving annual subscriptions access to 10's of thousands of 3d objects at no additional cost is unheard of. The subscription model is also a step toward there future cloud service for which they may have a patent pending. Go talk to them in person and find some of the most grounded and well-to-do people you might run into. Greg the CEO isnt driving around in a Lambo. You can actually call them up and might even get him on the phone if you like, you dont have to take my word for it.

Hello Home Designer users — I’ve been reading through the concerns, and I wanted to share a few thoughts from the perspective of someone who develops products in this space. First, about subscriptions: When you’re building software in an industry being reshaped weekly by architectural AI tools, it becomes extremely difficult to plan development using the old “large update once a year” model. A subscription isn’t about squeezing more money out of users — it’s about stabilizing and predicting revenue so development hours can be budgeted accurately. Without that predictable baseline, the risk of under-delivering on annual features becomes very real. And whether we love it or not, most companies producing software worth improving will be moving to subscriptions simply because the AI-driven volatility in the market requires it. Chief isn’t an outlier here — they’re trying to ensure they can continue delivering steady updates instead of falling behind or shipping underbaked features. For those considering canceling services: You would be genuinely hard-pressed to find a software package comparable to the Home Designer line for anything near the annual cost. The value per dollar is still extremely strong. For those planning to use their final perpetual version forever: Just keep hardware and OS compatibility in mind. The relationship goes both ways — new graphics cards and new operating systems eventually drop support for older applications. We’ve literally seen this happen recently with Intel-based Macs losing compatibility with Chief Architect X17 because newer drivers no longer support the old architecture. It’s not about Chief “forcing” you to upgrade — it’s the cost of frozen software running on evolving hardware. About HD Pro 2026 specifically: The catalog downloads alone justify a big chunk of the cost. You now have access to tens of thousands of optimized, ray-trace-ready 3D assets — a huge advantage, especially considering the 3D Warehouse now limits users to three downloads per day. What used to be “free and easy” is no longer as accessible, and Chief’s curated, optimized library now carries even more value. The new Project Management feature should also significantly streamline workflows that previously required juggling multiple plan files, layer sets, and clunky workarounds. And don’t overlook ray tracing: with DLSS support on compatible NVIDIA cards, you can design in real-time ray-traced 3D — something that used to require multiple machines or heavy offline rendering. Hopefully this perspective helps. HD Pro 2026 genuinely looks like a solid upgrade, and the industry-wide shift to subscriptions has real reasons behind it — not just profit, but sustainability and continued development.

Chief always will select last action used regardless of using the tool palette or the drop down menu. There is no option to change the behavior of last object used. Was it just that you wanted the drop down menu?

It looks like you have a roof under your deck whcih is going to cause a bunch of problems in this scenario. try and pull your roof planes back so that they do not pass under your deck rails.

Place the staircase on the bottom floor and then create make stairwell. As long as there is a room that is defined directly above your staircase then it will create the stairwell. This cannot be on an attic level, it needs to be a floor above a floor with the staircase on the lower floor

Click and drag in the viewport

You're going to want to draw those ceiling planes more accurately and also specify whether or not your gable end walls are balloon framed or not in order to auto build an end truss.

Consider posting your plan file. Too difficult to try and recreate

Poche fill is not available in your software version. With a 3dconnexion mouse you can more around the house with camera bumps into walls checked as an option. This is also an option for right mouse only movements but you would need to know how to move your mouse for this effect to happen. So short answer is no, you can not have solid wall fill through a camera section cut

Would be helpful to bubble or notate the area you are referring to on the plans or put a more detailed description or a saved camera. In this case it would be nice if you provided a detail. What are you referring to when you say "Floor Rafters"? Are you talking about roof rafters and their seat cut?

you might try posting your plan file. you posted a material file