CJSpud

Joe: THANKS .... I really appreciate your doing this. Yesterday I sat in on Dan Baumann's webinar and asked how he does niches. His suggestion, that I was planning to use, was changing the wall layers such that the sheetrock layer was real thick and then use the material region tool to cut away the sheetrock for a niche. I think I like your tool much better as I won't have to mess with wall layers display in plan. In real life, if there's a niche in say a 2x4 or 2x6 partition wall, what will a typical builder have in the back side of the niche if it is to be tiled. For sure there will be GWB (my assumption) on the back side of the wall. What goes against the shower side of the GWB? Is some sort of tile backer board or cement board glued to the GWB? Then some liquid-applied water proofing? Then the tile? That seems like the way it should be but I am not sure that is what is typically done by builders/tile installers.

Greg: Thanks ... that's a nice fixture.

Jared: For some reason, I cannot duplicate what you did. I always end up with 16" of extra footing on the end. How'd you do that?

I commented on how I wanted this changed about a month ago. I will have to check that out. I have a somewhat unusual project I am just finishing up which includes a Fortruss (Beaver Plastics product - Canada) floor system over a full basement. The engineer, for one wall with an in-floor reinf. concrete beam bearing on the wall (lintel) over a 3' door, specified that the footing (generally a 22" x 8" strip footing) under this door and for 2' either side of it be 36" wide and 10" deep (7' length total). With limited ability to manipulate footings in plan, I just used the slab tool for that section of footing to show the added requirement for that specific section. There were two other areas in the design where their were extra footing requirements due to concentrated loads through the foundation walls. It would really be nice if we had the ability to manipulate the shape of standard strip footings, such as with the break line tool, so we could handle unusual designs like this. I would also like to have the ability to change the footing thickness for those sections requiring greater depth. It would be nice if we could continue to have the single dashed line on either side of a wall to define the plan view shape of the footing. It would also be nice to have a crossing dashed line where the footing thickness changes. We would still need to include annotation to describe the footing conditions. I just checked out a 2x6 bearing/foundation wall inside of the regular foundation walls. When pulled away from a perimeter foundation wall, I get a 16" extension of the footing on the end of the wall. None of the 3 sides of this footing projection are selectable for resizing. You have to be within the sides of the wall itself before we have the ability to change the width of the footing under the wall on either side. This is nice if that is all we had to do with a footing but that isn't always the case. Generally, absent any specific or obvious engineering requirements, I like to show the extension of a footing at the end of a wall based on a 45° downward/outward projection line which essentially means that if the footing is 8" thick, then I extend the end of the footing 8" beyond the end of the wall. I have no idea why Chief is extending the footing 16" past the end of a stub foundation/bearing wall ... doesn't make any sense to me, but maybe there's a reason. Here's what I got doing what I did (right side) and what happened to the footing extension at the end of the short wall segment when I manipulated the width of the footing on either side of the short wall using the drag handles.

Perry: That's great stuff ... thanks for the video. Looks like you forgot to close the plan when you zipped it. Can you please try again. Thanks Joe - I guess I missed that tip (or forgot about it .... been known to do that a time or two).

If you are using a premier version of Chief, many of the cabinet manufacturers have valences in their libraries under "Mouldings and Trim".

I have only watched a bit of some of Scott Harris' videos on the Parabola Bath Project and nothing on the segment where he puts together the construction plans ... maybe this is a fair place to wet your teeth. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7J4ch5cuz9_evFml6kLBOVpTQIISVaxG

What program are you using?

PS: Anyone needing a small stack of logs to use in their designs can retrieve it from the plan I posted (if you're using X7). Otherwise you need to use Chief's wood stack symbol and in a 3D view delete a bunch of surfaces to get it where you want it.

