CJSpud

I have seen some improvement over the years I've been using Chief but I agree that there are many instances where, if one is really paying attention to those details, they just aren't right. Nevertheless, for the most part, I am very pleased with the displays that Chief generates. If I was going to complain about appearance, it would be those elevation view lines that show up on the exterior finish that seem to be related to the floor system design behind the exterior finish. These can be cleaned up at final in LO but I would obviously prefer to not have to do that. Here's what I am talking about:

Alan: If I click on your thumbnail, it expands to a nice sized photo on my monitor. Is that what you are asking? Ross: As you can see from these ray traces, I have never mastered them. Some different materials colors may have improved the image. This 1st one was done in 50 passes in about 12 minutes. The light I put near the floor behind the island is a litte to bright. I changed the angle of the 2nd image and it was done in 20 passes in under 6 minutes. The SS on the frig is definitely grainier the the 1st image. This image has a spotlight behind the camera brightening the scene as evident by the pendants' shades.

Alan: Very nice. Ross: Your SS appliances look nice. How many passes to get your results?

Todd: Do as Joe said ... in front of your fireplace put a couple of line breaks, then select that segment and designate it as having no molding. You can move those break locations around by dragging if you don't get them precisely where you want them the 1st time.

Jared: I have heard/read that some users, at least for basement plans, use Floor 1 for the basement while Floor 0 is used for the foundation footings. I only tried this once some time ago and for some reason just didn't like it so now use Floor 0 for basement walls AND footings. I don't remember what the other users doing it that way thought the advantages were. Other than that, I don't recall what else Scott and/or others might be using the extra floor for when used for some other purpose .... unless it is for a 2nd story where a steep roof literally bears on the 1st floor walls but a 2nd story is added to control the ceiling height etc. I am sure Scott will chime in with the right answer sooner or later.

Thanks Yusuf ... very interesting that you had the patience to get that to work. I have a hard enough time getting curved arrows to do what I want them to do. I will have to give that a try one of these days.

I don't see anything either.

Vendel: Please zip and post your plan. You didn't tell us which roof you are referring to either.

Have you tried using the auto stairwell tool? It will create the hole in your floor above the stairs. You can then edit the hole location if needed.

Thanks Mick. I see from the tutorial that I am actually using a different option for raising the truss heel than what Chief recommends. Learn something new every day.

Larry: I think you should take a crack at some roof videos in your free time. I have enjoyed the short and sweet ones that I have watched that you've created and they've all been very good. Thanks.

Sherry: Here's the cheat sheet ... nothing too fancy at this point ... someday I may put it into a spreadsheet so it looks pretty. In the event you don't know how to use this information for energy heels, here's a little more information that will help you. If you already have this figured out, maybe it will help someone else. In this example, my truss has 2x4 top and bottom chords. The roof is 6:12 pitch. The vertical rafter depth for a 2x4 is 3-15/16" (per the roof plane spec dbx and as shown on my cheat sheet). In the Build Roof Specification dbx I have shown that I need to raise the truss top chord 8-1/16" to give me the desired 12" total energy heel height at the outside edge of the wall. It is up to the designer/architect to determine what energy heel height is appropriate/required for a given project. For climate zones requiring lots of heating, an energy heel is often necessary to achieve a full depth of ceiling insulation at the roof-wall connections. Obviously there are many ways to insulate a ceiling/roof so roof design (including a requirement for energy heels) is driven by the overall building design needs.

I start with auto roofs and go manual as needed. Crickets for me are always manual. I set up lots of my roof planes with the wall dbx > roof tab. For energy heels, I have created a cheat sheet for the various roof member dimensions and roof pitches (to get the "vertical rafter depths"), then it is easy to figure out how much I need to raise the roof to get it where I want it. Once a roof is built and needs some editing, I open up a 3D full overview and put it on my 2nd monitor so I can watch and see how things are snapping together. Any more, lots of editing can be done right in the 3D view as opposed to working in plan views. When I 1st started with Chief (v7), I was a little intimidated by roofs. A training session with Mont Stephenson at CA's office in Cd'A broke the ice for me and other than a few specialty roofs (turrets, etc.), I have been able to conquer all the roofs required for my projects. Practice and experimentation and paying attention to how changes in the dbx settings affect a roof plane are key to understanding how Chief roof's work and behave. There are still a few things that aren't perfect with Chief roofs and/or roof framing, but generally, it is possible to do almost everything needed ... at least for the jobs I have worked on this is the case.

Simonas: Have you created your own defined text styles for window lables, door lables, etc.? Doesn't that give you what you want?

Bob: There are two strategies (at least that I can think of at the moment) that I use for your situation: 1. Make the porch gable wall with a polyline solid. 2. Sometimes I will just use a wall with a doorway in it. Going this route is nice because the attic galble wall will generate OK and you can arch the top of the doorway as desired. The limitations of this method are the columns, unless you get creative and come up with other solutions. Did you use railing side walls with the post to beam option? If not, this is a simple and quick way to get your posts and beams in place and you can resize them as needed in the dbx. You can use the custom ceiling plane and curved roof tools to create the curved ceiling. I find getting those curve settings right a little bit trial and error since I don't use them that often. Of course you can create the curved ceiling surfaces with PL solids or even a molding PL if desired. There might even be some techniques that can be used that no one has thought of yet. My example below shows a PL solid for the gable wall while I used curved ceiling planes over the porch with a 4:12 pitch while the roof planes are all 8:12. Good luck.

I believe your left and right sides are what is called a "Dutch gable" and you should be able to find info in the Chief videos, Help database or possibly in the manual on how to do those. Other than that, follow Glenn's advice and do as much as you can automatically by setting the roof parameters with the wall section roof spec's. If the front and/or roof gable roofs tie into the main roof at a slightly higher elevation, then you might need to set your ceiing (wall) heights a little taller for those rooms to accomplish that. Or possibly just selecting the roof planes and moving them up will do it .... BUT .... the structural framing elements need to work for you for however your roof planes are setting on the walls. Good luck.

