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Sounds like a bug. But in reality it's reporting the wall layer's material, not the room's material. What happens if you edit the wall layer?

Thanks for the responses. I created the paint layer 1/8" thick on both sides of my interior walls and interior side of the exterior walls, using SW 7524. In my test plan I created (4) interior rooms that are 10x10 each with various windows and doors. The (4) rooms x 40lf perimeter x 9ft wall height = 1440 and the program calculates 1147.51, so Chief is subtracting the windows and doors.. But when I changed the color in each room to a different SW color, the material list remains counting only SW7524, the material list ignores the presence of SW6185 & SW9136, for example. When I open the wall specification dbx, Materials shows the correct interior color under "Materials" But the Components is still reporting the default SW7524. It occurs to me I was having this same trouble using siding layer on exterior walls, coloring it a different type of siding changes the view in 3D but didn't update the material lists correctly. I had to create duplicate wall types that had different default siding colors or styles - This wasn't that big of a deal, we generally only have two or three siding materials on a home, but on interior walls, we are coloring two sides of the same wall in different colors as it spans across multiple rooms. My problem today is I have a client that wants to use 9 colors throughout their home and my painters want a calculation by color of the amount of area they are painting to determine pricing. I also noticed the Room Specification DBX has the same problem. Materials shows the walls correct color. But the Components shows nothing regarding the walls, only the Drywall, and it shows the ceiling, which has Drywall named Color-White. Also the base molding = 40ft means it doesn't subtract for the (2) doors in this room. . I've attached the test plan file, in X16 format. PaintColors.plan

While I agree on the stance of AI, I personally do not want CA to remove or not focus on the PBR engine. I still send many, many views out to clients utilizing this over AI. Will that change in the future, Not sure. But the prompting needed for AI takes far longer than it does to shoot some 3D views in PBR and move along. But I'm also using a PC with a 5070Ti, not a Mac. So I can crank a PBR picture out in about 3 seconds. Maybe if I was on Mac I'd feel differently...

@CUChris81 I can’t make a recommendation one-way-or-another on an M4 Max 40 core vs M5 max 32 core since we haven’t tested a M4 Max 40 core. An M4 Max 40 core would be faster than the 32 core version. Does it meet or exceed an M5 Max 32 core? Maybe, but we haven’t test it.

One of the difference between the Deck Railing tool and the Straight Railing tool is the Wall Type in use. Deck Railing Tool uses "Deck Railing/Fence" wall type which does not have any drywall applied. Straight Railing Tool uses "Interior Railing" wall type which is similar setup to the Interior 4 wall with Drywall on both sides. Both of these rooms are specified as Porch:

My local building department wants a structural engineers stamp for a backyard Pergola. Landscape contractor will provide the drawing.

It’s supposed to arrive on the 14th. I went with 64 gigs of RAM because that’s what I have on my M1 and I’ve never had it have to use swap to the SSD. my M1 also has 4 TB of space and I’ve only used about 800 GB max so 4 TB seems to be the sweet spot for me

...I have multiple cross sections in my template plan, one for stairs, one for garage, a few for kitchen... so I am not changing the layerset and back clip all the time you may be able to do the same thing with wall elevations, and/or use the "clip to room" feature of a section (not sure if you get the same result as wall elevation)

@PhillipCA. Thanks for this, I appreciate it. In your professional opinion, would you buy an M4 Max with a 40 core GPU or an M5 Max with a 32 core GPU? Apple has some refurbished M4 Max machines that are about $500 cheaper than an M5.

@para-CAD- This is the exact system I'm looking at getting. Maybe with less RAM though to keep the cost somewhat in Check. I'd love to know your experience with this as soon as it arrives and you take it for a spin. PLEASE. and Thanks.

100%. They don't seem to have a plan to incorporate AI at all, which is disappointing given our $2k yearly tithe. At a very minimum they could at least integrate it as a coach so you could ask it specific questions about how to do things. I don't love the idea at all of having to move back and forth between AI and CA on a project that has multiple renderings involved. Thats just obnoxious.

One of the cleanest ways I can quickly come up with is to add wall coverings to rooms. Of course, the wall covering height and elevation needs to be specified manually. Follow this by editing the component for the wall covering (I chose ID: General and Accounting Code: 5300 - Painting Interior). Then, create a materials list polyline on a per room room basis or apply the wall covering to as many rooms as needed. Keep in mind that Rooms don't report to the materials list, so if multiple rooms are included in the mat. list, you can't really identify the source of each paint material, unless you can figure out a macro to place in one of the available component fields that will report the name (I haven't figured that out). Of course, you can manually enter the room name in one of the available fields. But, this will allow you to create a material list for that category only by choosing which columns to include.

Maybe I'm not understanding issue #1 fully, but can't you just open the wall in question, click on the "Roof" tab, and check "Lower Wall Type if Split by Butting Roof"? Set that as your Interior wall type, and move on down the line...

Do your wall types include a "Paint Layer" ?

