glennw

You could also use the Wall Covering option on either a wall by wall basis or room by room basis. This will calculate to the Material List as area in the Interior Trim section. This option may give you more flexibility by keeping away from the wall definition and avoiding zero thickness wall layers which can sometimes cause problems. Once you have the area, you just need to calculate the volume of paint by using the paint manufacturers coverage rates. You can do this by inserting a formula into the ML to convert the paint Trim area into paint volume. If the coverage is 16sqm/Litre (sorry for the metrics), divide the Trim area by 16 to get the litres of paint (you will have to change the units from square to volume). Double click in the Count column and Interior Trim paint row. It should say "= automatic_count". Edit this so that it says "= automatic_count/16" (or what ever your paint cover rate is). Double click in the Unit column and scroll down and select a unit for the paint quantity (pints, gallons, etc). You may need to create a new Unit Conversion if a suitable unit is not available. In the ML, you will get the paint volume on a wall by wall basis (as well as a total) and prices if you enter any costings. You can end up with something like this:

Douglas, Try this. I have used a single layer wall for the posts - just a framing layer. You can specify the post size and spacing in the Wall panel of the build Framing dbx. When you uncheck "Use Wall Framing Material" you can then specify stud thickness and spacing. Once you have built the framing, you can alter the size and location of any of the posts. Before building the framing, I placed a Wall Material Region on the wall. The Wall Material Region is the walling layer. Have a look at the Define Material dbx and see how I have set up the material to be the correct size for both render and vector views. I am not sure that the Terrain Path you have used is the best method - but whatever works for you. With my wall, you can easily edit the size and location of the posts, adjust the height of the walling, step the wall, set the posts down into the ground....etc. timber retaining wall 2 GLENNS.plan

I am not so sure that I would be building brick piers on a timber deck!

OK, this way may be better as you can control the height of the posts and walling independently. You also get the pattern in vector view on both sides of the walling Use a single layer wall and make it a framing layer. Apply a Wall Material Region for the walling - click on the wall to cover the whole wll in one go. If you move the wall, the Material Region will move with it.

You may be able to use a wall with 2 layers - one for the walling and one for the posts. Make the post layer a framing layer. You can then control the post size and spacing in the Build Framing dbx. Make the top and bottom plates zero. One drawback is that you won't see the wall pattern in a vector view because the pattern only displays on the outside of the wall. The rendered views look OK though. You should be able to change the size of the pattern on the General tab of the Define Material dbx. Hint: to get a vertical terrain step, use a Terrain Break and snap your Elevation Regions to the Terrain Break. I think this is an easier and more flexible method than using Terrain retaining Walls. ie, don't use a retaining wall, use a plain vanilla wall.

I usually find that occurs as a result of the floor platform building through the walls, commonly caused by either the main wall layer or the "build platform to" layer being designated incorrectly.

Joe, I am not sure I follow you 100%. You can assign Wall Coverings on a wall by wall basis, or by the room basis. ie, Wall Coverings don't have to be "applied to all the wall surfaces in the room". But yes, all the Wall Coverings in the room are listed in the 1 column.

4 Because the roof pitch setting in the wall dbx overides the roof pitch setting in the Build Roof (or Roof Defaults) dbx.

From the help file: "There are a maximum of three rows of automatically generated dimensions per exterior wall direction. The innermost dimension line locates exterior walls, interior walls, and all openings in exterior walls. The second dimension line locates exterior and interior walls. The outermost dimension line is the overall exterior dimension." Chances are that you won't be able to get exactly what you want. My advice is to make the best of what Chief provides and don't fight it.

Sorry, I meant to say the outside surface of the main layer.

He should be able to just build a stick frame gable over the hip trusses.

I think you need to explain in a bit more detail exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Or...if you don't want to create a room, you can control the stairs in the stair dbx. On the General panel, you can control things like Top Height, Bottom Height, Riser Height, etc. Uncheck Automatic heights first. You can also Ctrl drag stairs and they will draw down from a floor instead of up. "Lock Top" to the floor and then change some of the parameters.

It looks to me like you need to change the Elevation of the Terrain Elevation Region. In this picture I changed it to -400".

In X9. Open the wall dbx...Foundation panel...Footing. Changing either the height or width of the footing gets rid of the yellow fill. You can also get the same result by editing the foundation defaults (leave the footing sizes the same) and rebuilding the foundation. I haven't got a clue why it is happening - older version plan perhaps.

Scott, I can confirm that if you extend the side walls out into the garage, it fixes the balustrade at the top of the stairs. I guess the walls constrain the stairs, otherwise they build wider at the top and cause the rail to follow. And yes, if you make those stub walls invisible, the stairs revert - not sure why.

Have you tried using a "Panels" railing type and then selecting from the many types of panels in the library?

I am not sure that I understand the question. Isn't it just a Railing wall?

It reminds me of Chief's "Main Layer Only" layer. What sort of layer is that? It sort of works, but is a long way from the definition of a traditional layer. It's more like a setting than a layer.

Chopsaw, It is not in the library because it is not a material. As I said, it literally means "no material" - nothing to place in the library - it is not a material and it only applies to a cantilever underside. It is not available in any other situations.

Open the room specification dbx for the upper floor that is cantilevering. Go to the Materials panel and select Cantilever underside. Select Material. Plan Materials. Scroll up to the top of the materials list. There is an option called "No Material". Note that you have to double click "No Material" to get it to stick, you can't use OK (at least this applies to my mac). Also note that this is not a material like "Opening (no material)" - it literally means "no material".

As Chopsaw said, PS converted to Solid, Exploded, painted and then after you have exploded the PS and changed the material on any of the faces, you can join them back to one object by converting them to an Architectural Block or creating a symbol.

The other beauty of using Proximity Fixed is that if you drag the wall/object perpendicular to it's length or the dimension line, the dimension line will maintain it relationship with the wall/object (ie, the Proximity Fixed distance) and move with the wall/object.

Or, you can edit any face in a 3D view - it depends which face you select as to how you can edit the object. eg, to edit the height, select a vertical surface, ie, a side. To edit the plan shape, select a horizontal surface, ie, top. This is true for both the slab and the poly solid. You can even use tools like the break tool, change line/arc, boolean operations, etc, to change the plan shape of the object. Different tools appear on the edit toolbar, depending on whether you select a vertical or horizontal face.

Or in the Import Terrain Asistant dbx, use #YXZ Description (comma delimited)