CJSpud

Perry: But you live in a land where all the fruits and nutcakes have lots of money. Here almost everyone has a piggy bank and watches Home Time and This Old House. This is DIY country and lots of folks' budgets are 1/2 or 3/4 the cost to build. Every once in awhile, I go and do a custom build on Puget's website and drool a little ... then wake up and go about my business.

We've lost (or don't see very often) some of the best ChiefTalk sources of help that one could dream of: ChiefCanada (Rob Fisher) Louis and Katy Fernandez Tim O'Donnell Don Randall David Michael and many others I can't begin to remember at this moment. I hope they are all doing well. It is refreshing to see new blood come along and fill the gaps.

Tommy Blair recently purchased an new HP laptop. You might find that thread and see what he purchased. I am sure Tommy would be more than happy to answer your questions about his purchase and VC if you gave him a call. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/755-laptop-i-finally-ordered/ Here's a thread specifically on laptops from the chatroom forum: http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?65966-Laptops-and-system-requirements-some-questions&highlight=laptop And another ... the first page has info on new laptops: http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?65644-Replacing-my-Computers&highlight=laptop There have been many threads on the subject if you have time to search the forum. Somewhere I read a real positive review about EVGA nVidia cards but I am sure there are many cards that should work well made by others. I am sure you'll get lots of feedback from others about what is working for them. The problem with purchasing computers is that you'll always find some folks that get a lemmon or one that has some component that is either DOA or has a some dead pixels or whatever. I like to read the reviews and see what folks are saying about the stuff they buy. I have a custom desktop that has worked well for me from Puget Systems. They also do custom laptops: http://www.pugetsystems.com/laptop.php I have been very pleased with PS. They have a good business model and good tech support. They study failure rates of core components and try to pick the best, most reliable products for the builds they do. You might want to read about the testing they do for computers they build. They also have some great articles on various topics on their website (http://www.pugetsystems.com/all_articles.php). Check them out. I don't know where you are located but you probably can find someone in your area that should be able to provide you with a laptop that will meet your spec's and requirements. Good luck.

I think Wendy is extremely dedicated to the success of her business. In the past couple of years (at least), it seems that Wendy participates in the beta forum when a new release comes out, then "gets back to work" and more or less disappears. You could check out her website and perhaps that would give you an idea what she's up to. http://www.artformarchitecture.com/ Many years ago Wendy talked me into entering the CAD shootout at one of Chief's users' meeting in Coeur d'Alene. Each team was given some basic specs to follow for a home design and I think we had 30 minutes to get it done and then everyone in attendance got to look at each team's design on a big screen and vote to see who had the best plan. As I recall, Wendy was new to using Chief and thought that if we used the space planning feature, we could save some time. I was fairly new to Chief myself but always drew my plans from scratch using the wall tools. The bottom line was that neither of us new enough about the space planner to actually save us any time. If Katy Fernandez (working in as a roving coach to help teams if they got hung up on something) hadn't stopped by and made a suggestion or three, I don't think we would have "completed" our model. As it was, the model actually wasn't very complete but we did get it dried in with a roof on, windows and doors. It was a lot of fun none-the-less. Wendy is a witty lady with a great sense of humor. It would be nice if she'd stop in now and again and give us some of her wit.

Timmy: Sorry about that ... I thought their Knowledge Base might have information about your problem. I should have looked 1st. There were some other links that were similar to your issue ... one I looked at pertained to VectorWorks. Hope you get it figured out.

You might try this site and see if you can find anything in the knowledge base: https://www.opendesign.com/the_oda_platform You might try exporting to a different (older perhaps) version of AC. If all else fails, contact Tech Support.

I do them manually ... I don't know of an automatic method that could be used to create these. In your 2nd image, I would find out what elevation the top of gable fascia was where the roof dives into the other one (on the left) - using a CAD line or a point and then checking it to see what elev. the intersectio point is at. A backclipped or elevation view can be used to find this out. Then I would figure out what roof pitch I would want to use. Next I would create a roof plane approx. the max. width and length I would need (actually probably smaller) and then shape it about like the one needed, creating the bottom edge with a single point as required. Then I would make the fascia top elev. match the fascia top of the intersection of the two existing roof planes. You can create this roof plane out away from the plan initially ... then do a point to point move using that bottom single fascia top point and move it to the point of intersection of the two roof planes. Then it is just a matter of finishing shaping the new roof plane by using the join roof planes tool. If for some reason you get the elevation of the single bottom point off a little, this should be quite evident when using the join roof planes tool. You'll have to determine how much it is off and whether or not it has to be moved up or down ... then just make that adjustment using the transform/replicate object edit tool. Good luck.

I would also consider trying to up your 3D setting for interior ambient ... 33% is a bit on the low side. You should experiment by increasing this value to see if you can get to an acceptable appearance for your camera views. Another trick sometimes used by some folks is to make the ceiling material a bit emissive (like it is emitting light ... it will brighten your camera views up). To answer your question, are your wall colors (R/G/B settings) exactly the same as the ceiling color settings? If not, you can mess with lighting, etc. and you'll never get them to match. I suspect yours are the same, BUT, if not .... you need to edit them to be the same material.

