Michael_Gia

Looks like you're not using photon mapping. You need to for any stainless steel to not appear black. Turn on in the "Advanced" tab of Ray Trace Options. I personally have gone back to render mode only. I love the live view updates of all images in the plan. They update dynamically. I set and forget. They look good enough in a PDF or printed. Of course, as a builder this is good enough for me and my clients.

Ok, so center rather than bottom left as I was doing. That makes sense. That's good insight.

Ok thanks.

When starting a floor plan, is there an ideal location to place the floor plan? I usually try to place the bottom left corner of the building at 0,0 for x,y. (When I remember) Are there do's and don'ts for this? Just wondering if there are any ramifications if the house is placed somewhere random or not snapped to the grid etc...

I get this random color on/off issue as well. It happens only with "Live Views" sent to layout. I have since gone to "plot lines" with color off so that my elevations are monochrome but my cad lines and dimensions are in color. I just don't like the delay I get in generating those plot line views. All that calculating going on. I would prefer a live view as it is instant.

Send an elevation view to layout as plot lines

Share the same dropbox account is the only way I found that works reliably. Even if you have to open a separate dropbox account for each large project this is still a viable option. All it means is that you'll have multiple dropbox drives.

That would be a really great service. Thanks for bringing this up. I'm still hoping that one day Chief can offer its own in-house file sharing service, complete with full collaboration features. Like Archicad and Revit does.

...just seemed like you were posturing, since you didn't really offer any further clarification. My apologies if I misread you.

Ok big shot

Not true. Dropbox IS the way to do this. The link between a shared file however is what's messing things up. You have to use only one Dropbox account. Also your first sentence is a recommandation but the plan file does not necessarily need to be in the same folder. You can have a template file for things like notes and cad detail that can be shared across multiple layout files residing in different folders all over the place. I do this and it works 100%. The downside is I'm sharing a Dropbox account with someone else. This has to be someone you trust of course.

He's using "render" as a verb to describe the process of Raytracing in Chief. Most other software use Render for what Chief refers to as "Raytrace". I wish Chief would as well. I might be speaking out of place though.

I do the same but we log into the same Dropbox account rather than share a Dropbox file or folder. I think that is the difference. If you are sharing files between two Dropbox accounts there will be issues. Although technically there shouldn't be.

There's a mountain of discussion on this topic. The overall consensus on fuzzy or grainey looking Raytraces is due to light bouncing off of either stainless steel or other shiny surfaces. Reduce shiny surfaces and you'll reduce grainy appearance.

Dont try and calculate, or you will have to calculate for each and every pitch. It's a futile approach. Also there is no rhyme or reason to that calculation. 1) as was mentioned check "trusses" checkbox. 2) know what your top plate absolute value is for the wall your roof sits on. 3) in your roof dialogue box, lock your pitch and set your "top of fascia height" accordingly. (Of course know your fascia height in advance from the roof structure tab) This is the most reliable way to ensure your trusses will sit on your top plate as they do up here in the north east, which is where I'm assuming you are from as well. This will give you a flat soffit. Also this will ensure you pick up the right elevation point when you do your storypole elevations etc... I think the programmers of roofs in Chief all came from sunny California hence the default and useless rake system. Looks cute though.

Ah ha! Eureka! After creating a new layer (so only this polyline is affected), you then have to go into: "defaults" -> "cad" -> "general cad" -> "display line length format" and then make your change in units. wow! 2 years using this program and this is the first I've ever had to do this. I was struggling with a terrain that was oddly shaped. thanks everyone

Oh, so what does control the display of the units in the actual view? I really wish I could just right click on the label and have a dialogue box come up and allow me to enter this stuff on the fly, with perhaps a warning dialogue box asking if I want the change to apply to the layer set or just this one time. Yeah, that's what I'd like.

Thanks, and yes it would be nice. I was able to change the text style with a new layer but I still can't get my decimal feet to show. It's still in feet-inch. And that seemingly useless "number style" radio button is there for decoration only. At least as far as I can tell.

So, I should create a whole new text style and cad layer if I want to affect only that one particular polyline?... thanks for the quick reply by the way

I selected "show length" on the "line style" tab of a standard polyline. Question 1) how to set height of this label? Question 2) how to set the units? as in meters or decimal feet? The "number style" button at the bottom of the page seems to do nothing at all. What does that button actually affect? Is this such a mystery, bad program design or am I absurdly daft? Honest, I'm actually quite proficient in Chief. thanks, - Michael

Ok, I guess my coment is from the perspective of a builder like myself. I don't design custom millwork. So I don't need that level of precision. No offense

Dumb question, and I'm not trying to be facetious but why is this level of precision so important? I mean at the end of the day you are providing instructions on how to build a house. The individual sub-trade, in this case your stair carpenter knows how to build a staircase and railing. He needs the number of steps and the width and he'll figure out the rest. Your customer understands that this is simply a visual representation of the general look of the home in 3D, so unless it's for personal ocd reasons (and we all have that or we wouldn't be using a program such as Chief) then what's the point? I personally draw a line at, "if the carpenter has enough info to build it" then I stop there with the details. - Michael

I think OP is talking about forwarding the URL link to the 3D model and not the App. And yes anyone can forward that link and they will be able to open the model up in their browser to view. I've yet to see a customer go through all the hoops and loops to download the app when they can simply use the web browser on their desktop or laptop.

1) - Go to floor 1 2) - click on Defaults > Floors & Rooms > Current floor, and set your desired Rough Ceiling height as Greg pointed out. 3) - Repeat process on floor 2 and then for basement. 4) - then go back to floor 1, and for each room, open up the dialogue box and go to the Structure Tab. Click on the default checkbox for Rough Ceiling (E), and all other Defaults. 5) - repeat for floor 2 and basement. You can also use the Match Properties tool to set all room defaults quicker for each floor. (This is all in case Greg's answer wasn't clear enough)

3D Viewer is the greatest thing ever! Takes 2 minutes from start to emailing link to client. The only thing I wish it had, was the ability to measure in 3D like in Sketchup. Unfortunatly converting to sketchup is cumbersome as the sketchup file is monstrous. Also which client has sketchup?