Boxon1

Hi everybody, I am afraid that this topic was mentioned several times, but never really answered. I am working on house in Tucson, and this detail is killing me. It look like some kind of energy heel, but it's not. And I need these vertical ending web (stud, post, whatever) to attach other wall layers, and create a parapet wall. Perfect truss for this is made by company from Sierra Vista, AZ, "Southwest Home and Hearth", http://www.southwesthomeandhearth.com/swt/trusstypes.htm, and they will probably be the chosen manufacturer, but I need to make this, because I need these trusses for interior (will be visible). I tried all kinds of truss settings, to make it look like shown on image "Sloping-flat...jpg", but it just ignores me. And I don't have a clue in what direction should I go. This is definitely possible, because entire list of trusses on that web page was made in Chief, but how did they do it? How can I make truss like this?

offset from ceiling works. thank yo guys!

That is exactly what I did, but there is another problem - in the middle of the soffit there is a circular hole, with recessed light around, lights are placed outside the circle and recessed into "lower ceiling". I did it with solids, but it doesn't works really nice. I need to insert lights into that solid, and they keep sticking to the original ceiling, above that solid, even if I move them manually.

Graham, I don't believe that I will get any anser so quickly, thank you. So, you think that soffit is the way?

Hi Guys, I am trying to make a recessed or tray or coffered ceiling, but kind of inverted - recessed part should be at the intersection of wall and ceiling, as shown in detail. I tried all tricks with coffered ceiling, and it want work. I also tried just to add soffit, I even tried with custom countertop and slab, but there is a problem - I need to add not only hidden zillion lights in light cove, but recessed lights in lowered surface of this new ceiling. In that case, ceiling light just keep jumping to original ceiling, and remain hidden above new recessed object. Any ideas anybody?

HaHa, that was exactly what i did!!!

I don't believe this. After all this trouble,I tried automatic dormer, and it turned out absolutely perfect. Somehow I came to conclusion that auto Dormers don't work, and always make them manually.

Charlie, how did you do that? I am probably fed up with this problem, but after hours of different experiments, I didn't came much further from start. -Is your ridge board one single board, or every roof has it's own ridge board? I tried to make one single ridge board, but it just won't work. Did you make hole in lower roofs? If I break upper edge of roof, and move that mid-part of roof plane down, I lose that part of ridge board. If I make hole in the roof, I get crazy-framing.jpg. And if I delete manually this "butterfly", next to the ridge board, upper roof rafters do not reach existing ridge board... How can you overlap roofs like you did on your "untitled 2.jpg"? Oh Boy...

No, I was locking ridge ht, but making it all over again. As Roman said, Repetitium mater studiorum. If I repeat that for one more time, I will have to ask for Doctorate - in madhouse. Problem is that I have several confusing (conflicting) conditions here - Main roof should rest on plate of 2nd floor, resting over exterior bearing wall. Then, on front half of the house, I need to make 3:12 wrap-around porch roof, that rests on ledgers tied to main roof rafters (kind of gull-wing condition). If I try to join these roof planes, Chief just pushes main roof back, towards the interior of the house. Then, above part of main 10:12 roof I have this huge dormer, covering 3 different rooms inside - bedroom, stairway, and loft. I need loft not to change wall height, but if I assign that room "Open Below", it removes rim board. I can't have that, in order to use pre-cut 104 5/8 studs. Dan Baumman made interesting stuff using trusses https://sketchfab.com/models/b63657c95c68410ba5933cd40bae2af8. I was thinking to try the same, but, another glitch - client wants traditional rafters for cathedral part of living room. I think that DSHall should make great video about these problems wrapped together.

Well, that was exactly my first attempt. Only... -If I adjust same ridge height (240 7/8" in my case), differently sloped ridge caps will not align. Trigonometrical calculation of both angles took me half day, and, to align ridge caps, ridge beam of lower pitch roof should be raised by 1 3/8". Only, in that case, framing is a mess - I had to make 3 roofs, shown at horror001. Framing (Still not manually fixed, but ... still messy) is not very realistic, as you can see. If I align ridge boards, ridge caps are not aligned. Never mind stupid materials and colors, I just used any. What should be done, to resemble real world, is to make another attic wall below outer upper-roof rafter, that will bear laterally attached rafter of 10:12 roof, allowing for lookout framing of remaining 10:12 wall overhang. I tried to do that, but somehow it doesn't look good. But to make that using one nice straight beautiful ridge board. Lookout framing works on upper roof, but I just can't place it on lower roof. Only manually.

OK, this topic was just in time - I am trying different approaches to this same problem for last couple of days. If we disregard slanted base of upper wall, this is exactly what I am working on. Greg, what would be, at your opinion, best way to frame this stuff? I have to make a wall dormer with shed roof nested between two end segments of 10:12 roofs, but to aim at one single roof ridge. How would you frame it, and, for Christ's sake, is there anyone with idea how to aim for that same damn roof ridge? I keep getting 3 ridge boards one next to another....

Nothing to worry about. It happens to me, regardless of hardware. If you keep opened more programs, like I did - Firefox with maybe 40 tabs, mostly with dshall's video's, Photoshop, and Chief with two versions of same plan (like same ranch house with gable and shed roof), memory just can't handle all that stuff. Save your work, close some programs running behind, maybe clean the cash (Firefox or Chrome or whatever), and everything will go back to normal.

I have a stupid question - if you search for some really exotic issue, generally it could be found on old forum, and it is a awesome source of information's. What will happen with all these q's&a's, and all really valuable info's, will they be destroyed and gone forever, or somebody will transfer them to new Forum? Lot's of procedures are still more or less the same and work both in x3 and x4 and x6...

