Michael_Gia

This is the way.

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/forum/16-offering-services/

Maybe post in the "Offering Services" section on this forum?

Terrible video for what OP is looking for. In this video you are presented with the overly simplified and idealized version of what OP is asking for. A nice and clean, completely outside of the main house stairwell to the basement. Not so trivial when you have to span across 2 floors for head room, all while dealing with that exterior wall and ceilings on the inside. The video says nothing of the dozens of issues OP will run into, giving him the impression that he’s just not advanced enough. Here is my crappy attempt. I never come across this condition in my work so please criticize all you want. I’m sure there’s a better approach. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ji4jssqcb8osp13/ChiefTom396.plan?dl=0 @ChiefTom396

I think most experienced Chief users on here forget how challenging drawing this sort of thing is. It has all the advanced skills wrapped up into a seemingly simple build. And there's a lot that will not be perfect with the final result. like... - creating the stairwell on the first floor to give the necessary head clearance for the stairs. - dropping the floor in the extended part so that your foundation walls come down, so that your exterior door is at terrain height. - an invisible wall to create the landing as you walk in from outside. - dealing with the first floor exterior wall by selecting "choose interior 6" if wall is intersected by a roof" etc... - lowering the ceiling on either side of the exterior wall so the two ceilings line up inside or possibly having to put in a ceiling plane for the stairwell so that it slopes towards the basement. - a lot of little wall end glitches and ceiling roof gremlins poking through. Not a small task for a new user. I hate doing these myself. I actually created a small plan and wanted to send it in but was too embarrassed with the result. It wasn't pretty. Someone take pity on this pour soul and give him an early Christmas present.

I'm really confused by your question and your image. Did you mean, why DON'T my second floor corners connect? I would be more worried about how your roof plane is crossing in front of a window and how those other roof planes meet. You have bigger problems than wall layers not meeting at a corner. I'm pretty sure once your roof planes are arranged to adhere to the laws of physics that govern this particular universe, then your wall connection issue will disappear.

Only issue I had was with an external monitor, regarding text being “fuzzy”. I changed monitors, now it’s ok. You won’t have the same problem with your iMac.

They are all toggled on. However, now it suddenly started working again. I wish I knew what caused this. Earlier I had tried restarting computer etc.. and still had the same problem. The only change I made prior to it starting to work again was to switch layer sets.

Hi, for some reason in one particular plan file, the point to point move tool is not able to pick up a snap point. The tool works but just by clicking on close, but random points. That is, if I click on an object I can use the tool to move the object but it doesn't recognize any snap points, both on the object nor where I'm moving the object to. Yes, object snap is on. I think I've had this issue before.

Wrong! This is the right link…

This is the best we’ve got. Tedious but can work for small jobs. Of course does not help if you’re trying to collaborate.

You should check out Rene's YouTube videos on TwinMotion. Do yourself a favour and download TwinMotion, it's free. I mean, actually free, not "internet free", really free. Did I mention that it's also free? In Chief, from a 3D overview camera, hit file, export to .dae (collada) Open TwinMotion and import model. Your model will instantly look better. It is a lot easier to create and export images, videos, walkthroughs, and online sharing with clients from TwinMotion. I use Chief for everything, as in cabinets and furniture. Then in TwinMotion, I add the grass, plants, trees and shrubs along with people and vehicles. I have a user library for these items in TwinMotion so it's a breeze. Very little tinkering with materials and lighting. For lighting I simply add a TwinMotion "skydome", it's one click and I get the overall light that I need for a given shot. No messing with lights and sunlight, although you can if you want. Really easy and enjoyable workflow in TwinMotion once you get past the somewhat peculiar interface, from a Chief point of view. If you watch Rene's videos you'll see that even updating your model from Changes in Chief is really no big deal. At first I used to curse Chief for not having a direct link to TwinMotion, but it really isn't all that neccessary.

I’m guessing this is because you are making changes in a layer set or default set that is shared with other saved plan views. Make sure you create unique default sets and layer sets for each saved plan view. I wish there was an option to make this automatic, so that when you create a new saved plan view it automatically attaches that name as a prefix for each default set, layer set and cad layer.

When I set the terrain at "0" it worked out as you wanted. -40 to -120 for the terrain offset from deck.

Believe it or not the problem might be coming from that little protrusion on the second floor. If those walls on the 2nd floor do not line up with walls on the 1st floor, then Chief can get a little screwy in unexpected places. This has been my experience, at least.

It is rounding up to 14.5 feet. If you want decimal feet then don’t use fractions in the settings. If you want feet plus inches then chose the proper “units” and then select “smallest fraction” All done in the Default settings that Chris showed in his comment above.

