Michael_Gia

You mean, you aren’t having any issues with, Chief-auto-toolbar-scrambling? and you’re concerned with a feature that would place camera views on other monitors? I want to live in your world. I hope I didn’t jinx you now, and that you never experience the toolbar demons. Anyway, if there is a way to have camera views appear automatically on a given monitor, I’m pretty sure it would have something to do with MacOS and not Chief. Maybe there’s a script out there, if you’re brave enough? Happy Chiefing.

Hi Jeet, I see that you are only looking for a simple slope to your terrain and then are wanting to put a sloped driveway. I personally don’t mess around with the very hard and unpredictable terrain elevation data, lines and regions. Here’s what I do. 1 - Slope your terrain as you have done by raising the back end by 1m. 2 - cut a hole in the terrain where you want the driveway to go. 3 - you can make copy of the terrain hole and convert it to a slab or ramp, which will be your driveway. 4 - make a copy of your driveway (or terrain hole) and convert it to a 3d moulding and adjust the moulding to be your retaining walls for the driveway. If you work in this way then it’s real easy to make adjustments to your terrain or driveway or retaining walls/borders.

I often export the 3D model from Chief and send that to the architect/engineer or whoever. Export as SKP or Collada or 3DS or all of the above and let them work off the 3D model. It’s a very simple procedure to get any of those formats into AutoCad. This way they get exactly what you designed, with nothing lost in the translation.

Besides René’s YouTube videos on TM…. - bring your model in without the terrain. - then bring just the terrain without the model (in case you want to use it instead of the TM terrain) This way you can make modifications to either the model or the terrain back in Chief and simply re-import into TM. As long as you are using the same plan to generate the 3D camera views to export then when you import into TM they will be in the proper location (x,y,z) I personally will use trees, bushes, vehicles and people from TM and not from Chief, because they’re more realistic and adjustable. Also, capturing images and videos in TM is way more user friendly and adjustable on the fly. As far as your images above, the real problem you have is more of a perspective and positioning one. You should look at other exterior renderings, find one you like and closely match what you’re looking for and then adjust the camera position and field of view until you can almost duplicate what these pros are able to achieve. I’ve found that my weakness in rendering has more to do with how bad of a photographer I am than my computer rendering skills. Copy and steal from someone great and if you get close you’ll have a much better result.

I'm getting anxious, as usual this time of year. I thought there'd be something by now? I know last year X14 was quite late compared to earlier years, but I thought that was a special case. Is this the new "normal"

Hi there, has anyone seems this yet? AI rendering. Might eventually be able to export to SketchUp from Chief and take advantage of this? Pretty amazing.

Spacebar doesn’t even work for me. I have to first click on the title bar of a window and then hit the spacebar. Otherwise, I have sticky library item. Maybe it’s a Mac thing?

I always thought that the x,y on the plan indicated the position of the camera on the plan. In the camera dbx it corresponds more or less to those coordinates. I think?

It’s what clients and salespeople want to see. We sell net liveable area not 2x4’s. I agree that it’s totally useless for construction docs, however.

Bring the garage fascia top height to be equal with the roof over the door, maybe? It will eliminate one valley.

You have a design problem, not a Chief problem.

If Chief ever crashes, as in you get a prompt saying “fatal error bla bla” but are still able to move around in your plan then be careful not to hit save. If you do then that file will not open again and will display the message you just posted. You’ll have to go to a prior archived file.

Nice work! You should explore creating videos with TM, if you haven’t already. Child’s play compared to Chief with much better results. Also checkout TwinMotion cloud so you can share your work with clients.

Side by side elevations highlighting changes in elevation heights of floors? That’s how I would do it.

Maybe it’s just that the ceiling height of the porch is higher than the roof?

Yes, dimension default accuracy. It’s only a thing in the imperial system. metric has the glorious millimetre. precise and integral. I dream of the day we completely make the switch even here in Canada.

