Michael_Gia

Balloon through ceiling for walls and make sure to check default wall top. Also automatic attic walls might help if that isn’t already checked. The top peak is just a result of your wall that isn’t inline with your main facade wall.

I appear to have offended the elite guard of this forum. That’s ok, I was just voicing my opinion. I understand that some would find my comment less than honourable but it is the reality of the matter. I’ve been a paying customer for 6 or 7 years with SSA to boot. I encourage any use of Chief as opposed to no use of Chief.

A lot of people first start out with pirated copies of software. When the software has proven itself useful and contributes to that person's business, then paying for a licensed copy usually follows. I'm surprised at some of the comments in this thread. If OP gives that copy to his close friend and because of that his friend eventually ends up buying a licensed copy with SSA then Chief wins in the long run. I don't see the harm in that. Most software companies not only know that but it's what drives a percentage of their business and keeps them on their toes.

Great question, which could easily be clarified with a little image in the Dialogue Box. I like that Chief is moving in this direction with floor elevation heights, they should keep it up. A picture is worth a thousand words, as for my comment, probably worth two cents...

Chief has a very narrow niche market - single user, residential stick framing, English only North American. In that regard no other program compares to Chief’s out of the box ability to go from plan to 3D renderings and construction documents. But, if you move away from traditional stick framing and need collaboration then Chief’s wheels fall off the cart. Actually Chief blows up at that point. (my 2 cents, of course)

Is this possible to do without step #4? Why is the face needed prior to drawing that particular roof plane? Great video by the way. I never understood or ever used “faces” before. Thanks.

I remember once I had a hot key for “copy in place” but over time I thought it was simply “copy”. I eventually discovered that I had multiple everything in my plans. I caught it and corrected it. Check your hot keys.

We will sometimes angle that first 2x10 to steal a couple of inches for head clearance but what you posted looks like a complete redesign is necessary. That’s why guys are asking for you to post the plan. I recommend you post the plan as well, guys on this forum will really help and you might learn something.

Just curious, when you need that level of detail, then isn’t a cad detail the way to go? I mean, you surely don’t expect anyone to zoom into a floor plan for spindle off-set dimensions do you? Even if your callout is at 1/2 scale? I think most guys would draw a cad detail and dimension it, when you get down to spindle spacing or railing offset or anything that requires that kind of precision.

Thanks for the video. It kind of highlights how Chief has become an unwieldy mess of anno sets, defaults, layer sets, and finally Saved Plan Views. I like the direction Chief is going in with Saved Plan Views but they’re not there yet. I will make more of an effort when they overhaul the whole system and maybe make SVP’s the ONLY way to set up a view. In other words, when you save a plan view everything about it is unique to that view. No sharing of layer sets or anno sets bereeen views. Each is unique and independent of any other view. Kind of like setting up unique anno sets for each view. I know a few guys who already do this. So why hasn’t Chief figured that out yet? It’s a mess.

Again, this video is more of a sales pitch for Saved Plan Views than it is anything even remotely resembling a how to video.

It’s actually quite brilliant. I think Chief is the only software of it’s type that requires you to create your construction documents from a file/program that lives outside of the program in which you create and draw your actual plan. It’s cumbersome. Go back and take a look at Renerabbitt’s post about this. The Project Browser should be where you organize your construction documents. Kind of like an augmented Saved Plan Views to include Notes, Cad, and Schedules all in one place along with which page on your layout they are to be sent to.

Drag and drop between two layout files will be huge.

I think if Saved Plan Views could be expanded to list not only plan views, but anything you send to layout and grouped by layout page then you could work on everything in your layout without ever having to open up your layout. Not sure if that’s clear but, in short I’d like to build an outline of my layout within my Plan. Then when my Layout is opened all the pages populate with all the “saved plan/cad/notes”. All that’s left to do is space them out on the page so that they’re not overlapping. Anyone get me?

I wish Chief would pay a guy like Joe Carrick to make a video on how he uses Saved Plan Views and how he incorporates them in his workflow to go from Plan to Layout. I understand them from an organizational point of view but I fail to see how they can improve efficiency.

I think he’s referring to “zoom” like in Archicad.

I know I should be using them. I almost wish Chief wouldn’t give us any other option but to use them. Just seems like a chore to me.

Maybe I’ve just gotten lazy, but I’ve gone back to plain old anno sets.

Thank you Dermot that made a world of difference. I forgot that framing was on. I also noticed I had every label under the sun turned on. So, I turned off all labels except window labels and this improved 80%.

Here is a plan of an 8-Plex. If you take a front elevation standard view, panning around is unbearably slow. Bear in mind it is what would be considered a large model for Chief, I think... https://www.dropbox.com/s/aa3pxdkmq5qb546/> CITY PLANS 625 St-Laurent.plan?dl=0

Thanks for the tip. The zoom tool helps, otherwise I have to wait for the mouse drag to catch up only to find I’m not anywhere near where I wanted to be.

I’m talking about elevations in plan view not layout. Or is there some “live view” toggle in plan? I’ll try turning of dimensions and isolate just the model and see what effect that has. thanks!

Thanks for the response. The new machine has not crashed yet but it’s sluggish when panning in an elevation, although a little less sluggish than the old machine. As the photo shows it’s a pretty big house but nothing crazy. The problem is consistent. The bigger the plan the more sluggish it is. I’ve reported this to tech support. It’s the reason I eventually but the new machine. It’s very peculiar that the problem is only apparent in elevation panning and not 3D model orbiting.

Would you be willing to send me your plan and I’ll send you mine so we could compare how sluggish or not sluggish they are? Because if it is legacy stuff in Chief then we actually have a bigger problem because that’s not normal.

I use Standard render mode, no macros, only rich text, lines and dimensions of course with story pole dimensions. I have shadows on. 3000 square foot homes, two stories. I keep all lights off. Here’s a screen shot...