Kieth: I was thinking of any techniques/settings/etc. for creating quality presentation images using Chief's ray tracer along with any other photo editing programs that other users use. I am not thinking that Thea would be included in such a meeting but ... if popular demand is to include Thea, I would still want to attend ... but my primary interest would be using Chief and other not so expensive photo editing programs. That's just me ... where I am at. I won't be shucking out any big $'s for other software anytime soon. Scott: Yes ... cruise to Mexico from LA - I won it while attending the IBS earlier this year - I think that nice hat I got from Joe C. at the KBIS is what brought me the good luck [actually, I think everyone who entered was a winner, but they never tell you that] ... I don't even know all the details - Carol is taking care of that. If you have your yacht out in the Pacific when we go by on the 14th or the 21st, I will wave at you! Maybe I could throw an extra life jacket to you just before the wake hits your boat! If I hear any screams, I'll call 911 for you.

Scott: I would love to attend a GTM on this subject if you ever host one. Maybe you could coerce Jintu into demonstrating/discussing some of his techniques. He has posted some fantastic stuff on ChiefTalk and I have saved many of his posts so I can drool on them once in awhile. He's also provided great advice on settings to use, etc. Not sure what time Jintu's kicking around vs. when we all are kicking around here in the states, but I would adjust my hours to attend such a meeting. What do ya think Jintu? An hour or so of your time would be great for us who struggle producing good raytraces IMO! Maybe there'd be time for others to show what they do as well. If this happens, I just hope I don't miss the announcement and can make the meeting. Scott: Just don't schedule it between Dec. 11th and Dec. 23rd .... promise! I am going to be traveling and/or on a big boat south of your location and enjoying some sunshine and warmth (I hope).

Here's a plan with closet storage and items I have saved in my library that you may or may not want to save to your library. The blocked cabinet combinations can be unblocked and edited as desired. All this is just Chief stuff that has been changed as needed. ClosetStorage.zip I placed an extra copy of the shelves (left side) out away from the wall so you can see that there is a back to them. When placed against the wall, I get a lot of Z fighting and it almost looks like there is no back on the shelves. The corner cabinet is just a wall corner cabinet that I edited to have 15" deep sides so that 12" shelves could land against them with a little extra to spare.

If you want to have someone local to work with, I would suggest you call Mont Stephenson (someone at Chief could probably give you his number if you can't find it). He lives in that area and used to work for Chief Architect as a trainer. Mont retired awhile back and I don't know what his status is or whether or not he's even doing any design work. He was a builder for about 30 years or so before going to work with Chief. If he isn't interested, I would think he could point you to one or more designers in your area. I would love to help you but I have commitments into next year so wouldn't have time to assist you now if your need is immediate. If working via the Internet with designers out of your area is OK, then definitely consider Walker's or Rod's offers for the services you need. Good luck.

Railings ..... positioning of railings and newels .... decks, interior and STAIRS!

Michael: Great question! If the home will have trusses, the trusses can have an inboard step (you probably know that) up such that the ceiling elevation at the walls and the bottom chords of the trusses at that location match. You'll have to create the stepped ceiling condition for this to work. If the roof and ceiling are manually framed, that portion of the work is a bit more complicated than the truss method. We are pretty much all trusses in the Pacific Northwest where I work so I can't comment from personal experience on framing a step in the ceiling joists. I've seen articles on the subject but never had to do one yet. A consideration for using framed soffits around the perimeter (or in other areas as needed) and maintain level ceiling framing (i.e. truss bottom chords) is that this is a great way to provide conditioned space for electrical, plumbing, ventilation, canned lights, etc. and not have to deal with energy leaks. If you go this route, ideally, the whole ceiling should be sheet rocked before framing down the soffits. If I am doing the soffit framed down method, I like to have the rough ceiling height at 9' minimum ... or higher. The stepped ceiling (framing) option creates a vertical surface that you'll need to make sure gets a proper insulation detail IMO. If you don't, don't be surprised if a mediocre insulation contractor doesn't cut the insulation a little short at the corners of the step. I have seen this happen in my area. Good insulation installers don't let those sorts of details slip by. If the plan details cover that, then the contractor needs to install the insulation accordingly and you've covered your tail by including the detail(s).

Mickey: I opened your plan and your texture didn't stick with the plan although there appeared to be an image of it with the materials that came with it. Rather than messing with trying to use the image of that siding for your B&B material, I went to the library and found a "horizontal" lap siding material that looked pretty close to the one that came with your zipped plan. I used that material on your house on one end and the front to see if I could duplicate the appearance you were getting. On the end I used the default size (42x42) for the texture while on the front I used edited size (84x84). Of course I had to rotate it 90 degrees to make it vertical. That is what you see below. There is no indication of any lightness in the texture in the area of the floor framing and band joists. I guess what I did isn't much help since I changed materials, although it might give you an idea for switching your exterior material if different from what you used. You could actually get creative and make yourself some 1x2 pieces to cover the seams (true B&B ... perhaps make several with different samples of the siding material to create a more realistic B&B look in rendered views. Edit: In looking closely at your 1st post and images, I see you do have a true B&B texture ... it almost didn't look that way when I first opened your images.

I would send it in to TS and see what they say. Hard to say without a plan to see if what you are seeing can be duplicated by others. Maybe its a VC issue or some other crazy thing??? Does it change if you rotate the camera just a little ... or a lot?

Just noticed you are using X3. I am not sure if the B&B siding materials were included in the Certainteed X3 library. Hopefully they are there.