glennw

MickeyToo, The information in your last post is incorrect. Or rather, your information and instructions are out of date and do not apply to X8. It would appear that you are using a version earlier than X8 as most of those settings do not apply to X8 and my suggestions are completely different than your interpretation. It would help if you posted your version number in your signature so that is displayed with all your posts.

Scott, I can make the cupboard any height I want. Don't assume anything! I can get ceiling joists - no trouble. I can have different materials on the "floor" above the cupboard and the floor inside the cupboard. I can have different materials for the ceiling of the cupboard and the "floor" above the cupboard. The last 3 can all be easily controlled by the cupboard's Ceiling Structure. I don't need a second floor and have never used a second floor when I don't actually have a second floor in the building. If you don't want to use "Use Soffit Surface For Ceiling", uncheck it and then in the roof dbx. on the Structure tab...Roof Layers, uncheck "Use Room Ceiling Finish" and specify a ceiling finish. This method also gets rid of the cupboard wall lines on the raking ceiling and is specifically designed for use with cathedral ceilings. There is more than one way to skin a cat. You won't convince me to use a second floor when I don't need one!

Rich, Mine is bigger than yours, but not as pretty!

Mark, To change the whole house level in relation to the terrain, go Terrain...Terrain Specification...General panel...Building Pad. Uncheck Automatic and play with the Subfloor Height Above Terrain setting. Ps. DJP and I were posting at the same time and he just beat me to it.

If you open the Symbol Specification dbx for the log, you can rotate them any way and to any degree you want.

Perry, You beat me to it. I was going to ask - why not use Auto Storey Pole Dims or Auto Elevation Dims.

I would listen to Scott. Your floor defaults are only used in the hall. All the other rooms are using a non floor default setting. Change your floor defaults and then use Default for all the rooms.

Scott, I am not sure. I am not tall enough to see the top of the cupboard. Ok, I just got the ladder and had a peek - there is a lot of dust up there! Yep, I can control the "floor" material over the cupboard by changing the cupboards ceiling material.

Junior, I don't like using a second floor unless I really want a second floor - too much chance of complications. Go up to the Attic and make the closet walls invisible. The invisible walls will remove the ceiling above the walls. For the rooms, nominate them as Use Soffit Surface for Ceiling. The ceilings above the invisible closet walls will fill in. You will end up with this:

Malcolm, No problem doing the first one you asked for. The others should be doable as well. Oh, by the way, no problems building a stair like that in Oz.

Mark, I think Chief will building the molding OK - but Chief just can't do the impossible. You cannot join the molding at the corner with a simple mitre - it is impossible - the 2 moldings will never match up. BUT, if you tell Chief to build it the same way you would build it in the field, Chief can build it OK. This is how you would build it in the field and this is how Chief will build it if you correctly tell Chief what to do. You need to have a small flat section on the ends of the front molding so that you CAN do a simple mitre at the corners. If you are not happy with the flat sections, then you need to use another technique like tilting the return moldings. Michaels pictures in post #5 demonstrate the same technique - only difference is that they are on internal corners.

Hey Scott, That is the other way of doing it that I alluded to in post #2 - thanks for drawing it. I would be interested to see what happens when you try and build that as close to the corner as Tony requires.

I don't 100% understand your problem....but...use decimal inches with a lot of decimal places (instead of fractions of an inch).

Tony, I se that you are getting plenty of help and suggestions. How does this look? With the 45deg roofs pitched at 4.25:12, the valley's and hips are about 45deg. Note the ceiling encroachment indicated by the Ceiling Break Lines.

Here is my stab at it. To do what you want, you have to lower the pitch of the 2 roof planes that come off the 45deg walls. To keep the same eave height, the o/h has to be smaller. You can't meet all od the parameters - eave width. eave height and 45deg hips - something has to give. It's up to you to decide what gives. PS, just saw your posted plan. If you tell me, in order, what are the most important parameters. Eave height. Eave overhang. Roof pitch. You can't have them all!!

When you want to auto build roofs and you don't want the roofs to follow the walls, we have a tool to do that. It's called a roof baseline polyline. You do realise that with that roof geometry, your plates will be at different heights and not level? Also, I think you are going to have to change the pitch of some of the roof planes to get that to work. You can't have a hip at 45deg running up from an eave corner that is 135deg. I believe it is impossible to build that roof like you show with all the pitches the same, same overhangs, same eaves height, etc. I will do an example an post in a few minutes.

Here's my take for what it's worth. The name of the panel in the Roof Plane Specification is Structure - not Structural - there is a difference between "structure" and "structural" or "structural element". I would consider the roofing material (Surface) to be part of the "structure". Under Surface, we can now have user configurable multiple layers - how would this be handled on the "Materials" panel?

Scott, I didn't realise that you are putting me in the hotseat. You probably know more than me about Chief's idiosyncracies than myself and most others. I am happy to attend and help if I can and look forward to a round table discussion. It would be great to have as many of the Chief hotshots attending as possible.

Do those layout pages have .pdf's on them, or is it all layout pages?

Scott, Wed June 8 @ 4pm (your time) sounds good to me. That is Thurs June 9 @ 9am my time - you got it correct! Will you organise a GTM?

Scott, Sounds great, I will try and fit in with a time that suits, but I would prefer other than 3am! I know you only need 2 hours sleep a nite, but I like my sleep. It would be great to get together a list of all the little things that need a fix. Sat and Sun afternoons are usually hard for me.

Tony, Why not let Chief auto build it? Do you need something more like this? This is how Chief auto builds it. I think there is another way to do the geometry on a bump out like that, but see if this way helps first.

Michael, You are joking, correct? You forgot the smiley face! Is there any remote chance that these comments could have something to do with your familiarity with the imperial system? Using metric, we would not refer to a portion as 25/100 (this is an imperial fraction). We would refer to it as .25 - very simple. Likewise, a third is .33 - not 33.33/100.00 (I love the way you can mix imperial and metric).

Alan, This is easily controlled by the Scaling Unit on Export/Import. The hard part is sometimes knowing the correct unit to use.

Scott, A .dwg file is a native AutoCAD file format. A .dxf file is a Drawing Interchange Format file. I believe it was developed by Autodesk for file exchange between AutoCAD and other programs, but a long time ago. It is really just a text file that you can open and look at in a text editor like Notepad. If you export a layout, all the objects drawn straight into the layout will all transfer with their own layers, as you would expect. But, any objects that have been sent to layout and are contained in a Layout Box will end up on the Layout Box Export Contents layer after the export of the Layout. I think if you want to preserve layers from the original plan file, you need to export from the plan file and not the layout. You can Export either a dwg or a dxf. Start the Export process and when you get to the Save Drawing File dbx, it will default to AutoCAD Drawing (*.dwg) down the bottom in the Save as Type dropdown, scroll down and select DXF (.dxf).