Rich_Winsor

Don't want to hijack your thread Mr. P but I just wanted to say that of all the different video formats people are using to post videos to the forum, your Snagit videos display more clearly and at a suitable screen resolution for me than all the others. I can always see all the screen on my monitor without making any adjustments and there are no annoying progress bars or the like blocking pertinent information from being viewed. I can clearly see what icons and menu items you are referencing whereas with some of the other formats I often need to pause the video to be able to see what tools are being used. This has been an unsolicited Snagit testimonial. Now back to your regular programing.

Could be. This is the off year for the Giants.

Did you hear the conspiracy theory that the 'Hawks didn't give Lynch the ball because the organization wanted anyone but Lynch to be the hero?

Doing the un-doable (or at least giving it a shot) is what I'm all about. Along with thinking the unthinkable. I'm sure you guys have been down these roads before so humor me as I beat my head against some of these barriers. Here is what I came up with by putting openings into the wall before making it a symbol. You've gotta look on the bright side. If you don't open the door past 90° it will shut automatically.

I believe the present ratio for a day (24 hour period?) is 1 negative vote and 10 positive votes. Don't know how the day vs. 24 hours is determined.

I have not really been around long enough to know how it was in the "good old days" but it does seem to me that the tone of the forum has changed recently from one of problem specific solutions to one of complaining (for lack of a better word) about the perceived shortcomings of the software. As I have said before the software is what it is and perspective users would be better served by learning to use it in it's current configuration than wishing it was more like some other software program. But don't despair. I have had a sneak peak into a brand new one click interface Chief is working on. Just click on the icon on the startup screen and the software will read your mind and create a complete set of detailed construction documents.

What are those symbols in your avatar? They seem to be relics from the dark ages.

Hey guys, it was a late night and I burned a lot of brain cells working on this one. Remember when Antoine stopped the show and insisted that you try to tilt the origin logo out of plumb? That's basically what I did with a wall. First I just drew a straight section of exterior wall (I chose Stucco6 because I wasn't man enough to deal with the problems presented by horizontal siding). Then while in 3D view I converted the wall section to a symbol. I placed a copy of the symbol into the plan view and using the Symbol Specification dbx I rotated the wall section symbol 5° out of vertical/plumb. Then once again while in 3d view I created a new symbol out of the previous symbol. I now have a symbol of a section of battered wall that is tilting out 5° at the top. That was the easy part. Then I put a copy of the tilted wall symbol into a fresh plan view and tried to coerce it into behaving enough to get the results you see. As you all have correctly surmised there are some interesting issues to be dealt with not the least of which is the fact that regular walls don't recognize and interact with symbols of walls. I placed invisible walls on top of the battered wall symbols to form a room but then the floor and subfloor of the room wanted to extend out beyond the bottom of the walls to be in line with the ceiling. Rather than mess around with that I just removed the floor and used a Polyline Solid for the floor. As Perry pointed out putting openings into the wall symbols turns out to be a bit more problematic. I was hoping somebody might have a solution for that. The wall symbol won't accept doors or windows and it doesn't show up at all in framing. Plan B is to try putting the openings into the wall section before turning it into a symbol and see how that responds but I haven't had a chance to play around with that. This was a banzai attack with no turning back to get these results. When I regain my strength I will try to refine the approach. Attached is an Interior vector view. All in all it's pretty clean. Moldings are another thing that don't respond to symbols of walls but I didn't want to take the time to do them manually. I guess the $64,000 question is can a wall symbol be made to act like an actual wall with all it's attributes?

I can draw sloped/tilted walls. This is dedicated to Antoine. He gave me the inspiration during the symbols workshop.

What Bill said. That will get you back the missing section of ridge cap. To get rid of the gap in the gable fascia board you need to adjust the Fascia top heights and Ridge top heights for the two taller roof planes.

I think you are going to have to attach the plan for this one. The only way I can approximate that condition is by turning off "Walls, Normal" in Display Options. Are you sure that box is checked in the 3D view you are using.

Yeah, but you guys are all screwed up down there to start with. You can't even get the water to go down your drains in the right direction. I'm with Joe on this one, smaller dimension first.

Sweet, I like it!

Not sure exactly what you are after. This is what I came up with.

Todd, if you have the time check out this training video. It's long (over an hour) but does a good job of showing how to manipulate surface characteristics of various materials. Ray Tracing Tips and Techniques

I don't know how Chief handles these things but last year I took a year off from renewing my Solidworks seat. The Solidworks equivalent of Chief's SSA runs close to $1600 a year. When I looked into reviving my subscription they were happy to waive the arbitrarily imposed $500 penalty for letting my seat expire and reinstate me like I had never left. Maybe you can just take a year off from Chief also.

As you can probably tell by now I have been amusing myself by having a play with tessellations and applying them as materials. I really like the way this particular one wraps the corners of the building. I can see this as a mosaic in Morocco or perhaps Santorini.

Yes you did and it was duly noted, but does that call for the shameless self-aggrandizement. What the hey, if we don't stand up for ourselves who will?

You talking to me Mick? I didn't open any of the plans, I just referred to the PDF Steve supplied in the post previous to mine and used that roof pitch and the 3 windows that were shown. Steve, sorry I couldn't get back sooner. It looks like you are getting it under control. I still like my approach which is similar to Bill's. Draw the bump out as a skinny little room and adjust the floor height of the room to suit your purpose. Punch a hole in the interior section of the wall with a pass thru window. I left the room as unspecified. You can now add whatever window configuration you like as well as control the other materials in the room. The floor material becomes the material on the top surface of the bump out ledge/shelf. All in all it gives a nice clean look without any annoying and unwanted artifacts.

Here is my take loosely based on your PDF image. I just built the boxed window as a room attached to the side of the wall. That way you can add whatever window configuration you like.

Alan, one way is through Photobucket. If you don't mind navigating through some adds and popups the free version will let you upload your images to your own "bucket". From there you can select the image and the following screen will let you create links to the image. For the forum I use the bottom one. Just click on it and it will copy the link, then when in the forum you hit the Paste Icon and the link is pasted into your post (the image won't show until you hit preview post or add reply buttons).

Well said Yusuf. I too have been inspired by resourceful users such as Bill and yourself. The way I see it there are grinders like Edison and there are visionaries like Tesla. I think the same is true of Chief users. I often think the people who come on here and bemoan the perceived shortcomings of the software would be better served by applying the same zeal to finding creative approaches to solving their problems. Then when the existing bugs do get ironed out they will be perfectly positioned to get the most out of the program. I gave you a gold star for that post.

Sounds to me like you are being penny wise and pound foolish. If using Chief is costing you so much you should just bite the bullet and purchase that "other CAD program" that you seem to think will solve all your problems.

Very informative video Glenn but there seems to be a problem with the audio. Your voice sounds funny.

I've missed you darlin'. Been spread too thin to cover both forums lately. Glad to see that you're alive and kickin' and still showing the boys how things should be done.