So, it appears to be an issue if your pixel density is not 220 ppi (retina) or a multiple of this, like 110ppi. So a 27” monitor at 1440p has a ppi of 108, close enough to 110 will not be a problem. Or a 5k 27” monitor at 218 ppi will also not be a problem. I have a 4K 27” monitor which is 163ppi, this is what’s causing the problems. Along with the fuzzy characters and blurry lines, the fact that my MacBook has to translate the 163 ppi to retina at 60Hz (60 times/second), I’m also seeing slower performance. I tried it out on 1440p 27” monitor and it works great, so I ordered a new monitor. I didn’t want to spend the money on a 5k 27” at this point in time. Hope this helps other Mac users out there, wandering in the desert….

That's absolutely stunning! Well done. That's the kind of styling I could never create, hence why I need a one-click, baked-in solution from software like Chief. Maybe it's too much to ask?

Not impressed. I guess it should go into the suggestion box in file 13.

You're right, bad example but you do know what I mean, right? I have the same cad blocks for trees where I mimic the drop shadow effect which is ok, but I wish we had a drop-shadow build in like VW. So, in answer to my question there is no way to get a gradient or image fill in 2D? No work-around?

Don't upgrade to MacOs Ventura if you use an external monitor. Resolution will get messed up. spent quite some time with Apple technical support. They are working on it. I got a somewhat half-assed remedy by rebooting using Opt+Cmd and holding "P" & "R". still sucks though. Fuzzy letters and lines. Like I needed anymore problems. I'm thinking of picking up a PC, even. Very bad.

You mean, after you've finalized the design with your client? Assuming you're not just drawing plans for the fun of it? At which point you probably already have a developed 3D model. Now is the time to go back in and set your defaults and preferences if they havent already been taken care of during the design process. So now you should have all of your floor levels, floor structure, roof structure/pitch/overhang, and ceiling structures, etc... Next I proceed just like I would build the house. Using Saved Plan Views with unique default sets, layer sets, dimension and text defaults specific for each Saved Plan View. 1) Site Plan View: set the building on the lot with the proper setbacks (basically page 1 of your construction documents/Layout) 2) Elevation Views: Front, Rear, Left and Right (although I hold off on these until I finish steps 3 and 4 (pages 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Layout) 3) Foundation Plan View: footings, columns, and bases for support walls on a Foundation Saved Plan View. (page 6 of layout) 4) Finished Floor Plan Views: Basement, Main Floor, 2nd Floor etc. (Single Saved Plan View that can be used for each floor) (Page 7, 8, 9 on Layout) 5) Roof Plan View 6) Electrical Plan View 7) Plumbing and ventilation 8) Section Views for Stairwells or any view that might shed light on changes in floor platforms or landings that are not obvious from the floor plans. 9) Schedule for Doors, Windows, Cabinets(maybe) or specialized mouldings. 10) Cad Details that can't be properly illustrated in floor plans, elevations or section views. 11) Wall/Floor composition page. 12) Basically follow the layout of one of the many sample plans on Chief's site. They are well done and include more than my little list. I purposely left out framing because I leave that up to the drawings provided by my floor and roof framing supplier. They have engineer approved assembly plans provided with the delivery of their floor system and roofing trusses. This isn't something you want to just wing with a Chief plan. It's fine for some decorative detail like a little roof over a doorway or some feature of a deck but not for anything structural. Leave that up to the pros. Aside from pretty framing diagrams to impress your grandma they are pretty useless in my opinion.

Hi, is there still no way to add gradient fills or an image to polyline fills so as to create images like this?... I'm sure I've seen something similar on Chief promotional ads? Or I might've been dreaming. I've been using 3D TopViews to get something similar and then try and overlay 2d trees but it's a lot of work and not easy to get stuff to line up on a Layout page.

To be sure, each saved plan view should have its own unique, layer set, default set, and cad layer and be sure to check “never save”. And by unique default set, I mean you should have unique dimensions, text and maybe even arrows with their own layers that are unique to that saved plan view. So, if my saved plan view is called “electrical 1/8” then everything up and down should have that name for all the various layers, dims and defaults to avoid cross contamination. I really wish this was simply automatic every time you create a new saved plan view. It should be unique in every way. I realize it would limit the power users who really know how to share layers and dimensions defaults across multiple plan views but for the rest of us it’s chaos sometimes.

I usually get downvoted when I mention this but here it goes. You might find it useful. Twinmotion is free. Export your 3D model there. There’s not much to learn or even do to your model and it will look instantly better. Then upload the file to their “3D Viewer”. It’s much quicker and easier to do. It’s a free cloud service they have that’s infinitely better than Chief’s embarrassing excuse of a 3D viewer. Do yourself a favour and take the 13.7 minutes it takes to learn this software and you can thank me later. Yes, I’ve been told I have a crappy condescending tone in my messages. I apologize, I can’t help it. Here’s how to download and a brief intro: Another pro tip is when you do finally import your first model into TwinMotion and you find yourself staring at a blank screen, just hit the “f” key and your model will suddenly pop into view.