SabGroup

1 minute ago, JacobB said:

It's actually an X12 plan. I assumed it worked the same in X15, but didn't check. I'll have to look into that.

Weird. This file initially caused the program to go haywire and it tried to download a file that I had archived. It then froze and I had to force close the program. 

I restarted chief and the file opened normally, but the shutters showed as in the picture I attached.

1 hour ago, JacobB said:

You shouldn't need to create overlapping openings in most situations. If you manually mull the two windows and arch the mulled unit, you can add shutters to the mulled unit and the shutters will arch. If you want automatic radial lites, you'll have to arch the mulled unit and the component window.

I opened the attached plan in x15 and it doesn't show arched shutters. I am also unable to make them arched in the way described.

1 minute ago, ChiefUserBigRob said:

Looks like you have a PC setup like mine. How do you like the Alienware X15 w/ CA X14?

It is a great laptop. I just set it to quiet mode and it handles chief architect x15 and twinmotion at the same time.

25 minutes ago, ChiefUserBigRob said:

Hey guys and gals, in certain situations CA can automatically develop a shutter style as shown below in red. How can we do this manually?

You can turn off the window casings and then create a pass-thru opening for the exterior casing and shutters. I would initially create the pass-thru next to the windows and then center the pass-thru with the two windows. The shutters will match the arch of the pass-thru.

I opened your file in x15 and the opening indicators are showing on the full height cabinet doors.

Thanks for sharing.

1 hour ago, Michael_Gia said:

Yes, you can export with DAE and it’s even quicker than 3DS and can even handle bigger models than 3DS, but you won’t be able to control an individual object like a gutter with DAE. 

I don't usually export to 3ds file format. Just curious what further control of objects 3ds format offers?

I will oftentimes assign an object a unique material name if I need further control over an object's material.

27 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

And for this to work the model has to be 3DS. 

 

 

I can export to a dae file with no issues.

If you are exporting to twinmotion, you need to toggle on "two sided" for the gutter material.

Or in Chief you can create a 3d gutter and then export.

FYI, chief is freezing and I am getting fatal errors after updating to nvidia driver 531.18. 

I am rolling back the driver now.

4 hours ago, BenPalmer said:

need ability to control size of thumbnails in filter results (I want them bigger)

If you hold ctrl while moving your mouse wheel in the 'filter results' window the thumbnails can be resized.

8 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

I find this sentiment interesting and am wondering how many CAD design software users are concerned about price enough to switch to a tool that may or may not be the best tool for the job? I don't know that much about Revit other than video tutorials I've watched but it seems like an extremely bad fit for the kind of work I do. It seems as though even if I could get it cheaper wouldn't it still be an extremely bad fit? On the other hand if Revit is an extremely good fit for the work one does then wouldn't the price, at some point, become moot? 

You may be reading more into my statement than what I am saying. There may be a Chief Architect user on a Revit forum somewhere offering a video demonstration of why Chief Architect may be a better fit for them. I don't know if Revit would be a better fit more me or not, which is why I would like to investigate and see a demonstration. I have also watched some tutorials for Archicad, and it has a number of features that interest me.

14 hours ago, DavidJames said:

 

If there's any interest from users in this forum, I don't mind creating a tutorial on how I use Revit for residential work. You'd be surprised at how quick, easy, and headache-free Revit is to use once you get over the learning curve and you set up libraries (families) etc. Everything about the user experience is extremely polished and all the tools provided are a godsend. You'll never encounter strange anomalies with the software that will require "work-arounds" to fix the issue, nor will the software ever fight back. Everything just works, and works really well. 

Ultimately Revit is insanely powerful for design and you can do just about anything. 

I would be interested in this. Autodesk has competitive pricing in international markets. Here in Mexico, everything from architectural services, labor, and materials are cheaper, and Autodesk has priced their software here accordingly. 

Not all of us have confidence in the future of SSA, and if a Revit full version subscription comes in cheaper for me than a Chief Architect subscription, it's at the very least worth investigating.

I have been researching other design software and this is the pricing I have come up with so far.

Revit LT

     $45.35/mo

     $347.68/year

     $992.67/3 years

Revit

     $236.68/mo

     $1878.34/year

     $5352.91/3 years

Archicad Solo Subscription $118.44/mo

Archicad Subscription $237.89/mo

Also, by comparison, this is the most expensive design package listed on Autodesk's website.

Autodesk Architecture, Engineering, & Construction Collection $2,303/year

includes Revit, Civil 3d, AutoCAD, InfraWorks, Navisworks Manage.

I am outside of the United States, so these prices are converted to USD and your prices may vary.

11 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

I think that if your design pricing will increase (4n) over your current pricing because the price of the software you use will increase $00.00 after you renew your SSA and that somehow that will increase your design fees by (4n)? Not getting the logic, or perhaps the business model needs a closer look.

This is an analogy putting me in place of Chief Architect, and my clients in the place of Chief Architect's users. If you notice I said that I would never send such a message to my clients. But I do agree that any business increasing fees by such an amount needs to look at their business model.

