glennw

Are you aware of the Chief 3D Viewer?

You can even edit the floor/ceiling platforms in the cross section view itself. Make sure you have Select Room Before Wall in 3D checked. Then in the cross section view, you can select the rooms and drag the platforms to change the heights. You can use Tab whilst dragging to move the platform accurately. This even works in a Cross Section Slider view.

Mick, It really very simple. Just enter all your terrain and model data in real world heights. Although you can still use Relative heights for floor and ceiling heights.

If you mean something like this, I built it using a curved invisible wall at the front.

Build the I-beam using a polysolid and convert it to a Solid. Cut the holes in it using a primitive cylinder and Solid Subtraction. That should take about 2 minutes.

Scott, Are you saying that you want to use real world heights for your model, ie, you floor level 1 isn't at Chiefs default zero height - in your case it is at 10'? I have been using this method a lot recently as it allows you determine things like roof ridge height, floor and ceiling heights, etc, etc, as real world heights. eg, this allows for easy comparison between sites that may otherwise be based on some assumed datum like 100' - 0". Don't forget though, that you still have Relative Heights in the room specification dbx's, so you can use the real world heights for things like floor levels and you can then use relative heights to set ceiling heights. Most objects now allow us to place objects relative to floor, terrain, ceiling, roof, as well as an absolute value. WesternDesign got half way there in saying that Chief won't let you change the default zero floor level, but, you can still change those floor levels on level 1 manually - they do not have to be at 0'-0". He also made the good point that these dimensions and the Grade Level have nothing whatsoever to do with the terrain.

Ahah, You want something like this? And done automatically.

If you are using polysolids and they won't do what you want (you don't say exactly what tools you are using), maybe because they were drawn in different views, you may have success by converting them to Solids. You should then be able to use the boolean operations to edit them.

One way to do this is to go to the wall specification dbx...Roof panel. Check Upper Pitch and make it a fraction different from the default. Have a play and see how close you can get the 2 pitches before Chief makes them a single plane. I could easily get them to be within 0.1deg, which isn't noticeable. Set the Starts At. Auto build the roofs. Once you have the 2 roof planes you can apply different materials to each plane. I did this one in about 3 minutes.

How about posting a plan here and describing what order you are doing things.

Joe, What order are you drawing things? Auto or manual roofs? Have you tried building the roof framing after drawing your trusses? Or, you can auto build the roof and then you can then draw your trusses with square tails. You can even have one side plumb and the other side square. Depending on how you go about things, you may have to check Force Truss Rebuild to get the tails to rebuild.

Johnny, I am not sure what you mean by this. In fact, I'm a bit confused by your post. Can't we presently have an item one floor be referenced on any other floor (all other floors)? You may have to change the referenced floor when you change the current floor as Chief uses the last floor you were on as the reference floor. Of course, you can then control what is displayed on the reference floor by using a Reference Floor Layerset.

You are looking at 2 completely different things. The wall label in plan view is the actual wall number. The Wall Layer # in the wall detail view refers to the wall framing layer number in the wall definition.

Sorry, I forgot to say to use a General Material.

Perry, We didn't have PBR in X9. The Opaque option was removed from PBR at some stage during the beta. The opaque option fro the glass is dependent on the glass material properties.

Well, I guess you are stuck unless you are willing to put some time in or use Sketchup.

The easiest way I have found to make opaque glass in a PBR is to use the Rainbow tool to change the Transparency of the glass to zero. You then need to also go to 3D View Defaults and uncheck Auto Adjust Default Glass Properties.

I just did these 2 days ago. You need to enclose the stairs in a room with an invisible wall. Use the Winders option got the stairs. Edit the side walls in elevation to get the correct slope.

Once again, you need to reduce the amount of elevation data - even if you have to copy over the imported contours (I'm sure you could leave out at least every second elevation line) and the get same or even a better result - sometimes less is more. You also need to rationalise the amount of conflicting elevation data. At the retaining wall on the side of the carpark, you have Elevation Points, a Retaining Wall, a Terrain Break, an Elevation Region.....all in the same place! What is Chief meant to do with all this conflicting information? Most importantly, you need to be able to select a Terrain Surface Smoothing other than Linear as that means no surface smoothing - Chief will just join the elevation points with straight lines - not what you want.

To get down to basics, it really isn't such a specific problem as you say - it has to do with the whole terrain and the information you have used. The fact that you have so much elevation data in the plan is only allowing Chief to process the information as Linear. Reduce the amount of elevation data and you will be able to choose one of the other Terrain Surface Smoothing options. As far as the retaining walls go, I repeat - do not use Terrain Retaining Walls - use a Terrain Break with a normal wall, slab, polysolid, etc.

My best pieces of advice when creating terrains are: Wherever possible use Terrain Elevation Lines/Splines instead of Elevation Points. Avoid using Elevation Points in the same are as Elevation Lines/Splines. Use Terrain Breaks with normal walls where you want a vertical retaining wall. Avoid Linear Terrain Surface Smoothing - in this case, you need to reduce your terrain elevation and rationalise it as Chopsaw said, to reduce conflicts. Use Elevation Regions wherever possible for flat areas and let Chief auto grade the terrain between the Elevation Regions. You also need to be aware that some landscaping tools like the Straight Road tool will actually influence the shape of the terrain. In the case of the Straight Road, Chief will automatically cut and fill the terrain to result in a road which is level in cross section. So if you want your parking area to follow your terrain levels, you may be better of by not using the Road tool, but using a Terrain Feature instead. Another thing is to ignore the name of the tool and learn what it really does instead of assuming it performs a certaain function because of it's name. There are many little things like this that you need to be aware of when dealing with terrains. This is a picture of a project I am working on at the moment - plenty of retaining walls, level and sloped areas. I will have a deeper look at your plan and see exactly what is happening and where the major areas for improvement could be. This is what a road does automatically to the terrain. I have just had a quick look at your terrain and the first thing that stands out (apart from your use of spot levels and Roads, is that your Elevation Lines have WAYYYY to many segments. Each segment node is really a terrain point. How did you draw those Elevation Splines - my guess is that you converted them from some other type of entity. You Elevation Splines are at 12" intervals - do you really need them that close together - over the whole site? I will keep looking.

I think I probably did the same as Mark. Draw a temporary wall from side to side across the back of the house to square it up. Make the rear section No Roof over and build an auto roof over the front of the house. Now turn off auto roofs and drag the rear hip roof down to cover the rear section of the house. Don't worry about the shape while doing this. Use the Break Line and Make Parallel tools (and dimensions for the correct eave overhang) to shape the roof plane around your rear walls. There are probably many ways of doing this including setting things up so that it builds auto. I think the above method would be one of the easier ways though.

Oops, Rotate/Resize About Current Point is the incorrect icon.

It is telling you that you need to rebuild walls/floors/ceilings. You can do it manually each time it is required, or you can toggle on Auto Rebuild Floors/Walls/Ceilings. That should also normally be left toggled on (in the same dbx).

That icon means that you need to build the terrain. Easiest thing is to toggle on Auto Rebuild Terrain in 3D View Defaults. In general, those icons are telling you that you need to do something, or they are a warning like the Angle Snaps one that is reminding you that Angle Snaps is toggled off.