BenLondon

I contacted support and here is their explanation FYI: Hi Ben,It is true that, unfortunately, the Material Region Polyline does not break down materials to that level of specificity. When calculating materials, the Materials List first breaks down what it needs to calculate based on layers, then determines what objects are on those layers, then breaks down the materials across all found objects within that scope. However, it does not break down objects to their smallest parts--their components, which materials are applied to--and that's the key element here: the Materials List is looking at the materials that are applied to Objects, not individual Components.While the Materials List Polyline may seem like it's minimizing the scope to "what materials (i.e., components) are inside this polyline?", what it's really doing is looking to find what Objects are within the polyline, then calculating all of the materials associated to all of the components of of those objects. A simple example is if you draw a simple 4 wall structure, then draw a Materials List Polyline that snaps right along the drywall/framing layer, with the intent of calculating the Drywall but not the studs. However, the Materials List will still find the Framing, OSB, Housewrap, and Siding layers of those 4 walls because the Walls in their entirety are being included into this calculation (it will also find roof rafters, floor joists, etc., etc.). The length of the wall is also an important factor here, as many times you'll have one wall that spans across several rooms, so if your material polyline cut off at an intersection, but the wall technically extended well past that point, you would need to place a wall break at that intersection in order to limit how much of that wall is being factored in as well.Given that you are doing this for a remodel, here are a few suggestions that will not only help materials calculate correctly, but also may be good for plan views, sections, etc.:Because we're calculating the Materials of the walls in the plan, one of the most accurate ways to calculate them is to accurately model them.If you create a copy of your common wall types and create copies that are specifically stated as being Remodel walls, you can create and apply different Drywall materials as-needed.For instance, in the attached plan I first renamed the "Drywall" material to "Existing Drywall" so that all the walls currently using Drywall will be using Existing Drywall. I then created a copy of the Exterior wall and two interior walls, applying a new "New Drywall" material to the Exterior wall, one side of one interior wall and both sides of the other. This allows me to choose the level of Remodel I am doing within this plan, and automatically the program will determine how much Existing drywall I have vs New drywall.It's worth noting that this can also be done on the walls' Framing layers as well. So I might rename the "fir framing 2" material that all existing walls are using to "Existing Framing" and create a new wall type that specifies a new "New Framing" material. This will calculate new framed walls from existing framed walls. But I still may want to exclude those existing materials from the Materials List.Another layer of the Wall Type Definitions dialog is the new Display Layer option. This allows me to set specific wall construction layers onto their own custom display layer. For example, I could create a "Drywall, Existing" layer and a "Drywall, New" layer, and associate the wall layers of my new wall types accordingly. This gives two immediate benefits:1) because the Materials List calculates object materials By Layer, you can simply uncheck the "Drywall, Existing" layer from the Materials List Layer Set to immediately exclude those layers and their materials from the Materials List2) in Plan views or section/camera views you now have the choice to hide the existing and show only new drywall, or hide the new drywall in 3D views to show a sort of mid-remodel type of view, showing the room after the old drywall was removed but before the new drywall has been added.The only drywall this won't cover, of course, is your Ceiling - removing the "Rooms" layer from the Materials List Layer Set will remove that, though. Unless of course you're re-doing the ceiling as well, in which case that room can just be set to use the New Drywall material and add to your calculations! This is probably a good time though to also suggest potentially creating different Materials List Layer Sets if you need to calculate different things at different times.Lastly, I'd saved a Materials List in this plan that you can find in the Project Browser which is now isolating only the new Drywall in Room A and partial wall of Room C. Taking section views and manually calculating the size, the Materials List looks to be very close - I think there's some drywall thickness amount that I'm likely not taking into account somewhere.You may point out at this time that the Materials List normally calculated SHEETS of drywall, not area. When double-clicking into the Count cell in the Materials List, you'll normally see the formula it's using is "=material_data.quantity", but changing it to simply "=area" (can be done by pressing the >M button), it will instead show the sq ft area, rather than the estimated sheet number.While this all seems like a lot, if you do all of this once and save it in your Plan Template, you'll be able to come back to and re-use these wall types, materials, Layers, and Layer Sets for any future plans.

Following on, I moved my boundry out to see what happened (see attached) to the list and changed the ceiling paint to white figuring the WB paint numbers are basically the same as my drywall numbers. I only have 4.00sqft of walls???? This tool is whack....unless I have some incorrect settings somewhere which would mean at best it is not intuitive or user friendly. Again, this is just a test to see if I can rely on much larger areas within a plan for generating material lists.