I will renew my SSA, but seeing these changes is enough to make me want to consider alternatives. Many have commented that this change is only going to affect new customers. I also think that many of us here sense that Chief Architect will eventually transition all customers to this new subscription plan.

I suspect some of us on here run and manage our own business and have our own clients and builders that we work for.

If my price is (n), and I were to inform my clients that my price starting January is going to be (4n), I think their first question to me would be "what increased value am I getting from you for (4n)?" 

If my response is that they will be getting basically the same service, is it reasonable for me to think that my clients will not consider alternatives for their architectural needs?

As many of you have learned through experience, much of the success we experience in this business is a result of the relationships that we form with our clients and home builders. Because of these relationships, we would never send such a message in the above example any more than our client would send us a message saying that were only going to pay us (n/4).

Unfortunately the reality is that all business relationships do not work this way, and the loyalty of a customer to a company will never be rewarded in kind.

34 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

I'm probably going to have to be done playing with this for now, but the behavior is super weird.  I can purposely get a wall to go rogue and sometimes I can fix it by simply placing another wall type in the library.  The behavior of the library objects change though depending on whether you're in the same plan, you start a new plan, or you restart the program.  Restarting the program is what seems to make the library object totally and permanently broke and unfixable though. 

 

Here's my conclusion for whatever it's worth...Create your wall type in plan and then add to library.  Do not edit the wall type after it has been placed in library.  If you do it this way, the wall seems to remain stable.  

 

There's definitely a reproducible bug that needs to be fixed here though.  I think the reason many of us have never seen it is that we don't typically edit wall types while they're in the library.  I'm honestly not sure I ever had up until I was troubleshooting this stuff for you today.

Yes, I think you are right. Edit them in plan and then save to library. As long as I don't edit them in library they seem stable.

Thanks.

3 minutes ago, robdyck said:

Railing from my library drawn in a NEW plan:

 

Same railing drawn in a plan already in progress:

 

I can't see the images, but I am assuming you were able to recreate the issue?

Just now, Alaskan_Son said:

 

Both of those files seem to contain zero data. 

There is a problem with uploading files to this forum at the moment. I cannot upload any files. I have even tried sending from my phone and from a different browser.

6 minutes ago, robdyck said:

I've had the same thing happen a couple of times but with different objects from my library. When using a door from a library, the material "white" is still called 'white' but shows the texture for 'river rock'.  And today, when using a deck railing from my library, the material for the newel posts was titled correctly but used the texture for  Eldorado Stone / Banff Springs, which was used on some of the house walls.

Yes. Exactly what I am experiencing with my walls. Are you using objects that you saved to your user library? I have zero issues with the core, bonus, or manuf. catalogs.

2 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Post a plan that contains your desired wall type as well as an exported library object with one of those corrupted wall types.

I have attached a plan file that contains a wall (brick-4) from the new user library I attached. The calbz file contains only the pasted wall types from the core catalog.

I have sent my plan files to Chief support and they were unable to recreate this issue.

sample wall.plan

New user library.calibz

Which makes me wonder if my user library is corrupted? 

I can't recreate this issue in x11. Only x12. Not sure what else to try.

Chief support told me that I should wait for an update.

Just now, Alaskan_Son said:

Did you check the layer your wall is assigned to like I mentioned?  Click on the Layer tab.  What Layer is it assigned to?  And was it EVER assigned to a different layer? 

 

Not sure how you're adding to your library, but no matter what, I would strongly suggest you start with a brand new wall.  Don't try to fix or reuse one that has already been corrupted.  Easiest and most dependable thing IMO is to simply select one from the Core Catalog, Copy, Paste into your User Library, Open Object in the library, and edit to be what you want.  Now try dropping that into some plans.

 

Yes. At Chief support's instructions I renamed my template folder directory so Chief would reinstall the base template files in case those were corrupted.  

Starting with a fresh "residential template" I copy the "wall types" from the core catalog and pasted it into my user library. From the user library I will right-click on them and "open object" and only change the thicknesses of the layers. The problem appears when I reopen CA or open another file. If I select a wall type that I edited, it will show incorrect materials in the preview pane, and if I right-click to edit it again, the materials are completely random. The materials seemed to be changed even before I drop it into the plan.

"unable to edit the material" error is now showing.

I feel like this is getting worse. 

I wish I could find a solution to this as I cannot use any custom wall types in my user library.

6 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Not sure if this is the problem in your case or not, but one thing I've found that can trigger those corrupted Wall Types is if the Wall Type in your library is assigned to anything other than the Default layer.  I won't pretend to know why, but once a wall in the library has been assigned to ANY layer other than the default, it will become corrupted from that point forward, even after it is changed back to the default.  Try to see if you can create your wall type on the default layer, add that to your library, and see if that one consistently works in new plans.

I will watch out for this. I am starting with the wall types from the core catalog and only changing the thicknesses of the layers. I don't want OSB to have a thickness of 0.4375" and housewrap to have a thickness of 0.01".