Nicinus

Very sad but I will have to sell my X8 license. I'm working on some longer term projects where Chief unfortunately is not an option, and I've just received a reminder that my SSA expires in December. I'd rather buy a new license when I'm done with my current commitments than see it devalue for what could be a couple of years. I'm not sure about the value, but since my SSA runs out in December the next version should be $500 if SSA can be transferred or $700 if not. Not sure about license transfer fee nowadays either but it sounds as if anything around $1,500-$1,700 should be a good deal. PM me if interested.

I've had access to Vive for a little more than a month, but I think it is fair to say that it will take a while before this will be a smooth process. I'm going via 3ds Max to Unreal (which is free for commercial architectural work) via FBX. It is fiddly but the game exporter in Max helps. The Vive is in my view a much better experience than Rift with its room sensors, some of the demos like Everest and the IKEA kitchen shows the potential, but it is difficult to design for movement as the destination space size will likely differ. Being able to walk around a design is amazing though. Some form of teleport mechanism is recommended. Another note, and I think it is an adjustment issue, but oddly (given that they have basically the same specs) our impression is that Rift has a slightly better image quality. On the other hand, if you want to offer interior experiences from a fix camera location, IrisVR is fast and easy and a 360 cubic map can be rendered out directly from Max.

Bingo! That's how we should look at things.

I think we should be open to borrow from any program that offers something that makes Chief faster and more productive to use.

Hate to pull the old Revit card, but over there they have a concept of 'phases'. When you draw a wall it is automatically assigned to the phase 'existing' and if you then switch to 'new construction' and draw walls Revit will know that these are new. You can mark walls to be demolished, and they will only show up in views that includes that phase. This way I can work on multiple views/plans in parallel, one existing, one existing with demolish, one new construction with demolish, or just the way it will look as new construction. It is just different view modes so you keep working on your model just like normal but make sure different things belong to their proper phase. (In a similar fashion one can have different 'design options' in the same phase, such as different roof styles or entry doors and so on.) I'd love to see something similar in Chief but I agree with you that it is most likely require a major change in the code. Have a look at this video for a relatively quick overview. This guy is unfortunately a bit tedious in his explanation, but I couldn't find any shorter video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un25LGpykfs

And this is the big issue. I realize that we all work differently and I may be particularly sloppy in that I want to measure up a rough building and then start working on ideas for the remodel immediately. One reason for this is that I many times needs to get a feel for what is possible before I take the job (or buy the property). All major disruptions in terms of software tools has in one way or another offered a work paradigm that is not linear. Word processors allowed us to edit text without using Tipex. Non-linear video editing allowed us to put video on hard disks instead of doing rolls between two tape recorders. CAD itself allows for unlimited tweaking. Chief needs to find a way to allow multiple versions of the same house in the same plan.

I'm somewhat in between, I use Michael's #3 method but I hate the inflexibility and think it is a painful to have to do this for remodels. Chief needs to think this over for the future and implement some form of design option or a way to use mutually exclusive layers (which probably is the same thing).

I find that I almost always want to make my own 2D version of the symbols for plans, so I typically copy them to the user library. Good also if I ever want to find them again.

I had the same concerns about this after using Chief for a while but then was fortunate enough to spend some time with them up in the impossible to spell city. I think this definitely used to be true, they came from very basic origins with a founder that wanted to create his own house plans and then felt the product could be useful for others. It is now a sizeable company though and ambitions have grown. They say Chief Architect reflects at least half of the revenue and most new development is done for Chief and then trickled down after a while. I must agree that there is a concern in that this history has led to the company being 'backwards' driven for lack of a better description. Since their professional/Chief Architect market demographic seems to be older with relatively few architects in it, the majority of user requests and needs are not going to push the software into cutting edge territory anytime soon. We see that even in this forum, any comparisons to other other tools such as Revit and Archicad are typically frowned upon, and expressing a certain frustration over workarounds is seen as not being proficient enough, and so on. If I was Chief I would probably also wonder about the return of investment of doing the program multi user or becoming more advanced in some areas. Then again, I think X8 was a major step forward and the fact that a user panel was created. I realized that most of my wishes wouldn't be implemented, if nothing else for time restrictions, but at least they were on the table and I know they've heard them. The next couple of releases will tell, I'm hoping X10 will be major since it is such a version milestone. With Archicad and Revit being $5-7K products I truly believe they have a major opportunity to insert themselves into the architect market.

Most likely you have an issue with your hole in the floor platform above. Did you create a hole with the Auto stairwell tool or used railings? If railings check that they close properly, use an opening instead of a gap, and finally make sure that the room on the second floor is defined as open below.

This is without doubt the best version I've used and ready for the big league. Sure I've had a weird thing happening or two but I'm also pretty sure nvidia drivers are playing tricks. You should see how something like 3ds Max behaves on a bad day.

Like Joey said, I think you've been working in a messed up scale, and accidentally turned on line weight.

Great headline though.

So I took a look at it, printed layout page 2 to pdf, and then printed on a 18x12 printer and the red was fine. It is thin but clearly visible. I think in general, if you can see it on the pdf it isn't Chief. Maybe boost the line weight?

Are the lines red in the pdf? How do you print the pdf, via acrobat?

This one threw me off in the beginning as well, inconsistent behavior but it does the trick. Ideally Chief is working on something like view modes so that we may show poche or wiggly lines with creating weird wall types.

I reasoned the same way Lew, and 8GB memory makes a much bigger difference than i7. You will not notice a difference unless rendering. Where it may matter though is battery consumption and the i7 uses more power.

Sometimes different people seem to live in different realities

Come to think of it you may get issues with the Revit workplane it is attached to, here is a version without it. 3351-101.zip

Try this, converted to a 3D dwg. Import as a symbol. You loose omniclass info etc but that goes with the territory. 3351-101 - 3D View - 3D.zip

This is for me the most serious deficit in Chief, and I have no way around it. I make a rough as-is to get critical measurements, but then I want to start playing with design ideas, and end up having to update and maintain two different plans. It gets even worse if I want to try another design option so I get three plans. I end up copying layers between plans but it is time consuming, easy to make a mistake and quite frustrating. I've discussed this with Chief in length and we can only keep repeating the request and hope to get traction. Unfortunately it is probably a substantial rethink of the code, and many existing users are either to used to it to be bothered, or haven't experienced any alternatives. In all fairness I guess, it's one of Revit's true strengths.

I think I saw that video, Glenn, or perhaps you showed me some stuff at the user group meet. Even so, I think it can sometimes be a bit more intuitive to set the levels in an elevation view, and then use these as constraints for walls. For example, all of these walls go to level 1, whereas these are going to split level 1, etc. Probably equally powerful and possible to do, but doing it on a room basis can sometimes be confusing, at least for me. Suddenly there is a darn closet or something that wrecks havoc.