glennw

Create 2 wall types - one for the garage and one for the house - no need for a framing layer in the house walls. Change the wall layers (all layers except the framing layer) of the garage wall type to the material Insulation Air Gap. It will look normal in plan view. In a 3D view you will only see the framing layer for the garage walls. It is then easy to restore the garage wall layers back to normal when you want a complete view.

For a ray trace: Firstly make sure your Sun is pointing in the correct direction and at the correct altitude. For your Sunlight, make sure it is On and Casts Shadows. Post a plan.

I just had to enter my new product key - no downloading. The old product key was for the beta 3 version.

Early versions of Chief had different file extensions for each floor. ie, each floor had it's own plan file (eg, planname.pl1, Planname.pl2, etc). Layout files had a .la_ extension. My memory is being stretched, but I think that the .pb_ extension was a plan backup file. I am pretty sure you can still open the .pl1 files in X6 - but not the other .pl_ plans. I know for sure that Chief 10 can open .pl1 files as I still have that version loaded and working. If you can't open the files in X6, you can send them to me and I will open them in V10 and migrate them to X6.

Do you really mean "renders" or do you mean "ray trace"? To make things easier, make sure you have a Sun Angle in your plan that has all the correct settings and that it casts a shadow on the terrain. To get the sun to shine through the windows, you need to do a couple of things that relate to the glass material: The first thing is 3D...3D View Defaults...Options...Auto Adjust Default Glass Properties - check this and you should always get the sun through the windows no matter what material or material setting. With this setting unchecked: 1. Use a Transparent material. 2. Use a General of Reflective material, BUT you need to set the Transparency value to at least 51%. If none of that works, post a plan that you are having trouble with.

Thanks Len - got it. Although it would be nice to be able to tell without doing anything like the old board.

I have always found the icons to be a pain, so I just turn on the display of file extensions and then don't have a problem.

d dot, The techniques I use have been passed down to me by powers beyond my understanding and are a mystery to myself........blah, blah... In this case I checked the walls on the ground floor and determined that they weren't causing the problem. I then copied and pasted walls between floors and checked the wall hatching and determined that it wasn't the walls or the hatching causing the problem. I checked through the floor settings and couldn't see a problem there. I had an inkling that it was probably a corrupt symbol so it didn't take long to find the culprit. As I deleted each instance of the basin, the wall selection sped up incrementally. When all 4 basins were deleted, things were back to normal. The whole process took about 5+ mins. I wonder if Chief is looking for any support staff? Ah, I just noticed that this forum is autosaving as we type a post. There is another feature missing from this board that I can't find or isn't obvious. With the old board, you could tell who was on line by a colored dot next to their name. I can't find the same thing here.

It's not the wall hatching. It's the 4 basins you have inserted into the base cabinets. I think it is the face count contained in the symbol - over 6000 faces. Use a different basin.

I see that my post #10 was using a small font. I think it was because I accidently clicked on the size button. All other posts should look OK.

Sheeeees, I have already reached my quota for negative votes. I will save it up for tomorrow for d dot.

Joe, If you mean Cut Finish Layers....yes that was checked - no problems.

Lew, I agree with you - again! This feature should be removed - it really has no value. Now...rate this one.

Joe, All working here OK. I can't duplicate your problem.

My cursor arrow IS a solid black filled arrow. Whilst on the subject. One thing that has always bugged me. Why are the Cross Hair preferences on the Edit panel in the Preferences dbx. Surely they belong on the Appearance panel.

Larry, This may help explain how psolids behave: "A vertical polyline solid can be created in a cross section/elevation view in the same manner as in floor plan view. The polyline solid is placed in front of any objects visible in the view. If no objects are behind, the polyline solid is placed one foot in front of the camera." Ah, one other thought. Do you have "Clip to Sides" checked for the camera?

Aren't they wine racks?

You first need to open the correct dbx. Select the symbol. Don't use the Open Object tool on the Edit Toolbar (the open door). Use the Open Symbol tool, which is the one with a pencil and chair on the button - the one to the right of the Open Object button.

Mark, If you want the Polyline Solid to remain on the floor that you draw it on in Cross Section view, use the Polyline Solid tool directly. Don't convert from a Polyline to Polyline Solid.

Mark, It is down on Level 1 floor plan.

David, I think this is incorrect. You don't have to have a Floor Finish - Floor Finish can be zero and you can still have a Floor Structure that will display.

Lew, You are talking a lot of sense.

Thanks Brad, I had found the "first unread" button. I like to right click on it and Open In a New Window which works well. I have seen that View First Unread button at the top of a thread at times, but it seems to have disappeared now!

Ah, Ah. I will answer myself. When you run your cursor over the Multiquote and Quote line, a Delete button becomes available to left. I am sure that wasn't available a while ago.

Thanks Doug, I will try that - I will have to wait until there are some more unread replies though! Any ideas about the "View First Unread" button - I have had it some times, but it seems to have a mind of it's own as to when it will appear - even though there are unread posts in a thread. More...how do I delete one of my posts? PS. I just found a Delete button down the bottom. When I run my cursor to the left of MultiQuote, a Delete button becomes available - I didn't see that before.