Michael_Gia

To be sure, each saved plan view should have its own unique, layer set, default set, and cad layer and be sure to check “never save”. And by unique default set, I mean you should have unique dimensions, text and maybe even arrows with their own layers that are unique to that saved plan view. So, if my saved plan view is called “electrical 1/8” then everything up and down should have that name for all the various layers, dims and defaults to avoid cross contamination. I really wish this was simply automatic every time you create a new saved plan view. It should be unique in every way. I realize it would limit the power users who really know how to share layers and dimensions defaults across multiple plan views but for the rest of us it’s chaos sometimes.

I usually get downvoted when I mention this but here it goes. You might find it useful. Twinmotion is free. Export your 3D model there. There’s not much to learn or even do to your model and it will look instantly better. Then upload the file to their “3D Viewer”. It’s much quicker and easier to do. It’s a free cloud service they have that’s infinitely better than Chief’s embarrassing excuse of a 3D viewer. Do yourself a favour and take the 13.7 minutes it takes to learn this software and you can thank me later. Yes, I’ve been told I have a crappy condescending tone in my messages. I apologize, I can’t help it. Here’s how to download and a brief intro: Another pro tip is when you do finally import your first model into TwinMotion and you find yourself staring at a blank screen, just hit the “f” key and your model will suddenly pop into view.

That’s your problem. I have never had this kind of slowness in Chief before. There’s one more tip to add to Joe’s list. Make sure Chief and all your plan and layout files and anything else is on your local hard drive and not on cloud services. Also simplify your wall and floor structures. Less composites. Unfortunately even after all that, X14 is still maddeningly sluggish. Chief is just not the right tool for larger or more complex projects.

Beautiful home!

Sorry to be that guy and burst your bubble, but this is not an elegant solution. What you end up with is a cut scene where, in one frame the door is closed and then, like magic the door is suddenly open in an instant. You might as well fade out just before you enter and then fade in, once inside which I also don’t know how to do in Chief. A better approach, which handles both options, is to use Twinmotion for walk-throughs. It’s free and way easier than Chief to create a walk through.

The difficulty I always have with this, is when you turn the corner, and at the same time move up, as in OP’s image. I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear. In your image, you turned the corner but remained in the same plane.

The room elevation quirk, was coming from the roof top terrace being designated as a porch as Robert had figured out. I don’t understand why, but that room definition affected room floor heights all over the place. Once I changed it to balcony I stopped getting those warning dialogue boxes regarding floor elevations. Very strange. Although, I originally had this terrace set as a undefined, since I wanted parapet walls with a cap and a railing on all 4 sides. I thought the best way to achieve that was with a “room”, then the floor could act as the flat roof, and the ceiling height would determine the height of my pony walls, which were a 24” parapet plus glass railing. I don’t see why I need the “balcony” setting?

I’m able to move around in 3D much like you. Thanks for the video, it’s the only way to compare performance between systems. The delay was mostly when I would click on an item, like a wall or cabinet and try to edit something in the dialogue box, there would be a 4 second delay for almost each item I was working on. After talking to tech support, the problem it seems, was with the location of my plan files. The files were on Dropbox, so I moved them out of drop box and back on to my local drive and that took care of the sluggishness. This wasn’t a problem with X13. I’m still not sure if that’s really the issue here but I’ll see over time. For now this plan is workable, at least. As for the room elevation quirk, it was coming from the roof top terrace being designated as a porch as Robert had figured out. I don’t understand why, but that room definition affected room floor heights all over the place. Once I changed it to balcony I stopped getting those warning dialogue boxes regarding floor elevations.

Wow, thank you for the suggestions! Regarding point #3 and #7, I thought about creating a 12" thick exterior wall with only 1 main layer and setting the interior and exterior layers to "0" thickness but with the brick texture for the exterior and paint colour for the interior. This cleans up and simplifies the building quite a bit and has sped things up drastically. Do you recommend this?

No, you need to draw a separate polyline for each plane. A polyline is definitely more efficient than trying to assemble oddly shaped 3d solids. I just wish Chief did a better job with how plines are represented graphically in 2d plan view.

Not sure if you’ve figured this out yet… 1). Build a new floor at the roof level. This way your parapet wall heights are determined by the ceiling height of that “room”. 2). Draw a shed roof from the interior of those 3 parapet walls but extend the roof over the 4th wall by the distance for your eave. Over here we would build this roof using roof trusses with a slope of 1/4”: 12”.

The wall with pass-through is good, but I would use a molding-polyline for your chamfers.

I’d like to get an MSI laptop with a 3060 in it because the prices are quite low but jump up quite a bit for a 3070 or higher. When you say, it works fine for you, are you able to handle larger projects? Like a 4 to 6 story multiplex with 20+ apartments? I don’t need to have framing on but I would like at least all the cabinetry and some furniture in place.

Hi, Robert, here is a plan that is behaving erratic. Room heights seem to randomly change from default floor or ceiling height, even when not messing with floor heights. Like I'll copy a wall and a bath fixture from one floor to another and then I'll get a prompt warning of some change in floor or ceiling height and then I'll have to hunt down the offending room. It's also extremely sluggish on my computer. Not that it's a screaming monster but I used to be able to handle models of this size with relative ease. Can you let me know if it's sluggish on your system as well? https://www.dropbox.com/s/tkpgj1xdifb1uxo/>CITY PLANS 18-Plex.plan?dl=0

I seem to be dealing with a new frustrating problem with X14. As I work on a plan, even though I'm not messing around with floor and ceiling elevations, Chief seems to randomly set new floor and ceiling heights in random rooms in a plan. It's been happening on the last 5 or 6 plans so it's not a one-off. Besides the slow-as-molases performance, X14 is really starting to piss me off. Am I the only one having these issues?

Nevermind, I must've changed the cabinet fill from 25% to 50% transparency by accident. 7 years and still feel like a newbie.

This is another plan, one of many, all in X14 and the cabinets don't have the grid lines showing through....as much. Barely visible.

Balloon through ceiling above in the structure tab of the wall dialogue box. Or turn on automatic attic walls. Or draw attic walls.

Why is the grid pattern in the Room Fill showing on top of my cabinetry? I've been adding a grid pattern to the room fill since X7 and never have I seen it behave this way. What have I inadvertently messed up?

First of all, you can thank Chopsaw, the real genius.

My question is, why doesn’t Chief have the standard elevation drop-down for all dialog boxes like the one in the majority of the dialogue boxes? Edit: gee, I wonder who downvoted me?…

Export your 3D model into TwinMotion and use their walkthrough tools. Much easier to use and it's free.

It works for me...

Let's say you just built the Burj Khalifa, and after construction you realize there are a million things that need regular servicing after construction and then you also notice that these millions of things are not necessarily what was specified (because things change during construction) so it would be nice to have a visual of exactly what all this equipment is and where it is precisely in your building. This is probably a scenario where Point Cloud is really useful and where the client would have the money and necessity to improve his BIM so that maintenance could be most efficient. I don't think Chief users fit this description despite our longing to be relevant in this field. Let's be serious...