The tudor arch settings are easy for a 12:12 sloped roof. For other slopes, you either have to do some math to get the height right or you could place a CAD line in a section parallel to the roof plane(s) and then "jiggle" the setting with minor adjustments until the window slope matches the roof plane(s). Maybe someone else has an easier approach to getting the window slope quickly. Edit: Here's a snapshot of the same example with a 10:12 roof and with a CAD line I placed at 10:12 and moved next to the window slope so I could tell when I had made the height correct for the window top edges to match the roof. To get the CAD line to display as a roof pitche type angle, select the Number Style to open the dialog and make that setting change. In my example, the lines have a negative 10:12 pitch.

You're welcome. Check out the other arch types as well. You might want to do some experimenting with window shapes when you have time and practice changing some of the settings. There might be an article in the Help Database on this subject. If not, you should read up on them in the manual. Good luck.

Here's the quick way to do a "tudor arched" window:

Mark: The way it is working is based on what is displayed (actually visible) in your section view. Even if, with moldings off, you drag the label down into an area where it should be visible. I put the shelf on the wall cabinets layer and it still behaves the same way. Maybe you could do a small cross section through the shelf and put a manual callout in there to show the shelf.

Very nice - Thank you.

Allen Brown may still have a tutorial video he did on this subject on his website, which I believe is still accessible via www.chieftutor.com. Edit: Here's the link to the above noted video: http://www.chieftutor.com/allenbrown/planfile.html

You just need to close the "plan" .... Chief can stay open.

A few days back, Newegg had a screaming Asus laptop for gamers for about $1,700.00. I don't know if the sale is still active or not. If that is in your budget range, you might check it out. From what I remember, it had a good sized (±250Gb) SSD, lots of RAM, a good video card, etc. etc. The price was marked down $200.00.

I usually zoom in close to inspect each view in LO. I use screens that are about 23" so I am not able to get much size with a complete 24 x 36 sheet, which is the size I most commonly use. If you had a larger screen, it might reduce the zooming you have to do to proof your plans. But some of those cost big bucks and I just haven't gone there yet myself.

cggart: For whatever reason, Chief's default ceiling framing is 5.5 inches (2 x 6). As with lots of things in Chief, set your defaults to whatever your project calls for. Most of my plans call for roof trusses so I don't even worry about the ceiling framing. Once I check that trusses will be used, the ceiling framing becomes whatever I set the truss bottom chord member size to be. If I do a two story home, the 2nd story floor system is usually 9.5 inch or 11.875 inch I-Joists with 3/4 inch subfloor over them ... which I spec out in the framing defaults. Just do what you have to do for each of your projects.

Chief has instructions for performing your upgrade installation, including migrating libraries, etc. Find the instructions and you should be able to complete the process. You might check in Help (F1) ... the info might be there.

You are almost always better off putting heating equipment, including water heaters, in the conditions space (envelope) of a home or building. That is likely the reason for the mechanical room shown in your image. There is lots of information on this subject at the Green Building Advisor website and/or on the Building Science website as well. A somewhat new practice is to insulate attic spaces, quite often with spray foam insulation, in which case installing HVAC equipment would be OK. With this practice, the attic literally becomes a part of the conditioned space or building envelope. Who knows where this practice/discussion will be in another 10 years or so. Nevertheless, that is what I have been seeing in print from all the building science experts. Not to say you can't install HVAC equipment in an attic. Just make sure it is done according to acceptable practice (code requirements) for your jurisdiction.

Doug: I hope you didn't come to the conclusion that ten or twenty people responding that they don't use the feature is a representative sample of the thousands of Chief users out there. From my statistics training, this isn't a very good sample size to base a feature change on. The results so far are definitely interesting given that it "appears" (so far) almost no one has used the feature. I suppose at this point you could extrapolate from these limited responses that it is safe to make a change to some other new feature you believe we will like. I will "anxiously" wait for your new and improved "whatever" ... assuming a change is inevitable .... while in the meantime, I will be using this existing feature. I wonder how many "silent" ChiefTalk watchers will chime in to this thread and let us know if they are using the current feature??!!??

Like most everyone else, I had never paid any attention to this feature. I have mostly monkeyed around with the backclipping tool to get what I want. Now that I am aware of it, I plan to use it. I would hate to see this tool go away unless whatever the Chief programmers are considering for X7 provides similar results. It always amazes me the amount of stuff that is there for our use that we don't take advantage of.

Since you already had the 2nd story on your house, what you should have done, when building the 2nd floor for your garage, is just go to floor 2 and draw your walls manually (i.e., "make new blank plan for 2nd floor"). If your 2nd story garage walls will match those on floor 1, just turn on Reference Floor Display and draw your walls over the floor 1 walls. If you get their location close, they may snap in place as needed. If you are a little off just drag them over ... hopefully they will snap into position ... if not, use the "Align With Wall Below" tool in the edit tool bar - then, if you are about 1/2 way overlapping, the 2nd floor wall(s) should now snap into position. If your 2nd story walls for your garage don't align with all the 1st story walls, then just put them where they need to go and/or use the dimensions tools to get them precisely where they go. If you are having trouble understanding Joe's advice, just go to your last saved file before you added the 2nd floor and try my approach above. Either way works providing you understand the basics of adding a new floor.

Thanks David ... they look great. Welcome back. I hope your darling is doing better. God Bless.

Here's a quick test plan I just did with a bay window behind some base cabinets using Chief's bay window tool, stretching the dimensions, and I played around with the roof over the bay a little. Unfortunately, when I fixed the outside view of the bay (by dragging down the top handle), I created a major view issue on the interior side with OSB now showing. If you want to play around with it, have at it. BayWindowBehindSink.zip I think there might be benefits to just building the bay with walls and windows separately but I would probably go back and review prior threads if I had to do one of these myself.