Michael_Gia

If you have a window schedule placed then your windows will show the window label and not the default size as label anymore. Maybe this is what OP is referring to? Of course you can always uncheck "Use Callout for Label" in the Schedule DBX, but then the Schedule would kind of be meaningless.

Dont mean to hijack the thread but yet another reason to have the option to create construction documents from the plan file.

Export as Collada. Import to Sketchup and select merge coplaner surfaces.

We’re not even allowed to build those fireplaces here in Montreal anymore. Against code.

I’m surprised that textures are not as taxing as I thought they would be. This is probably why the Standard View is even snappier than Vector View. Puzzling since most other softwares of this type tend to bog down when you add bitmap textures to the model.

These issues are almost always because you have varying ceiling heights lurking somewhere. A closet, hallway, or some weird forgotten inadvertently created room from stray invisible walls. First go through and check your floor and ceiling height defaults. Check your foundation and minimum stemwall height default. Use the Match Properties tool to ensure uniform ceiling heights everywhere. Of course you are allowed to have varying heights in a plan, but if you do, you need to match those rooms areas above and below with invisible walls so they can be adjusted independently from the rest of the rooms on a given floor, otherwise you will get the kind of results you got here.

Love that niche tool.

I think Chief’s “Standard” View with shadows, reflections and “edge smoothing when idling” is the way to go for construction documents. Or even the water colour with line drawing on top. Fast, not fuss, automatically updateable. Set and forget. If you really want to have something to impress clients you need to export out to programs like Lumion or Twin Motion. Cheesy Raytraces are too time consuming for what they produce compared to these other rendering dedicated softwares, why bother? My two cents.

Perfect! Thanks a million. I guess I’ll simply set the roof overhang back the thickness of the shadow board so that the dimensions to the front of the shadow board indicates my desired overhang. Credit to Chief for even having this many features attached to a roof.

Hey thanks for the exploratory video. That’s right the gap I’m trying to fill is the front boxed eaves on those gables. I don’t have a problem with closing them and maintaining the double facia on the front of the Gables but then I lose the double facia on the side just adjacent to those boxed eves. You did make me rethink how I’m using the shadow board. If you notice I have it set back with a negative value. That’s because this is how we build them up here in Montreal. When we build a double facia we always leave the main facia where it is as it comes in from the truss manufacturer and then we tack on a second 2 x 6 to the back of that facia. This is why I have my shadow board behind the facia in Chief Architect

If I do that then I loose my double fascia on the front of the gables. I can't seem to get the double fascia and a nicely closed up boxed eave on the front. P-solids to the rescue. Unless there's a smarter way to use a frieze instead? Maybe reverse the order of the shadow board? That is, a shadow board and offset it to act as the fascia.

If I set my eave fascia to 11" (2x5.5") then this closes up the boxed eave nicely but then I loose my shadow board.

Yeah, I was able to close the gap between the Shadow board and the fascia as well by changing the vertical offset to 5.5". I had mistakenly set it at 6.25" for some reason. The boxed eave gap on the front gables is still a mystery. I've tried quite a few setting changes with no success. I can always slap a p-solid on them, no big deal, but I'd like to understand if these boxed eaves are controlled somewhere.

Hi again, What controls the boxed eave construction? I created a double fascia by adding a shadow board. Now my boxed eave doesn't come all the way down leaving a gap. Also there is a space between the fascia and shadow board. How can I close this up?

I think I like the portrait view for my drawing sheet that way my plan is oriented the way I like to work on it. All that's left is for Chief to make this send to layout as I see it in plan view...

Thanks to both of you, Michael and Kyle! That’s what I was looking for.

If you make your drawing sheet visible in your plan file, you see the sheet size displayed and rest of the field is greyed out. I would like to rotate that sheet only. I don’t want to rotate the plan. Is that possible?

If not then, I would definitely post in suggestions. I would love if the way you place things in plan view are linked to how where they will display on your layout. Saves a step and makes you think before you place dimensions and other items.

In, Drawing Sheet Setup, in the File menu, I often like to “Show Drawing Sheet in View” checked (☑️) This way I get a sense of how stuff will ultimately show when sending to layout. Is there a way to rotate the sheet in plan view? For some plans the views are rotated in layout to fit on the sheet properly. I’m hoping to have a more WYSIWYG experience.

I still picked up a good trick. Although I knew about it, I just hadn’t used it in a while. That was to make the staircase fill 50% transparent so I can see those hidden walls underneath. For some reason I had developed the habit of turning the stair layer on and off instead. I still find these little gems in Chief’s videos from time to time.

You can do all of that in Chief but you’d have to build your cabinets entirely out of p-solids, soffits and moulding polylines. Before you laugh, this is pretty much the required energy to achieve the same in Revit or Archicad. Thankfully the basic stuff is automated, but like I said, you trade automated features for precision and control over display.

I think Chief doesn’t build the garage slab out to the exterior of the wall but at least in 3D it seamlessly connects to the foundation wall. Unless there’s a way to make the garage floor extend out under the garage door for the apron? Unless you have monolithic slab checked.

Now you have me questioning myself again, Richard. I have used Archicad and rent it from time to time. I’ve yet to complete a project in it but have used it to view and dimension large landscaping drawings created by our landscape architect. I build homes, and although I do my own plans for the homes I build, project wide landscaping and structural plans are contracted out. Chief can’t handle those files very well. I’ve attempted to build a full model in Archicad and although the model always comes out wonky and missing the detail I can get in Chief, like millwork, room finishing and cabinets, the construction documents in AC are on autopilot, it seems, they’re a breeze. Labeling and dimensioning in AC is also so much easier than in Chief. The way AC handles floor levels/stories is also very intuitive and when you place something on a given floor it stays there regardless until the end of the project. I wish I could build and “decorate” the model in Chief and then send it over to AC for condocs and annotation. On other hand, I just watched the new X11 bathroom demonstration from Chief and I just know that designing that bathroom in either Archicad or Revit would be an exercise in hair-pulling frustration and the end result would not encourage my clients to sign a contract. And that is the other big reason I use Chief. I don’t use a model home, so I rely on the visualization features of Chief to win contracts. I don’t think there’s a software better suited than Chief for this purpose.

The answer is, yes you can. Any cloud service will allow you to access and edit the file from any computer running Chief.

Wow, thanks for the detailed and unbiased response. I was hoping I’d hear something along those lines. It’s hard to get good answers from users of other software, mainly because they don’t use or know Chief enough to compare. I’m always looking over my shoulder to see what others are doing in Revit and Archicad because they do have a lot of great features and functionality that I wish Chief had. They obviously are not suited for residential, North American style construction and especially for solo practitioners like myself. I do learn a lot watching seasoned Revit and Archicad architects draw plans as they are pros and I, as a builder, have a lot to learn from them. (I’m not an architect or draftsman) thanks again!