Michael_Gia

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!

Hey Glen, your comment was past my bedtime. So, in attempting to post a pic of my Transform/Replicate tool to prove to you that this does not work for walls, I embarrassingly realized that I wasn’t selecting the proper reflect plane. I was selecting Horizontally instead of vertically. It’s only when I tried it on a cabinet I realized what I was doing wrong. Here’s a screenshot of before and after the operation on a cabinet and on a wall. It works fine. thanks for your help.

You understood perfectly. We were just trying to accomplish the same with the “transform replicate” tool.

Actually doesn’t work on my Mac, Glen. I tried absolute, current, Big Dipper, nothing works. The transform replicate tool would be the nicest option for this kind of take.

Chief also needs to be not so smart like some of us too. I totally forgot about that “reflect about absolute or current point” in the transform replicate tool.

We’re back to tricking Chief into doing something as basic as, mirror a copy of a wall. That’s pretty sad. Don’t you think it’s weird that there’s one “mirror a copy” procedure for walls and one for everything else? Certain functions live in a menu (which make them easy to find with the help menu) and other commands in a toolbar at the bottom of the screen? I’ve come to get accustomed to Chief’s ways but when something like this happens, I realize it’s due to these inconsistencies, more than it is my “senior moment” that I waste an hour hunting for the way I used to mirror a wall.

...Doesn’t work for walls though.

My hotkeys are: c = copy paste in place option c = copy/paste I just had not used that copy/paste for walls in quite a while and had forgotten it. It also isn’t in a menu. Only on the menu bar at the bottom.

So they are identical commands then? (these are the kinds of things that happen when I work weekends)

Ha ha, I've been using a hotkey for copy/paste but I kept hitting my hotkey for copy/paste in place. I had forgotten my hotkey for copy/paste and was momentarily perplexed. thanks, and why do we have both copy/paste command and the copy/paste in place command? one works for walls and everything else and the other does not work for walls. Or is it only one command?

Hi, is this new? I could've sworn I could use transform replicate on a wall so I could make a copy and then reflect it? Since "copy and paste in place" is not available for walls how would you mirror a copy of a wall about a point/line? I know I could make a copy of the entire plan and reverse it to copy back and forth but that's a little extreme. What am I missing?

Also for those who are worried about Chief not having Twinmotion as an add-on like it has in Revit or Archicad it’s really no big deal and works almost the same. If you make a change in your model in Chief all you do is hit the update button on the import tab in Twinmotion and the change will be incorporated automatically. Your Chief model stays where it is in TM with all the work you’ve done preserved. Here’s a tutorial showing the procedure with Sketchup (identical scenario with Chief):