scottharris

The End User License Agreement typically is updated with each new release. The latest change would have occurred with the X14 release last May.

Rob, I think the next group of beta testers should be within 2 weeks. Please be patient - we would like to get more eyes and feedback on the new features.

A new Procedural Grass tool is available to create a simulated 3D grass in Chief Architect X15. Unlike the grass on the terrain permitter that is an image-based texture, the 3D grass looks much more realistic. There are controls for density, height, width and curve ranges, color, and a mow height that will trim the grass using these parameters to achieve more natural-looking grass in your scenes. Chief Architect X15 is currently in beta. If you would like to get a look at it now, visit this link.

The State of Washington has required us to collect/pay its tax. Other states are also in the wings. It's a rather onerous project.

@mwarch, if you own a perpetual license, you can continue to pay for SSA prior to the expiry date.

There is a playlist of ray trace videos that can offer a lot of information and tips that can help chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/103/ray-trace.html

You can find a sample plan of that cover house “Italian Manor” on the Home Designer Samples page. As far as Spanish attributes, look for the stucco walls and tile roofing. If you download the sample plan, you can see how it’s put together.

You can move your auto dimensions to fit your style. If you want the auto tool to be configurable, send us a suggestion

Check your dimension defaults. Out of the box, they should work like the image below. If not, you can adjust these as you need per plan view. floor-plan.plan

Angela, your renderings look really good! Attached are the settings I typically use for both GPU and CPU exterior ray traces. For the interior, I now exclusively use GPU since it is done in seconds. For exterior, I’ll use a mix and mostly prefer the CPU with 30 passes. These attached examples I did in the beta version of X15 – the evening PBR shot has a generated sky model with stars/moon. If interested in looking at the beta, send an email to beta @ chiefrchitect.com. you might also look at our ray trace rendering video playlist.

Kate, sounds like you have good approaches – hiding your walls / turning walls invisible. In addition, one thing that I do is adjust the field of view in the floor camera setting so that I might help avoid clipping into a wall. Also in plan view, I move the camera so it’s as close as possible to the wall or other obstruction. It’s easy to move in plan view with your mouse and control key to override bumping. See the ‘bath 1’ example attached from the Austin sample plan. The second, is to use the perspective floor overview camera to see into the space. If you have more rooms than the bath it may take a bit of moving the camera to focus on your scene. See the ‘bath 2’ example.

This support article discusses apron sinks; there’s also a link to the video in the article. Sounds like the custom countertop may solve your request if I understand correctly what you are trying to accomplish.

I’m looking at using glass countertops for an island project. Anyone have a good supplier for 1.5” textured glass? Also, if you have used glass for an island (or kitchen), what was your experience with it? Did you use any LED lighting to reflect thru the glass?

You could save a couple of cabinets with end panels to your library. Say a left and right finished; then place and customize as you need for your current design

Kate, as an interior designer, have you considered taking the Chief Architect Kitchen, Bath & Interiors course? It’s available on-line beginning Oct. 26 or on demand at any time. It may be a good starting point. The certification exam is all encompassing – framing, foundations, roofs, site plans, interiors. Some of those categories may or may not be relevant to an interior designer. The Kitchen & Bath course will give you best practices and productivity tips. Afterward, you can then consider if the certification exam is right for you.

Here's a quote from a related post on this issue we are working on to resolve:

Nice job on the video Rene!

Christi, can you post the backup zip of the layout/plan. The layout has a reference to the plan that is not accessible. The issue you mention is not known and I was curious. You can also reach out to our tech group for add’l help.

Rene, can you post what you are trying to do. Sometimes with a custom countertop, you may need to create your own hole manually.

Mick, it's the full house plan. On the website, it's labeled as the 'Austin'

Gene, good suggestion on the auto-number for callouts. If you look at the most current sample plan in X14, “Austin Entertainment”, pg. 7 has a linked callout to D15.

If you search for “Linked callouts” on the website, you should find a video

@Kbird1 is right about walls snapping to CAD Lines. With walls, they snap to the main layer (stud) and not the wall finish. If you want the dimension to the wall finish, and you want exact dimensions you outlined, your wall would be 43.25°. since the walls snap to the main layer, I drew two sets of CAD lines a 1/2" a part to facilitate the snapping and account for the wall finish. Then, I drew the angled line to determine the exact angle. From there, drew a new angled wall away from the room, made it parallel to the line and then moved it into place. See attached plan. MasterShower.plan

Caitlin, Your full height cabinet has a panel that is in between the base cabinet. I suspect you might not want that? If so, place the panel separately from the Library (not thru the cabinet dialog) and then position it from the top to the base to the top of the full height cabinet. For complete control of the molding, consider drawing it manually with a molding polyline; then you can size it and position it as you need.

Caitlin, The ‘reset the templates’ is in X14. In X13, you can verify you are using the default template in your preferences -> new plans. It should be something like ‘Residential Template.plan’ or ‘Kitchen and Bath Template.plan’. I suspect @solver is correct – your plan may have started as an Home Designer plan. Follow his steps to covert that into a Chief Architect plan. For the CAD point (edit: Point Marker): place it near your cabinet end panel; add a dimension to the point, click on the point; click on the dimension and enter in the precise amount. You might see how that process is done in this wall elevation video. If you still need help, reach out to our support group - they are open 7-4 PT.