CJSpud

Dermot: No, the stair tread/floor platform thingy isn't a big issue for me. It was by accident that I even noticed it. What about the other issue [dashed lines, wrong line weight] .... that seems like it could drive a few other users crazy (well, maybe only half crazy) if they ran into it and then spent a bunch of extra time trying to sort out what went south? I could see where this may be problematic for newer, inexperienced Chief users. By the way, thanks for fixing the post footing issue.

Here's the plan I was experimenting with: StairRailingToInt4.plan The top (upper) stairs in the plan was added later with the Interior-4 wall in place before the stairwell for that stairs was created. As you can see, there's no issues with the Interior-4 wall type defn.

A bug [bugs] of just a screwee way of doing things??? Here's what I did: Build a 4-walled box house with a 2x6 Siding-6 default wall type and put a concrete stem wall foundation under it (not relevant). Build a matching 2nd story over floor 1. Ceiling heights for both levels is 97-1/8" (rough) .... using 11-7/8" I-Joists and 3/4" subfloor both levels [floor to floor height is 109-3/4"]. Build a 2x4 Interior-4 divider wall across the middle (more or less) of the house (not relevant). Build a stairs butting up to the divider wall (parallel with) and make it have 14 ea. 11" deep treads (15 risers @ 7-5/16") and its height = 109-3/4" as noted above. Select the stairs and then click on the Auto Stairwell tool to create a stair opening in the floor and an auto railing around it (3 sides with one end open). I decide I want one of the floor 2 railing side walls to be an Interior-4 wall and it will mimic (sit directly over) the divider wall on floor 1. I select one of the floor 2 stairwell side railing walls and open its spec dbx; uncheck railing; go to wall types and change to Interior-4. This is what it looks like in plan: X8 shows the Interior-4 wall as having dashed lines for the yellow framing layer. I think they should be solid but that didn't happen. If I select the "converted" wall and open its spec dbx, and click on the Wall Types selection on the left side, you can see that it correctly displays the Wall Type as Interior-4 but the graphic right below "incorrectly" shows the Interior-4 wall as having the main layer (framing ... yellow) with dashed lines. [see Below]: If I click on the Define button in the dbx and open the Wall Type Definitions layers specs and then click on either the Fir Stud 16" OC or Drywall layers you will see that the line styles are dashed with a Line Weight of 18. Why CA changed the line style to dashed and the line weight to 18 vs the default value of 35 is beyond me. The Interior Railing wall type does have the framing layer with a line weight of 18 BUT the line style is a "solid line". Once I changed the wall type to Interior-4, shouldn't CA have switched to that wall type's specs (line styles and line weights)? One other "little" buggy thing I noticed in this exercise was when I did a cross section perpendicular to the direction of the stairs. You will notice in the image below, where the red circle is, that CA shows the tread as it passes through the floor system "on the left side" as extending beyond/outside of the opening through the floor 2 floor joists/framing. The stair tread projection could easily be ignored as not a big deal or cleaned up in a LO view.... but .... is there a way that it can be fixed [in a future update] so we don't have to deal with it? I realize there are other ways to handle the railing wall issue to eliminate having to change line styles and line weights, but I bring it up because not everyone using Chief works the same way or always works in a "logical" fashion and when we run into these "issues", we almost always spend far too much time trying to figure things out. So, is/are these X8 bugs that need fixin or not? Or is it just crazy to do what I did to discover what I did ... should I just forget about it? I dunno?

Michael: Yes yes ... see my 2nd sentence .... definitely save the camera [actually all 3 camera views] in the first plan. Not sure what sort of design work is being done ... I assumed a kitchen, but it could be any room in a home or other building.

Actually, I think Michael's suggestion is the best ... assuming that you have all three cameras positioned exactly where you want them in the first design scenario. And of course each camera should be saved in that plan. Since you are obviously changing something within each of the 3 designs, why not get the first one perfectly set up with all the materials, colors, lighting, etc. and then save [save As] that plan with two other file names, each with the file name uniquely describing a major design change pertinent to each. For example, if the first design's unique identifier is Oak cabinets, while the other two use Cherry or Painted cabinets, then that could be the way you might distinguish between the three files - by the cabinet materials. Because the camera views were saved in the first plan, they are likewise saved/retained in the other two design files. You don't have to monkey around with making sure they have the right spec's (X, Y, angle, etc.). If there are other things that change in the other two designs [e.g., walls moved, different cabinet layout, etc. ... it still should be easier to work from the first file but just making the changes required per your alternative design scenario(s). Glad I could help. As you will learn with Chief, it is loaded with useful features that often are overlooked or forgotten as we get into our own little work procedures and methods. I think David Potter years ago suggested doing an hour or more of daily study of Chief's features just so we can keep up with all the ways CA is setup to help us work. I don't do it .... but I should.

Graham: You beat me to it ....

Not sure if this even remotely will help you but .... in the camera dbx, you could position your cameras in exactly the same locations on other designs/plans if you know the X, Y and angle of each camera. Note that I have a red line cross hair (marker) on the lower left corner of my plan which I have set at X=0 and Y=0 so I can start my drawings in the same location with each project. This helps keep things close to center and helps keep things from straying out in the boonies which sometimes can be a problem with some plans.