Donna: I more or less build fireplaces (usually insert type fireplaces) the way Ray and Joey have described. Attached is a plan with the process mapped out in steps ... some of the steps, particularly the last step, involve more than one simple procedure. Nevertheless, if you click on the walls and objects and analyze what happened in the succeeding steps, you should be able to figure out what happened. Of course, I am assuming you've done some homework in learning some of the basics for using Chief. I am also assuming that you are using X7 Premier which is what I created this plan with. If not, you will have to work on the process by trial and error until you get it. If you have access to Chief's videos and Knowledge Database, check them out as there's tons of information to help you better understand how to do things. FireplaceBuildProcess.zip Here's what the plan looks like if you aren't using X7: And a cross-section of the fireplace build process: And here's a ray trace (10 passes) of the final fireplace design: In the final two steps, I used polyline solids for the raised hearth, for the wood mantel, and for the added section on the right for the wood storage. To create the opening for the firewood, just draw a smaller polyline over the larger one and then select it and check it to be a polyline hole ... this cuts a hole in the larger PL which I used to insert the firewood symbol into. I also drew in another PL (in elev. view) inside the hole, made it exactly the same size as the hole, set its thickness to 2" which is what I used for the stone thickness, and then used the material eye dropper to make the PL insert into the same stone material I used. I did create a room molding polyline, assigned a new baseboard molding from the library, and then clicked on the wall segments (those using stone for the fireplace room) that I didn't want baseboard on and told Chief not to display the BB on those segments. I could have used have walls to create that section where the firewood is stored and then covered that "room" with a PL solid as I did with the method I used with all PL's. Dressed it up with some nautical stuff from the library and it looks decent. Hope that helps. If you run into some hiccups, hit F1 and look up whatever is giving you problems in the manual. I use it all the time and find it very quick and helpful.

Download the free demo version. You'll have about 4 hours (I think) to build your model ... you should have enough time to build a shell with doors, windows, walls and roof ... then take screen shots and use Snipit to capture any views you'll need. That should be an alternative solution that will be better than what you have done. You are the one who's in the driver seat when it comes to purchasing software. It is on your shoulders to know what you are getting and whether or not it will do what you want or expect it to do. There are things that even CA premier versions don't/can't do but those of us using it get enough functionality out of it to do the jobs we need done. If there are free programs that "can do more", by all means use them ... but I think you'll find that even those will have short comings that you may not find acceptable. An alternative would be to hire a CA user to do the modeling for you. It probably would have taken less time, less grief, maybe even less money if your time is worth anything.

blizzard: Assuming your roof tools are similar to what we have with premier editions of CA, you need to do as Kevin did IMO. I probably would have done one thing differently than Kevin did in his video .... I would have matched the 10:12 pitch roof planes' fascia height to that of the 4:12 roof planes' fascia height which would have raised the 10:12 roof planes up. It really depends on how the roof structures will be built that will determine where the roof planes should sit ... if the ceiling heights in your example are the same. Framed roof planes' locations are dependent on their vertical rafter depth which is a function of the size of the member, roof pitch, etc. Roofs built with trusses have their own set of rules which affect the roof planes' locations. What you can get away with is all dependent on the design. In your model, you are incorrectly butting your 4:12 roof planes to the edge of the 10:12 roof planes. Your 4:12 roof planes should tuck under the 10:12 roof planes to the outside edge of the exterior finish of an exposed attic gable wall that lies directly over the divider wall(s) below. Your roof gables can have the same overhang as the eaves or you can set them to a different value. A 3D camera full overview shows that you are missing this attic gable wall. You can go up to the attic level and, with the reference display toggled on, you can draw and attic wall over the divider wall on the main level. You might have to hit F12 to rebuild walls, floors and ceilings if the new attic wall projects above the roof planes. I discovered, as Bill and perhaps others did, that Chief doesn't allow us to break a wall and then, after assigning different roof pitches to the walls on both sides of the wall breaks, properly build the roof planes with the two different roof pitches ... with the ceiling heights of the rooms the same on either side of the wall breaks. I didn't try the 12" test that Mick did although I did get some strange results for a couple of lesser room/ceiling height adjustments I tried. Until Chief gives us the ability to fully use the wall roof pitch assignment tools, you will have to do this type of roof manually (or at least 1/2 manually) and you will have to adjust one or the other set of roof planes up or down to get the fascia tops to match up. As noted on Kevin's video, it only takes a couple of minutes to do this if you know what you are doing. After doing this, there's a slight flaw noticeable in 3D camera full overviews in that you can see two different gutter ends (if you have gutters) ... it doesn't make both gutters into one when you match the fascia heights [although technically it would be nice if it did]. I can live with that for now but it would be nice if Chief would improve the wall/roof pitch assignment functionality so that it works as discussed. You posed a good question ... and it showed me a "slight" weakness in the program ... which is easily overcome with the use of other tools and techniques, which is one of Chief's strengths which many of us have come to appreciate.