My apologies, I should have made it clearer from the beginning, I am using this tiny room as an example. I of course know how to measure for drywall in the real world, I was really using this exercise to test the accuracy/usability of material lists within chief to build confidence that Chief will pump out accurate indoor within a material list polyline. After looking through several other posts it looks like this is a common ask that Chief has not addressed for over a decade; there should be a way for chief to deliver accurate square footage of ALL surfaces, walls and ceilings, within a material list poly line. Afterall, CA calculates base boards and trim just fine so why can it not calculate the perimeter of a room and multiply it by the ceiling height to give the wall areas for the selected sides of walls only? This is a basic tool that needs some work still.

Hi All I'm trying to get a handle on using the material list polyline and am having trouble getting the list to correctly count drywall boards. See the attached small laundry room that we are goint to be remodeling back from the studs. The remodel will call for new drywall on the laundry room sides only of the walls. Is the Material List Polyline smart enough to tell me what I need for drywall on the ceiling and interior wall surfaces only. As you can see, I positioned the line in the center of the walls and "Include Contained Objects" with the hope it would give me the one side of the wall only, but the result is not correct. Ideas? Thanks!

I think I worked it out, I added a 3D solid to fill the void (ceiling framing area). Is that the right approach?

I am trying to get this gable wall right above the deck ceiling. The deck is built with "flat ceiling over this room" I added a wall on the Attic floor but it does not meet the ceiling below. Ideas? Thanks

Thanks Michael. Yes, that looks like it's working. I don't see any reason not to do it this way other than the extra steps needed to add the the 3rd floor level. I'm just making the Level 1 (walkout basement) walls Pony walls with concrete lower and siding upper and then adding the footing on level 0 as you say. I think this gives more simple design capability (internal walls etc) with the garage being on level 1 rather than level 0.

I am creating the model for a 2 story home, main floor with daylight basement. See attached photo. The proposed design I am working on is going to replace the deck on the left hand side with a garage and new deck (balcony room) over it. After watching a couple of videos on how to model a daylight basement, I started with drawing the main (upper) floor level on floor 1. My intention then was to "build foundation" on floor "0" to create the pony walls and footings for the daylight basement. However, I am now seeing that then trying to build a garage on floor 0 doesn't work in the program. Should I instead place the main floor on "2", build a new floor "1" and then just add footings under floor "1"? This would allow me to build the garage and balcony over it on floors 1 and 2. Which leads to my next question: When should you build a model with walk out basement on Floors "1" and "2" vs "0" and "1"? Is it possible to create a model on Floors "0" , "1" & "2" and have the same outcome as using only "0" & "1" with regards to the foundation and footings?

I had the number of lights at 100. It resets every time you change the render type back to 8. I don't think the number of lights is the issue. HOWEVER, you are right, it was the DEFAULT Light Set Check box that I needed rather than automatic. Thanks! Solver: Thank you for your kind advice with regards to how to interact on the forum - I'm sure you get a lot of newbies and it can be frustrating. I will be sure to create a signature with full details. Have a great weekend!

I am in X14. Attaching plan file. Thanks I used a 2nd floor because I wanted to add the wall at the edge of upper Mezzanine. If you have suggestions of how better to approch the plan file - much appreciated. Always learning. However, I imagine there will be times in the fututure that I will want light rays to pass from upper floors to lower areas through "open below" areas. Cheers Ben Movie Room.plan

I have built a 2 story movie room with most of it being an "open below" second floor, leaving a mezzanine. I have recessed lighting under the ceiling of the 1st (mezzanine) and 2nd floor. I am trying to get the full camera views to render with all lights "in use". The problem I have is I can only get the lower or upper lights to activate according to the height of my camera - not at the same time. It's probably something simple. Thanks for the help! Ben

I am trying to create a 3D tile texture similar to these lava tiles: http://www.islandstone.com/product-detail.php?id=63&keywords=V_Squares I have created 4 identical wedges as 3D solids by drawing the profile of the wedges and converting them to a polyline solid and giving them a height of 4". I now want to rotate them to orient as they are in the link photo. But it seams i can only rotate in the X-Y plane. I need to spin them in the vertical Z plane. How do i do this? I have attached the plan view of the solids. Thanks