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You would have to use Chief architect to create the existing structures as a model.  The SLR could be illustrated with terrain functions.  You could also use polyline solids with water at the material.

When you start to hear stories about staying up til 4 AM to get it to work, I don't think I would be too interested.  Just type a note and move on with your day.

maybe your upper stair section should be wider.

The blend tool works great if you want something like stained concrete.

Best way to get new clients - Plan a vacation.

If you make your own logs, the material becomes important.  A solid color is not a problem.  If you use a wood texture, you will have to copy it and make a new material with the angle of the material set to match the pitch of your log rafter.  It takes some work but it will look nice.

I may be from text that was changed by re-sizing the window instead of opening the dbx and typing in the font size.

I have done designs using both systems.  The one scenario that need to have basement on level 1 is a sloped property with a partial crawl space on the daylight side and a DECK on the daylight side.  Floor framing usually displays on the floor below as it should.  If you have a deck on level 0, it has no where to display it except for level 0.  If you even think you might have this occur, set it up from the beginning with the basement on level 1.  It is really hard to add another floor below level 0 after the fact.  It can be done but it is a lot of time and tricky techniques.  I probably place basement on level 0 about 90% of the time as the deck at walkout thing rarely occurs.

I could work remotely.  I do this all the time.  Send me your email and I'll send you a sample plan.

tom@idahodesignbuildgroup.com

when you send it to layout.  Bottom of dbx, make sure the plot line options are set to defaults.  It may not fix the problem, but I have experiences some odd behavior if these are not set to default.  On my system the shadow shows up.  Maybe it is a video card issue.

You may have to explode the dormer and do some manual manipulation of the parts.  The auto dormers are a good start though.

There are many camera types to send it to layout.  The most trouble free will still be sent as plot lines.

Turn off "ceiling over room" as well.

I do it as you just described.  It works really well.

As software gets better there needs to be more things put into the plan.  There is no gain it still takes the same amount of time.

I'm not sure about their laptops but I just got a new asus desktop

G20 with i7 intel, nvidea GTX 970 video card

It seems pretty good so far.

I do remote work all the time.  Send me your email and I'll send you a sample set of plans.

tom@idahodesignbuildgroup.com

I guess the variations break down like this:

First design from what client describes - Goes pretty quick.  Bigger takes longer.

Changes to design. - Totally client driven and accounts for most of the variation of time.

Construction documents - Goes a little longer if you are doing the cad work for the engineer or not as long if the engineer does their own drawings.

Scott's sam method is a great way to roll for text and cad lines and details that are used frequently.  It seems the problems that CA has is with defined rooms, roofs, etc.  Apparently, there is a lot of information floating around on a plan that we don't see.  Even with walls removed, it remembers the room type and ceiling height for the area it was located.  I not sure but I think the problem develops when a plan gets several generations away from the original.  It must get confused and starts doing unexpected things.  I use a hybrid method of SAM.  Create a new template from the new version x8.  I then copy/paste relevant things from the old sam plan.  I then save that as the new sam plan and use it as the starting point for all new plans.  The only down side is that modifying the defaults as you are working on a plan must be written down and added to the new sam plan.  In other words, I don't make a new plan from and old one.

Most clients also think we can do this with a $400 lap top and produce a high resolution ray traced walk through in an afternoon, just like on HGTV.

I rarely show high end ray traces so I don't have any time spent adjusting lights, cameras and materials.  Of course I often do the cad drawings for the engineer so that can take a VERY long time.

I agree that the detailing can be a real time killer.  The construction documents and tracing load paths to show spread footer locations etc, can take a while.  Some designers don't do that part at all.  It is sometimes done by a structural engineer that does all the drafting required to show those things.

I did not open the plan but a quick look at the picture suggests that you need to pull the lower roof planes back a little to allow the wall to extend to the upper roof.  Then set the lower roof to span onto the siding instead of the framing.

I think that picture is an optical illusion.  Look at the dormers on the sides.  I think the face of the dormers are aligned with the face of the exterior wall.  It's a nice look.  I applaud your taste in dormer selection.

I have seen it done both ways.  Sq ft charges can lead to a client that takes a very long time to settle on a plan.