Glen: I agree .... here's the E to E dimension tool in action again: I use the Pt to Pt tool sometimes in kitchens with islands to verify walk space between cabinets at an angle and get the extra points .... sometimes also run into snapping problems with cabinet elevations when dimensioning and the points show up on those as well .... (and other uses I can't think of right now).

I use the End to End dimension tool quite a lot and don't always get the point markers except when this dialog pops up: In this image I was doing a quick check on my truss heel height to see how much I wanted to raise the roof planes for added insulation depth. I ended up putting in a CAD line to dimension to as I wasn't getting the dimension to snap where I wanted it to.

I think that was a real photo I posted .... I captured it from Houzz or Home Stratosphere a day or two ago. Yours looks pretty good for Chief, but the SS to me looks too grainy, almost like coarse sandpaper. Maybe that graininess can be improved on by tweaking the material settings.

Lots of great questions for someone out shopping for a design program. I would suggest you contact CA directly and talk to one of their sales reps and have ALL your most important questions (if more than you've posted) written down so you can go through them one-by-one with whoever you talk to. You should get some feedback from other users more familiar with other software (you mentioned) as they get time to respond. You could search the forum as there have been similar posts in the past. You can always download the trial version to test CA or purchase and use for 30 days and if not satisfied, get a refund. [https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/guarantee.html] You also can rent CA on a monthly basis. [https://shopping.chiefarchitect.com/checkout/cart/]

There are some users who have done "fairly well" with SS ray traces in Chief but I believe the best ones I have seen posted on Chief Talk used other software. Many of those other programs, as I am sure you know, cost some pretty big $'s to purchase. As Sherry suggested, search the forum ... especially the Time To Share Your Goodies" (or whatever it's called) ... and see what others have been doing/using. Many have shared the settings etc. they like to use which may be helpful to you. Now if Chief could give us ray traces close to what you see in this photo (the SS), that would be GREAT:

Are you saying this is an example of "window overture", not arkitektur?

Select the roof planes with the missing returns and under options, make sure boxed is checked.

Another way to make that happen is to change the text style for the Room Interior Dimensions [or Room ... Area(s)] to a different "character height" if you don't want to use Chief's default character height of 6. To do that, just go into Active Layer Display Options and with, e.g., Room, Interior Dimensions selected (and checked for display), click on Define opposite Text Style: at the bottom of ALDO panel (to the right of your screen if you are displaying it otherwise you have to go to the tool bar to open it) and then I would make a copy of the Default Text Style and rename it to something appropriate (e.g., Text Style, Room Int. Dim., 4.5). In my example, I put the 4.5 in the new text style name to show that I've changed the character height to 4.5 which will print at 3/32" height for 1/4" = 1'-0" plans. I use 4.5 a lot because I find that using 6 takes up noticeably more space on my plans and tends to clutter things up. If you want to check on how different character heights will print, you can use the Print Size Calculator to check different character heights for the scale you are using. It can be found on the tool bar of the text specification box and is a 'P' with an Up/Dn arrow to the left of it. Joey's idea works very nicely .... you will have to decide which works better for you.

Terry: Here's an article that may help you even if it's a little late for the start of your show .... from Chief's Support section of their website: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00738/creating-a-trey-or-coffered-ceiling-using-the-platform-hole-tool.html Hope your Home Show goes well for you and that you got everything put together as needed. I was going to try and show you a couple of different options to consider for your ceiling but got tied up with my own stuff and couldn't get back to it. The above article goes into some of that so, if you still need some work on your plan after the show, maybe you can try out those techniques. You've been well coached on getting the ceiling defined first, then build the trusses .... and/or use the "force truss rebuild" per Yusuf.

Terry: It really shouldn't take you very long at all to do your tray ceiling. Take a look at this video if you haven't already watched it: https://video.chiefarchitect.com/?search=tray+ceiling

Terry: Chief has one or more articles (Help database) or videos on doing what you want to accomplish with your tray ceiling. I suggest you read/watch and learn. Once you get your ceiling planes properly set up, then just drag/create your trusses as needed and they should correctly build to the tray ceiling planes.

Terry: Your plan is "0" bytes .... try closing the plan then do your thing.

Thanks Michael for the video and thanks Ben for the critical review of the changes. I need to play with this more to see how it impacts the way I work.

Johnny: Did you change the Chief Blueprint default font in both the Rich Text defaults and the Text Style defaults?

No problems here either.

The first search I tried was with one of the terms you cited, which didn't work. Sometimes you just need to plug in anything that comes to mind and sooner or later, if you are lucky, you'll find something that gets you a video that has something useful. Don't forget to do a search for your topic on this forum as it has been discussed many times previously.

This video may be of some help for you: https://video.chiefarchitect.com/?search=exposed+beams

Mike: How will your roof actually be constructed? Specifically, how will it be insulated? Are you planning to use SIP panels on the roof or layered rigid foam? Knowing this will help provide a better answer. Posting your plan will help us better understand where you are with your model construction.