Chief has never handled track mounted garage doors correctly. The plan view has always been for the solid one piece door with the dooor in the closed position between the Jambs, not behing them. I sent in a suggestion about this about 4-5 years ago but I don't recall any response. I fake it by using a Doorway smaller that the actual garage door Invisible no-room definition wall inside the exterior wall then place the garage door in that invisible wall IOW the opening in the exterior wall is what's going to be built and the garage door is inserted in the invisible wall which is inside the garage. The tracks will then be basically inside the garage, not within the opening in the exterior wall. For rollup doors I use the same method.

You can change the different camera elevation defaults to be more "standard" to what you do 80% of the time. But you're right...you cannot have different "types" of wall elevations. The only thing you can do is set your wall elevation default, and create a bunch of different default sets that are what you're looking for. When you pull your wall elevation or exterior elevation, or cross section, then you change your default set in that particular camera view. In reality...probably same amount of clicks.

I’ve run into similar issues with post frame openings before. The jamb settings usually help, but garage doors can still be tricky to align properly inside the framing layer. We recently handled a few custom garage door installation projects in Las Vegas, NV, and accurate offset placement made a huge difference in the final fit and operation.

Is there a way to determine the wall areas of each room, less doors and windows, and to create a schedule that shows the total wall areas of each paint color? The material list doesn't show the paint colors. The room finish schedule shows the paint, but not the net wall surface area.

@PitMan71 thanks for taking a look at this. I've not been at the computer since Friday morning but will follow what you describe when I get back at it tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Here is a simple schematic of a slightly more convoluted roof to try and understand the methodology a bit better: The two girders in the center of the structure could probably be combined into one larger girder, but maybe it is better to distribute the loads across to trusses instead of one. The shaded areas are the valley sets or overframing required to fill in the voids. This design requires 10 main girders and 5 cross girders. Notice how there is a hip truss at each outside corner and a half valley set at each inside corner. When to inside corners are symmetric we end up with a full valley set. Based on these patterns that are emerging I might be able to auto place the girders or at least provide an initial placement which then can be further refined by the user.

Yes, they do. But unless I am missing something very obvious, even when using these custom defined default sets (which I do use and have several custom default sets set up for my workflow), all of my newly created elevations get set to whatever layer I have put in the Cross Section/Elevation defaults. There is also no option to control the individual camera/section settings, which is another thing I was hoping to streamline.

If I have my plan open and I build a truss and space it 24" from the outside framing of an end wall and then drag copy the trusses across and create the end trusses, everything is all set, so then I use automatic framing build the framing for the roof so that I can get my lookouts and subfascia in place. When I do that, Chief put in it's own trusses and use those for the lookout framing and ignore the trusses I have put there. I have the plan attached again and you can see it built a second set of trusses and ignore mine. I am pretty sure I have done this in the past without this problem and I just watched a video the other day where he did it with success but it's not working for me. I agree with you on wanting things to be on the plan as they will be in real construction. Ultimately my truss guy will engineer the actual trusses but I like to be able to show him what I am thinking and show my guys what we are doing. I just want my drawings to be as accurate as possible, (that's why we are doing this, right?). The attached plan is not my actual project, that is just a sample building to show what I am having trouble with. The actual project is far to complex. Thanks, Raised bearing roof truss problem.plan

Figured I’d finally make a dedicated toolbox thread for some of my remodel / addition / as-built workflow content instead of burying it across random posts and old project files never to be seen again. From my perspective, it’s harder to find resources for documenting existing conditions vs proposed or measuring/field verification, so I want to help fill that gap. This content may not be useful to everyone, but hopefully it finds the people who can benefit from it. I’ll probably keep adding to this thread over time as I clean things up or stumble across useful things worth sharing. I keep the extended/fully developed versions for myself, but if something here aligns with what you need, feel free to reach out and maybe we can figure something out. I also do remote work and have some availability, but projects focused on areas I really enjoy get priority. (Old Homes, Zoning, DIY Homeowner Collaborations, Non-Compliance & Appeals, Submittal / Permit Approval, Technical Drawings for Interiors & overall, situations requiring unconventional or out-of-the-box approaches). Anyway… here’s my small contribution of Existing/Remodel/Addition content I’ve accumulated over the years instead of hoarding them in my library browser (X17 .calibz) Talk to me via email: tinadelllic@icloud.com or message me on here for my phone #. MORE RESOURCES SHARED BY ME: https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/36614-project-toolbox-updated-122923/ MEASURE FORM_PROPERTY.pdf field notes.pdf TABLE - EXISTING ELECTRICAL LOADS_NAMEPLATE.calibz Switch_w_Duplex_EXISTING.calibz Switch_Single-Pole_EXISTING.calibz NOTES-KIT_Remodel.Addition.calibz Ceiling-Light_EXISTING.calibz Ceiling-Fan_EXISTING.calibz Can-Light_EXISTING.calibz 120V-Duplex_EXISTING.calibz Joist Direction with Fill-Blanks.calibz

Default sets include layersets. That should handle everything.

Hi Jonathan, The Default Sets option does do some of the elements of what I am after, but it doesn't allow me to set the default layer for the elevations or specific clippings, etc. If what I was after isn't feasible, it's definitely a "halfway" bridge. Was just trying to get everything in one pop. :-)