Michael_Gia

What was the suggestion? If you don't mind me asking. I always appreciate your insight.

If you have an invisible wall at that junction this can happen. When that happens you can use the “edit wall layer intersections” tool to correct it.

I feel like I’ve been living in a cave for 50 years. Is this what we’ve come to? I have to build so as not to cast shadow over my neighbour’s solar panels? How about moving your solar panels? Is it so that the first guy to build on a block has precedence over everyone afterwards? I don’t get it.

When you’re in your elevation view click on an item you don’t want to see. 1). At the bottom of the window there’s an icon with an “O” in it. (Object Layer Properties) 2). A window will open up highlighting the item you’ve clicked on with its associated layer. 3). Deselect the visibility of that layer. (Uncheck the line) voila! Solver’s video above is the “proper” way to do it though. You should learn about layers and layer sets.

At the 1:17:55 minute mark of the latest video, "Stair Detail & Cross-sections For Headroom", Scott Harris mentions that X13 will come out end of June. Here's the video... https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/10246/stair-details-cross-sections-for-headroom.html

I don’t think there’s an elegant way to do this in Chief. This is how I would like to be able to do this… Softplan’s approach in their next version:

This statement is what I put most of my weight in my recommending you go with Chief. As for the others that said Chief is not a good option for you, it seems they put too much emphasis on your desire to build “non conventional” and homes with slanted walls as you had stated at the outset. I guess it’s up to you to decide how often you’ll need slanted walls with windows and doors with framing plans. If that’s the case then maybe Chief isn’t for you. If slanted walls won’t make up the majority of your designs then Chief is your quickest and most pain free route from design conception to construction documents. Revit and Archicad will be a longer and more cumbersome route on a per project basis. But as others have mentioned there is no other forum of this kind that will provide as prompt and comprehensive a reply to any issues that might come up where you would need advice as to a solution. good luck!

In your website link, these don’t really look to be slanted walls but rather roof planes, which Chief has no problem with. As far as mouldings and trim, Chief’s room definition approach is much more flexible, automatic and efficient compared to either Revit or Archicad. In Revit and Archicad, a simple baseboard has to be trimmed around door openings and when you move that door you have to re-trim them. Don’t believe me? Just do a google or YouTube search for baseboards in Archicad and listen for the crickets. Kitchen cabinets are also horrendous out of the box in Archicad and Revit. Framing, same thing. No temporary dimensions in Archicad. You can’t just click on a door, window or wall and then click on the temporary dimension to move the item. It’s a cumbersome combination of clicking and dragging from various points on the item to move it. In any Archicad tutorial you never see anyone moving an item or wall a specific distance. Everything is drawn exactly from the get go, not realistic at all. It’s as if they never need to adjust anything or ever make mistakes. Must be nice. (I know you can use offset snapping to initially place items, you just can’t easily modify there placement) So why do so many companies use Revit and Archicad? Well, look at their business model and marketing. They target large firms with lots of manpower because they know that all though their software is more powerful than Chief, for example, they also know that you need a ton of man hours to implement that power. You are a solo user and are on the job site yourself, Chief is the software for you for traditional North American stick frame construction. Only competition is Softplan. That I’ll leave up to you to explore.

If there ever was the ideal end user that Chief was designed for, then you are it. Chief and Softplan, I would say are your two only choices based on what you wrote.

If indeed that is the solution, I don’t like it. Thanks for posting though. I’m hoping X13 addresses this issue properly.

In the photo, are we looking at the stairs from the room that you want the nook in? Or is the other room with the arch opening the one you want to have the nook? Can you sketch a plan of what you want?

Not to rain on your parade but I just want to warn you that you will continue to have connection issues at these intersections as you progress with your plan. You just have to go back and use the wall connection tool to fix them multiple times. Chief has issues with these kinds of connections. Sometimes just by adding a door or window on a wall close to one of those connections can trigger some funny lines or connections errors etc…it’s normal.

I was exactly where you were about 7 years ago. The transition was not difficult. Chief is more forgiving and more versatile than Softplan.

Make sure you save the file in X12 then try working on it.

You’ve discovered the secret with working with Chief. To be fair though, is it really necessary for the model to be identical? Detail notes are so much easier and it’s what people will look at who are building from your plan. Nobody is zooming into your 3D model anyway.

I have an idea! Everyone on SSA unanimously stops paying their SSA subscription until they fix this very basic and fundamental problem. Let’s see how long it takes them to fix it then? I mean, this isn’t some feature like, gee I wish stairs had independently adjustable stringers etc… This is a toolbar issue. EDIT: I will continue my assault on the Toolbar Bug, damn the downvotes, full speed ahead!

Just opened your plan and took at "Orthographic Framing Overview". Seems like the trusses are displaying just fine?

Check this out... https://www.loom.com/share/e5290d224b814346b438e34041cca56c

I guess your cold water feed is coming up the floor on that one…

Here is a PBR from your plan file. Standard view looked the same. The water is reflecting the sky. Presently you have no sky and you have a grey color in your retrace settings for the sky. Chose a sky background for Raytrace. By the way, you should raise your patio doors at least 3/4" or even 1.5". You're getting z-fighting with the floor finish and you also need some breathing space under those sills.

check out this video. skip to 1:38 https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/303/using-the-break-tool.html

Sometimes the wall will rejoin. Copy the wall definition and give it another name so that the program won’t re-join it. That is, use the break wall tool to divide your wall up in plan view. Then click on one part of the wall and go to the wall definition. Copy it and give it a different name. Then it will stay disconnected and you can change the material to what you want.

Check out Rabbit Design's videos on Youtube. Especially the tips on "decals".

If it’s for exterior, then I would check out Twinmotion. Not sure if it’s still free however.

I’ve always just loved the look of vectorworks. really nice work!