Rich_Winsor

Hey O.T., what does a four stringed musical instrument have to do with the price of beans in Boston? I'm just funin' you because recently I spent the better part of a half hour on Dictionary.com trying to find out how to spell the word that I would pronounce as "wah-lah". All that French stuff is Greek to me, but the word you were looking for is voila.

Nick, isn't that what the little green up arrow is for? Dang Bill, there you go again. So we need some contour lines, fine. What tool shall we use? Of course, skinny sidewalks, how could we be so thick headed?

In a similar vein I like to change the color of the framing with the Adjust Material Definition tool so that the walls show with a little more "pop" when viewing a floor plan in a 3D Doll House view.

If your roof planes are properly constructed the fascia boards will match up. Need a little more info to tell just what your problem is.

So… you want me to spill the beans (as we say over here). Such a simple yet powerful illusion. Think about it. All the walls are exactly the same height (count the bricks). They are not tapered or skewed in any way and all of the corners are at exactly 90°. All the surfaces of the water (save for the waterfall) are perfectly level. How can that be?...... All the distortion is in your mind……with the help of a little embellishment with PSP.

I have a few observations on this topic. I was under the impression that one of the main reasons this new forum format was implemented was superior spam prevention. When spam is present I would like to be able to simply mark it as read and be done with it. I don't know how everyone else reads this forum but personally I just log on, click on the "first unread post" dot beside the first topic on the page and go from there. When I get to the bottom of each thread I don't go "Back to General Q&A" but merely hit the "Next Unread Topic" link. There is no way to know if the next unread topic is spam or not so it is quite easy to inadvertently open an unwanted topic. If I have to go back to the General Q&A page after reading each thread it will make using the forum a very unpleasant experience.

Here is my latest entry in CA's Pool design contest. In paying homage to the great M. C. Escher I have created a self-filling pool. The secret is all in your point of view.

Right clicking on the "User Catalog" in the Library Browser will give you the options for adding new content to your library.

Hope you don't have to drive the car that has the horse inside.

Jonathan, I had some grandiose goals when I set out. I was initially working with a circular exterior wall and a hemispherical dome on top but when I started poking holes in that roof rendering it brought my rig to its knees. So in the interest of expediency I stripped it down to an octagon which rendered quite acceptably. The real kicker is that I still have this new GTX 780 Ti video card sitting here on my shelf because up til now I just haven't had the time or real need to install it. It will be interesting to see what kind of improvement the new card will give me. Jon, I like the "flavah", although I didn't realize that ice hockey was all that prevalent in the Asian culture. I'd give ya a "like" in the contest but unfortunately I don't have nor do I intend to get a Facebook account so I can't vote.

Forgive me while I indulge in some shameless self-promotion. Here is my entry in Chief’s Custom Ceiling Design Contest. I have been playing around with a lot of different concepts lately (round structures, cupolas, curved roof planes, sun light angles, etc.) and I had this crazy idea to combine them all into a custom ceiling design. Since we are in the period between Memorial Day and the 4th of July I settled on a patriotic theme I call “Hail to the Red White & Blue”. Initially I had circular exterior walls for the structure but the roof became too complex and the time it took to redraw after every edit or change of view became prohibitive so I went with an octagonal exterior which rendered much faster. The design features an oculus in the top of a cupola set on top of a domed roof. The dome is pierced in eight locations by star and bar openings which accent the cupola and cast striking sun light images on the inside of the structure. Since the contest rules limit the entries to a single image file it is hard to effectively do justice to everything that is going on so I have attached some additional images. Check out the contest submissions here: facebook.com/ChiefArchitect If you “like” it enough I could get a free memory stick out of the deal.

I believe "they had it coming" is a valid defense in many jurisdictions.

Pretty much as Mick called it. Just draw 3 manual roof planes and lock and adjust the Ridge Top and Fascia Top heights as needed.

Dang it David, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I too have experienced this phenomenon and it's definitely exasperating when it occurs. It certainly would be nice to have this problem addressed but there are things you can do to minimize your losses. First off I always go directly to the "More Reply Options" window to compose all my posts. I have on occasion been dumped back at the forum sign in page when I hit the More Reply Options button after starting a post in the Quick Reply Window. Then, of course, you can copy your response to the clipboard before hitting the post button (never a bad idea if you have a substantial amount of time invested in composing the post). Finally if all else fails Chief does Auto-Save the content of your post at periodic intervals and you can often retrieve all or some portion it if you navigate back to the original thread and re-open the reply window. Look for the "View Auto Saved Content" link located at the bottom left hand corner of the posting window.

I'm a little rusty at this. Not sure if this is any better. Give it a whirl. The resolution looks pretty good in a sample view.

Interesting, I never really thought about it but if you put a default window into a default exterior wall (with a default floor to top dimension of 80") and take a couple of cross sections this is where the 80" is measured.

See if this works for you.

I whole heartedly agree with all of the above. However, since Chief seems loath to abandon the feature I was just suggesting a simple way to make it more effective.

Curt, you might want to check out this thread from the new HomeTalk forum. Kat has supplied some very nice materials for SS appliances. https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/15-kitchen-appliances/

OK, so I have this idea how to make "Reputation Points" more meaningful. Generally speaking what type of posts would be the most helpful? Obviously the ones that were deemed by the OP to have solved the problem (i.e. the ones selected as the "Best Answer"). I propose that any post given the Best Answer designation should automatically generate a Reputation Point for the poster. I think that this little tweak would steer the whole point system in the direction of being a barometer of who is supplying useful information and away from the present "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" type of situation. We have all seen situations where a simple "ditto" or "I agree" post gets a Reputation Point and a spot on informative response that solves a problem gets nothing. What do you think? The system is far from perfect but I think this little change would steer it in the right direction.

Lifted straight out of Monty Python and The Ministry of Silly Walks. My personal favorite was this one on an office door: Department of Redundancy Department

Damn, I looked high and low for that bugger. Thanks Jon.

Whenever I have double doors I like to display them in 3D views with one door open and one door shut. The problem is that when I do this Chief always removes the doorknob from the closed door. What's up with that? Just because I'm displaying it as closed doesn't mean that I don't want the knob to show.

Hi Ho David. I appreciate the time honored concept of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) and there seems to be an ongoing debate about the value of much imported 3D content. Given that I usually pass right over about 95% of what I find online, I guess my question is how does one tell the potential quality a downloaded object relative to its use in Chief Architect? Is there something I should be looking for or is it simply a matter of trial and error?