Michael_Gia

Thanks all, but the main slow down is panning around in an elevation view or cross section view. I have to go back to doing my elevation annotations in a cad detail window which just seems like a step back. Other than that the performance of the new Mac is snappier for 3D orbiting and Raytrace, unfortunately I need to create construction docs more than anything else. The 3D for me is just a visual aid for my clients and for me to verify that stuff is fitting together properly. I'm just letting everyone know that Chief is not yet optimized to work on a Mac anymore. I'm hoping they fix that.

RayTrace is about 6 times faster though so there’s that... Not what I really need but it does confirm that it’s not a hardware issue but a software issue. I think?

Ok, so I’ve been having problems since X10 with Chief being very sluggish especially in elevation and cross section views. Program even crashes when trying to pan in an elevation view. So as you can see in my signature, my MacBook is quite old so I just bought the new MacBook Pro, 16 inch. 16 gigs of ram, 8-Core, 1TB storage, etc... I still have the same sluggish performance as mentioned above. Generating a 3D view and orbiting around is faster than before but elevation and cross section views are only marginally less sluggish. Yes, I’ve called tech support and they’ve been no help. I don’t know why they don’t just admit that they have problems with performance in the macOS Environmennt? Instead they give me the old “it must be your outdated laptop” excuse. Hence the new purchase. I really don’t want to go back to Windows at this point but I might have to.

Other than the car and a few exterior light fixtures your image looks cartoonish. I’m not trying to dump on you but I don’t see the benefit here over the standard view even if it took only 3 seconds. If it’s not going to impress your customer than I’d rather use a water colour with line drawing over top otherwise I’d be ashamed to send this to a client with the tag, “here’s a realistic image of your home mam”. PBR is too much work to use as opposed to RayTrace because of the setup time which you don’t mention. I would prefer online Raytracing performed by Chief’s servers and sent back to me when complete. This is because RayTrace is easy to setup and then always produces predictable results. The drawback is only the downtime you have to sacrifice while it renders. If this could be offloaded then we could continue making money while Chief does the heavy lifting.

I’ll say it. Chief Architect is no longer compatible with the MacOs.

Ok, the problem fixed itself. (for anyone having the same issues) It seems the recent MacOs update needed to get through a few days of rebooting to sort things out. I upgraded Chief on the same day as a MacOs update, so that apparently is a bad idea... Although I wasn't having printing issues with other programs. All good now, but I was sure cursing Chief over the last few days.

The program shuts down completely. (Sorry for delayed response)

What does that mean?

Printing has become a real pain since the update. Program crashes midway during a print either PDF or printer. These are the only issues I have. I’ve resorted to snapping screenshots instead. On the plus side the “undo” function is much quicker. Anyone else experience this?

Send them as an image that way they won’t change when you go back and change something on your plan.

Used MacBook Pro. Keeps its charge. Performance consistant throughout life of computer (doesn’t really degrade) Slim and light. Durable construction. My Macbook spends more hours sitting on a dusty 2x10 than it does on my desk.

Once again, Chief software engineers bump their heads on the lowest of bars....toolbars. What other software in history struggles so much with toolbar configuration? It’s a joke.

Wow, you said quite a lot there, Jorge. With your experience and actual practice in all those softwares you’re probably one of the few in this forum that can give an accurate evaluation of Chief. I’m surprised to see Softplan in that list. I came from Softplan. Other than Softlist which blows the pants off of Chief's material list and perhaps their neat and tidy, plan and layout which both reside in the same file, I see Softplan as a step back from Chief.

Jorge, your plans actually look like they were wholly created in AutoCAD. They don’t have that Chiefy look to them. Nice work! I wonder why you don’t simply import your Cad sheets created in AutoCAD and place them in a cad detail? Or even as a detail in a plan file and referenced to in your Layout? Is it because you’re more comfortable in AutoCAD when modifications are required?

I discovered a “bug” of sorts. I’m on MacBook with an external monitor. Toolbars were often disappearing or resizing etc, until I discovered that the offending entity was having my layer display window open on the laptop while I worked on the monitor. I now don’t have that layer display window docked on the laptop, instead I use a hotkey to call it up, make changes and close the window. Since then I don’t have any toolbar issues anymore. I sent it in and have spent at least 4 calls with tech support who were unable to pinpoint the cause of the problem I was having.

Use the drywall-area in a material list. Drywall is actually called “wallboard” in Chief, just to make things extra confusing. Add 10% at least or you’ll be running back to the paint store.

you're pretty brave to use what seems to be a stainless steel backsplash. Nice work, was it more a job of lighting or materials?

Would you say that as a general rule, turn all lights off, and only mess with the emmisivity of the materials to illuminate an interior scene? And same for an exterior scene? Your PBR skills are off the wall by the way....

Thank you Glen! Both your solutions work. I chose to define the terrace as a porch to fix it so that the doors revert to exterior patio type sliders. I had knowingly set those terraces initially as rooms. I thought it was the easiest way to maintain the ceiling structure and elevation with respect to the room underneath. Again, I was going for a shortcut and it backfired on me. Thanks to this forum though, I went to bed and this morning, like little Keebler elves, the problem was solved.

You’re right I should’ve added a 4th floor. It’s kind of too late know. Not really but I just don’t feel like it. I know better than this. Got lazy. I‘m hoping someone has a quick fix for this...

Yes, they do. But I did just notice that in 3D Chief has interpreted the doors as interior doors. It’s as if the exterior walls are acting like interior walls. I know I’ve run into this before but can’t remember what causes it.

I have these two patio doors on the 4th floor that lead out to a terrace on the roof (attic level) They don't show up on my door schedule. I placed a copy of that patio door on an adjacent wall and it does indeed show up on the schedule. I can't figure out why these other doors won't? Here is a pic and the attached plan. Plan file: The door schedule is in the CAD Detail folder.

Ah...that’s clear now.

I got that by looking at this...

I think you’re client's bigger problem will be the flooding in his home. Please see an architect or draftsman to correct your roof. I’m not sure why nobody has mentioned it here yet. I didn’t open the plan. I’m just looking at the first image in the post. Yikes!