blizzard: If you wouldn't mind, can you post an image of the Roof Plane Specification dialog box > General Tab after clicking on one of your roof planes and opening the dbx? I am curious as to what difference there is between what you might have in roof tools and settings vs CA's premier software. Thanks.

Arthur: I appreciate your responses on this coloring issue. I think your suggestion is pretty much what Joe suggested in the other thread Larry posted. I think what I am going to try is to open up the material definition dbx for the corner board(s) and use the color slider to lighten the color up a bit till it looks about right. Since the customer isn't very interested in adding any curb appeal to their project, I like the darker corner trim look. Nevertheless, I the customer wants to match the corner and other trim with the siding color since that's what they did on their recently built new shop using the same siding material. Thanks again for all the feedback.

Arthur: Although I would like to argue that what you say is wrong, my experience with what I did tells me you are right ... you hit the nail right on the head. Somehow there's a difference and I don't understand it or why it is that way but apparently (obviously) it is. I was beginning to think that somehow the corner trim and siding appear to have different colors because (in reality) the siding is actually on a slight angle from vertical and the scene lighting somehow displays the color differently. Could that be it??? But a texture is just an image and their really isn't an angle ... !!!??? I would love to hear from one of the Chief color experts to give us a scientific reason why using the exact same color specs yields different colors in camera views. Anyone up there in Chiefdom care to respond? Dan/Kermit/Bryan/Adrean/John/Doug ... anyone???

Larry (Joe): Thanks for the tip ... I'll give that a try and see how it turns out.

In the image below my corner trim, which has "exactly" all the same color properties as the siding, looks much darker: I captured the siding color, jotted down all its color properties, then made sure the corner trim color was exactly the same. Has anyone else noticed this sort of color difference?

Tia: Also check out some of the images posted on the Chief Architect web site as well as the Chief Architect Facebook page. Keep in mind that there may be some content posted that was done by Chief users who may not have mastered ray tracing composition. Setting up a scene and getting everything right (materials, lighting, angles, colors, Chief settings) takes some time to learn and although some Chief users have posted some really nice stuff, others who have posted images are/were still on a learning curve. Same applies to other software used for renderings/ray traces. Nice bathroom Dennis.

It seems that Chief recommends using a Balcony (I think) when you have a room below. Maybe that will make some difference for you.

Jintu: Thanks for the reminder. I know I've seen that tip on ChiefTalk in the past but it has been awhile and totally forgot about it.

Thanks Joe ... I've been doing same as Perry ... now I can win the race with the turtle.

I suggest X7 Premier.

Alan: I took a stab at it and couldn't get the valley set trusses to build right either. Kevin's solution is unique .. I have never had to do that before. All my projects are new homes so your situation is new to me. Maybe someone else besides Kevin has another way to get Chief to build the trusses more in line with the way we would want the truss base feature to work. Maybe the way the truss base uses all the plan information doesn't work for a roof addition such as you are working on. Maybe this should be sent in as a suggestion for further improvement on the tool ... unless both you and I are messing up in some way in the way we are trying to get it too work. Sorry I couldn't be more help to you.

Alan: Here's Chief's video on the subject: http://video.chiefarchitect.com/player/player.php?id=818&th=1&autoplay=

Looks like a nice application to use with lots of cool functions. Hopefully no unwanted luggage comes with a download.