For furniture I will export my model to TwinMotion, and use the furniture in there. I’ll also add all the landscaping, vehicles and people in TM. I only use Chief for the 3d model, cabinetry and trimming as well as construction documents, of course. Regarding your curb, I would still use a parapet wall as the curb. You have more automatic options as well as framing options with a wall. By the look of your drawing that curb, as you call it, looks at least 20cm high? Anyway, give it a try. Nice model, by the way.

You’ll eventually build your template and library to suit your needs, but the first thing you need to figure out is the proper way to handle flat roofs in Chief. Easily done, but not obvious at first. There are quite a few videos, just search flat roof or parapet. Since most homes in Europe, even when they have a flat roof, there’s always some sort of parapet however small it is. The trick is to build a floor level where you want your roof to be, Then the ceiling height of that room will determine the height of your parapet walls. You can add a cap to the wall/parapet and put a finish on the flat roof. If you want to show a pitch or even a central drain with a four sided slope than you can use roof planes to create this on your flat roof.

If you download TwinMotion you’ll have a much easier time sharing detailed models with your clients with their TwinMotion Cloud service. It’s all free and easy to use. Very quick to upload your models and quick and easy for your client or anyone to view. It’s worth the time to learn this very user friendly software if only for this sort of thing. The interface is a little quirky and off putting only because it’s not familiar but it doesn’t take long to get use to. Chief is the quickest path from idea to 3D Model and construction documents, hands down but it needs a little help for sharing work with clients and that’s where TM comes in. TM is also the place to create videos and a static renderings of your work. I usually send a complete model including furniture and cabinets and I only add grass, trees and shrubs, vehicles and people in TM, so there’s not a lot to do. In your case where you’re worried about a lot of surfaces I would export as Collada and not 3DS. Collada is quicker and more compact. I’ve exported entire site plans with 98 condos across 8 buildings into TM and then shared it on TM Cloud and clients are able to view the model which takes about 1 to 2 minutes to load which is pretty quick for a file of that size. Keep in mind the multiplex buildings were full models in Chief that were converted to symbols but have all the cabinetry and furniture in every single condo.

No! You went to the other side? seriously though, how is it? I’m not really interested in real-time RT so besides that is there any benefit? The reasons I had switched from PC to Mac about 12 years ago was because I was tired of how dramatically slow a new computer would get only after a few months of purchasing it. I was constantly upgrading various components to improve performance. Constantly upgrading drivers and software updates. Having to pay for all software, word, excel and pdf editors etc. Is all that still a thing on PC? I have a very modest MacBook Pro and based on video demonstrations on this forum and even Chief’s training videos I don’t see a speed difference. Everyone it seems complain about the same stuff regardless of system. Anyway, I realize I just hijacked this guy’s post with my questions to you but if you have the time I’d love to hear how it’s going. Cheers!

I use the lazy man's approach of a screen recording of me spinning the model. low effort

That’s correct. Too high of a ppi. A surprising result was that the higher ppi produces “fuzzier text” When I downgraded to 1440p the text cleared up. The lag produced when using a ppi that is not either 110 or 220 is from the processors having to translate the image on screen at 60hz Of course, I’m giving you my layman’s interpretation of what occurs but it’s an issue that’s easy to research once you know what your looking for. Also make sure you’re connecting your monitors with usb-c or even better a displayport cable.

I’m just going to add something that is often overlooked with respect to performance, and that is the right pixel density of your monitor (ppi). I improved the speed of my little MacBook immensely when I ditched my 27” 4K monitor for a 27” 1440p monitor. The reason is that both Windows and MacOS need to output to a monitor of either 110ppi or 220ppi, or you are going to be unnecessarily burdening your system. A 1440p 27” monitor has a ppi of 110, this is optimal for performance.

Since X7 and including the original price, I’ve payed close to $10,000 CAD, and I’m not allowed to sell the product that belongs to me to recoup some of that? You’re ok with this? They should’ve at least shipped a jar of Vaseline with that original purchase.

Imagine buying a tv and then not being allowed to resell it? Is this what communism feels like?