scottharris

Nick, the soffit tool may be difficult to get rotated based on your photo. You might try using the 3D solid (in X12 it’s the polyline solid). You can take an elevation view, draw the solid, position and size; move back to plan view and stretch to the length of the room. If you want moldings to follow you can 1) use the molding polyline or 2) draw the soffit shape and molding together in CAD; save that as a molding profile and again use the molding polyline tool. Below is a simplified example.

Caitlin, when the dimension won’t pickup an applied panel, such as one placed through the cabinet dialog – you can use a line or a CAD point. In the image below, I placed a CAD point and then can position the dimension. I noticed in your plan it seems to be missing several dimension defaults – you might reset your template plan to use the Chief Architect version – since you upgraded from Home Designer it might have imported that into Chief Architect.

The Studio driver is more thoroughly tested and positioned for ‘professional’ use. The Game driver is more frequently released; it can be more prone to bugs.

I like Solver's suggestion here

The Breckenridge plan was developed in 2016 (probably X11). It predated our RTRT (real time raytracing) and the lighting in the model was designed for both standard rendering and CPU raytracing. It appears the plan’s lighting was left in the state for the CPU raytracing which required much, much brighter lighting; it does not look good in standard or PBR renders. And, the materials were not in an ideal state. With at said X13’s rendering engine changed from OpenGL. It’s dedicated on the Mac to Metal (PC = DirectX). Older plans need to have the lighting model adjusted – in some cases substantially. To get a softer lighting look more like X12, turn the lumens down further. If you are on a Mac using the M1 – X14 runs directly w/o the Rosetta emulator – about 20% faster. Below are a few of the settings adjusted in your modified Breckenridge home – more could be done. To get a look at the current state of our rendering, take a look at the Austin Sample Plan. Hope this helps. For a Mac w/o RTRT (real time raytracing) Camera Settings Ray Casted Shadows Off --> On Bloom On --> Off Ambient Occlusion 100% --> 8% Technique Options Camera Exposure 0.957 -->.3 Brightness -53.04 -->25 Lights Under Cab Lights 428 -->25 LM Added Lights under Cabs 85.5 -->25 LM --> Added Lights was only necessary for the CPU Raytrace option in this older plan Materials Stainless U / V Roughness 90 / 30 -->40 /8 Pendant Lights Glass -->Lighting White Flooring Polished --> General PC w/ RTRT (real time raytracing) Ray Tracing On Backdrop Intensity 1,000 Bloom Off Sun Off -->On 100,000 --> 500

Are you using an X14 template or a migrated X13 (or prior) template? If the X13 template, you will want to modify your dimension defaults for the particular plan view you are using to change the dimension style and setup. Dimensions changed a fair amount in X14; if you can use the X14 template plan, it is optimized for these changes.

Here’s the link to the Chief Architect X14 What’s New page.

Macs will not have RTRT. It’s video card acceleration is still an issue.

Chief Architect X14 runs directly on Apple M1 ARM processors without the Rosetta emulator. As a result, there is approximately a 20% performance improvement when you take a 3D view, generate elevations or other tasks. X14 is in beta now – if you’re interested send an email to beta @ chiefarchitect.com

The Physically Base Rendering requires lights to be on. Be sure to have lights near your windows and set the number of lights in the render camera that it uses to a high number. This video may help: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/6155/clay-rendering-real-time-ray-tracing.html?playlist=102

Here’s a short video on creating templates that may help. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/248/creating-templates-from-existing-plans.html

Cris, welcome to Idaho! The local NHAB chapter (NIBCA) would be a good starting point. Several long time members there should be able to get you started. Also, could be the county and other local building depts. have notes they can share. If you do design/drafting for local builders, let us know (PM), we get lots of requests for local work and like to pass the information along.

NVIDIA posted a new driver today (Jan 10, 2022). This may solve some of the driver issues related to the 3D ‘device removed’ error. See the ‘studio driver’ 511.09

I have an I9, MSI Laptop w/ a 3070 GPU and Windows 11. I too frequently see the 3D ‘device removed’ error. In working with our testing & engineering groups, we believe this is a video driver issue from NVIDIA on the 3xxx GPUs in Windows 11. NVIDIA is working on it (maybe too slowly). I finally moved my laptop to Windows 10 and so far have not seen the issue. Moving to Windows 10 was not ideal, but I also had other performance issues that appear to be solved with Windows 10.

I have both a Mac and PC laptop that I have damaged the batteries by CPU ray tracing overnight. Typically, I would setup the scene and then ray trace at a higher pixel count overnight. My first experience was when the Mac was very, very hot one morning. Later I found the case was warped and the battery was the cause. The PC laptop seemed to manage the heat better, so I continued (?). Recently its battery stopped taking a charge and I ordered a new one. In replacing it, the battery had mushroomed (see photo). It should be flat. I’m sharing the story to perhaps save you a battery replacement or possibly worse. CPU ray trace on laptops in short periods, and/or reduce the CPU utilization, or use a desktop, or use real-time GPU ray tracing. Happy New Year!

Here you go. This is using an auto roof. The left side of the house has a +6' higher ceiling. The plan is posted if you want to investigate the wall settings to build it. 1463105307_ShedRoof.plan

Greg, if it's not in your digital locker and you cannot do it online, please call us Monday. We will be open at 7am. Your SSA should still be valid thru year end.

Bob, it looks like you are using X12? We made a number of framing changes in X13. When I open your plan – since it is set for auto framing – does this look like you would expect ? (see the attached image). Here’s a related video for more info: chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/316/designating-platform-or-balloon-framing-conditions.htm

You can set that default in the Ceiling Finish Definition. In the attached screen shot, it’s using ‘storm’. Change it here to what you want for the initial material.

You might find this video helpful to learn about PBR rendering chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/10251/real-time-ray-tracing-setup-optimization.html

Also, we do offer 1-1 personal training where we can screen share. chiefarchitect.com/training/

You might find this video helpful to create a hung foundation https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/5202/creating-floor-platforms-that-hang-inside-walls.html

Here's an example of a detail with ibeam / post connections. You can find a few in the Lake Point sample plan.

These are the tips I use when creating a 3D walk through -