Oh boy.

What is tonight? I can help you, or I could do my best...

dshall, maybe You should check Best Practices Guide to Residential Construction. You can also find more detailed explanation at Inspectapedia - http://inspectapedia.com/BestPractices/Rooftop_Decks.htm . Guy tried really hard, and found one way to skin the cat. If he changes the settings to check balusters and post to rail, and newels/post to 4, railing height to 44, and raise bottom rail to 12", here you are -very close to 4x4. Or he can do just thing manually - check panels or no rail, change newel width to zero, and make posts manually... By the way, check initial settings on plan file that is attached. Sound really sucks. I also couldn't understand a word, luckily, idea is good enough to start thinking about it, even without the audio. But how would You do that? Just make a video, I always find them to be really good, and love to watch them. If nothing, sound(s) will be better.

HumbleChief, that solved the problem. Thank You a bunch!!! B.

Hi everybody, I need a help - again. I was playing with settings, and committed suicide. I changed something in (probably) reference floors display setting, so, now when reference floor display is activated, it doesn't shows just thin red lines, but entire content of reference floor - including material fills, furniture, text, dimension lines, just everything. That makes such a huge mess on screen, that any work is impossible with "reference floors" on. I tried to set that back in layer management, but reference floor layer set looks just normal, as on other plans. If I start New plan, it works as it should 0 showing just thin red lines. Any ideas what I did and how to set it back? I attached three screenshots - first floor, second floor and second floor with reference ON. As you can see, it's an ugly mess, specially since I have a habit of using all kind of CAD lines as temporary stuff, so now there is just too much on the screen. Bockey

That is what I tried at first, but, from some reason, maybe because it was first time that I payed any attention to Wall material region, regions were all over the place. Anyway, I planned to use regions in exactly that way to make panels. My plan is to have reveals as cut wall surface, and panels as non-cut. -I have entire list of libraries that I could use, but somehow I believe that it's up to manufacturer, not up to Chief crew to make materials. Or I'm wrong? Couple of years ago some friends of mine was hired by Pella to make 3d AutoCAD blocks for windows and patio doors. Anyway, I will vote, we have nothing to loose.

Well, that is next stage of alignment process... This quick plan is just for siding test, windows, framing, plumbing, and all other stuff are totally different issue..

Yes I do, and I find it hard to make accurate building set by using invented materials. My problem with Chief is that I am trying to do the job from the start thinking about the end - like Wall framing plans, Materials list, Cutting sheets and stuff. So, I try to make walls which will fit perfectly into 4x8 feet plywood, without cutting, and exact number of wall panels, Hardie or not, which will fit exactly from (manufacturers) corner board to corner board etc, without endless measuring and cutting on the site. Nothing eats my nerves as loss of time when they start to cut without the end of a day in sight... But sometimes this is really hard.

I just did exactly that, thank you. Only, I still haven't figured out how to make panels (wooden, looking real good on your image). I am working on that... When I tried to make material similar to HardiePlank, it's really hard work to align texture with seams. So, I used wallboards for now, but there must be some logical way around that problem... Thanks for prompt response...

OK, after I played whole day with all kinds of Solids, and moving them back and forth, I found that Glenn solved that problem a year ago, and Joe is wright - wall material regions are solving this problem. Solids are just creating problems, covering windows, piercing through roof planes, Z-fight with actual wall, they just doesn't look like solution. Just in case, http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?65702-Modern-Box-Siding-issues - link to previous post. Trick is to use thin wall material regions as kind of seams, with activated option "Cut finish layers of parent object". These work by "plowing" narrow seams in basic wall material. These regions can be moved, stretched, rotated, scaled... At this image wall regions are 3/4" thick, and copied using intervals of 36-3/4". First one was copied in place, rotated and moved 24" above bottom of the wall. This horizontal seam (or expansion joint, as DSHall like's to call them) was copied with interval of 24 3/4". And they break at openings, and no solid was moved and stuff... Only problem that I haven't solved is basic wall material. This looks realistic only when covered with endless seamless material like Wallboards. Next step is to work out problem with another material region for tile - it will probably work as not activated "cut layers" option, to create 24x36 wall-boards, and to copy them as intervals, same as "seams". -Kbird1, I tried CertainTeed, and non of materials looks like decent wall panel. Hardie should make some kind of material library. What I need is to make paneled siding, and kind of most available in the real world are HardiePlank. And they look good and last. So, frankly, I would be perfectly happy with any manufacturer, in condition that real product is easily available, like in any Home Depot or Lowe's. I can't use some imagined material by some exotic producer and wait like forever to be delivered by Pony-Express...

OK, I give up. Wall material region tutorial is as vague as can be. I need to cover entire house with Hardieplank, and house is to complicated to cover every exterior wall on both floors, plus attic walls, plus gable walls, with material regions, and edit them one by one. Care to make some step-by-step tutorial how did you made that wall? What about non-square walls, like attic and gable walls?

CJ, since I kept right over design and project ownership (still client unwilling to pay as he should), I can do with it whatever I wont. So, I am preparing plan set for internet sale. I have a feeling that it would go as same in Georgia as in Virginia or North Carolina, or any other "nice" state (by nice I mean not to many big unfriendly cities and people who live normal healthy life in decent communities). This house is anyway inspired by traditional Georgian tobacco barn, and Building code is respected pretty stiff, materials and dimensioning is already Imperial... If you are interesting in giving me opinion, I will send you pdf plan set tomorrow - that will go, it's only 3.5MB file