Michael_Gia

This is the water-colour with line drawing over top. Currently my favorite rendering style.

Ok great, so I went to the "floor/ceiling structure" defaults and changed my plywood to a black colour and that fixed it. by the way is there a more intelligent way to show door swing openings other than drawing little arcs in layout view? Thanks!

When I turn off the "walls normal" layer then all of the walls go from black to sub-floor pattern.

So I like to show a dollhouse view as seen below. (plan also attached). Typically I'll change out the 2x4 main layer to a Black Color in the wall definition so it shows up nicely for clients. Then I'll use the Cross-Section slider to a height below the door frames so the door openings show clearer. (I add arced door-swing lines in layout after) The strange thing is the fill on some walls appear as particle board (red oval indicators in photo). Sometimes I can correct some of them to appear black by reversing the direction of the wall (<> tool). This does not fix all walls though. What am I doing wrong? The photo below is from a saved camera view on the first floor called "Dollhouse", standard render. It's the same issue even when doing Water-Color with Line Drawing, which I also like to use a lot. Here is the plan in X12... https://www.dropbox.com/s/5bmud0ahadletw5/E-6 Test Plan.plan?dl=0 Thanks in advance.

You probably have walls that are defined as "no room definition" Click on a wall and open the Wall Specification dialogue box. Goto-> General -> Options -> Deslect "No Room Definition"

Do you have framing on? Or a large PDF that you’ve imported?

This is why text height should not be scale dependent. You should be able to specify what height you want your text regardless of scale. That is, you should be able to specify the “printed” height. So if you chose a printed text height of 1/8 inch for room labels then regardless of which scale the text will always be 1/8” on your printed sheet. This would be far less confusing and no calculations required.

Opaque Windows?

Yes, that’s what I mean.

I think you’re tying too hard. Start with all lights turned off so that Chief is providing the default lighting. Run a 10 pass RayTrace. (Should take less than a minute even on an Atari). Add lighting only if there’s a dark area that you’d like brighter. Ten pass RayTrace again. You’ll be surprised by the results.

I really can't figure out what that "outside room" area is being generated from? I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the facade wall where the front door wall sets back only 12 inches from the garage wall. If I increase it to 24" then I can avoid the constant connection issues I have with these walls. Even after I get them connected properly they can inadvertently disconnect on a whim even when working on something totally unrelated on another part of the plan.

Thanks! I never thought of bypassing the built-in room mouldings. You're right it makes more sense when you have sections that have to be treated differently.

Thank you Solver. That junction was definitely sloppy on my behalf. I still wasn’t able to fix all of the gaps. It seems X12 does not clean up as nicely for mouldings, regardless.

I did install the update and was happy to see that update note as a fix but I still have the issue. It was never a problem in earlier versions. It's an X12 bug. 2.3 Rooms Fixed an issue that caused a gap at top of a Shelf Ceiling when that room’s Ceiling Height was the same as that of the surrounding room. Fixed a problem that caused a flat ceiling to generate in a room with Flat Ceiling Over This Room unchecked when that room was adjacent to a room with a Trey Ceiling. Trey Ceiling polylines can no longer be pasted into view types where they do not func- tion. Corrected a case in which a Shelf Ceiling in one room affected the Trey Ceiling in another adjacent room. Fixed a problem that caused room moldings to have gaps at the corners intersected by Room Divider walls.

Here's the plan... https://www.dropbox.com/s/r3q8abndg67wvse/>CITYY PLANS YANG 7070_7060 LIEGE.plan?dl=0

Hi, Even after the latest update in X12 which mentions a fix for this issue, I still get these gaps. Or, am I doing something wrong?

If your laptop has the job of both running chief on your laptop and then switching to an external monitor, this can lead to toolbar issues.

Like I said, too many ways to skin the same cat here. Maybe when it’s time to send something to layout, Chief should prompt us with the choice to create a new unique and independent saved plan view with the current active default settings? Then if you try to alter anything in that Saved Plan View in the future, you’ll get another prompt warning you that this will have an effect on your layout view? I personally only use Saved Plan Views when I need multiple reference sets otherwise I’m using Anno Sets (now called Default Sets) This way I know right away if I’ve inadvertently screwed something up because the Anno set will say “using active defaults” at which point I’ll switch it back to the proper Anno Set.

I almost wish Chief forced us to use Saved Plan Views. Chief is versatile to a fault. Too many ways to do the same thing. It’s a blessing, but sometimes feels like a curse. The real solution is for me to be more systematic and develop the good habits to keep my plans and workflow organized and coherent but I’m too damn lazy sometimes.

The trade-off for me is that I’d rather import something from 3Dwarehouse, although somewhat more limited and less technically accurate or up to date, as a manufacturer’s items, than have all of those up to date items and none of the benefits Chief has over Revit and AC. As long as your designing residential homes where your clients want to see detailed interiors with respect to cabinetry, woodwork and finishes, that is. Just try adding a kitchen or even a bloody baseboard in either Revit or AC and you’ll see what I mean. (Skirting boards, I believe is what you guys call them). Anyway, there’s no perfect solution in our field, and Chief does lack some features but as far as going from idea to a 3D visual, all while sitting in front of your client, live, then nothing beats Chief.

I see the same comments/complaints on Archicad and Revit forums that all manufacturers want to do is provide Sketchup files for their products. Can you be specific about a product? Windows, cabinets, doors, material?

Thanks, I'll use a macro with a "text leader line", I suppose. It's what I've been doing was just hoping for a less messy solution. Unless there is a way to simply insert a text box in the middle of a polyline and have a macro reference the polyline? That is, not require a "leader line" to point to anything. Here are 2 polylines, both have macros which I can control the color and size of text within the text dialogue box, nice and easy, no need to mess with layers etc... The leaderline has a white color to make it disappear. I keep the arrow coloured so I can find it should it become disconnected.

In this project that would mean approximately 75 plans referencing one master plan just to have control over polyline label, text colour and size. Seems extreme. thanks, at least I know this is still an issue and I'm not just missing something obvious. half the battle sometimes.

I often use Standard Polylines and add a shade fills to identify different lots in a development. I use the shading colours to group lots and I Specify a Label which I would love to have the text match the Polyline line color and shaded fill. My Polyline Label also includes stuff like square footage area, lot number, owner etc... and it would be nice to have all of this info color matched to the line and fill color so that the grouping is easily identifiable. Problem is, presently if I select a Polyline and open the Object Layer Properties there are only 2 associated layers that show up. The 1st is the Cad Layer the polyline resides on and the other is the "Polyline, Labels" layer. (this seems to be a hardwired polyline global layer which controls all text associated with any and all polylines you draw. You all know the problem is that if you change the Text Style associated with the "Polyline, Label" then you change ALL of your polyline labels, and there is no associating different "Polyline, Label" layers for multiple Polylines in your Plan, unfortunately...as far as I know. Most have suggested macros with arrows pointing to a polyline but this becomes erratic with lines becoming disconnected at random and never really knowing for sure that you have everything always labeled properly. Is there any other solution with X12? this is a portion of what can be quite a large area.

you shouldn't have to adjust (augment as you say) it's shape if you do it right.