davidstvz

Strange, I've found that if I click a slider and then hold the mouse button down for a moment... after a period of lag the slider becomes responsive in real time. Before, I was clicking and dragging quickly expecting an immediate response and not getting it. Reducing output size does not improve this, but increasing output size to the max (4096x4096) makes it worse. In any case, if I remember to click and hold it's a lot more functional.

Mine doesn’t crash, but sliding the sliders causes some serious lag. Reading the crash report you posted, it indicates seg fault which usually happens when a program writes memory out of bounds. It may just mean your computer doesn’t have enough memory. The program may use memory inefficiently. Try restarting your computer and running substance with all othe programs closed to see if it behaves differently. EDIT: I wrote: Also, try both the Direct3D render option and the software render option. However, I just realized you’re using a Mac, so you won’t have a Direct3D option, but maybe OpenGL instead. Or you may not have a choice of renderer. In any case, definitely try it with other programs closed to free up memory.

Oh certainly it can be corrected, you just need to know your tile/wood size and then manually count the number that appear in the texture. I just thought it would be a nice feature. Much more important are to have more formats or customizable formats.

I tried the substance player files for tile and wood and they're very nice. One thing I'd like to see is ability to define custom formats. If that isn't feasible, then I would add some "high-variation" format options for natural material like knotty woods. These would be formats that stuff a lot of individual tiles or planks into a texture to increase variation. They would be best used with higher resolutions to maintain details. Basically, it's the opposite of the large format tiles. Even better would be the custom format option. You ought to be able to define the intended scale of the texture in inches (or metric), or else the width and number of the component tiles/planks and then have the program calculate and show the resulting scale (for later input into Chief along with the map associations). Also, even if you can't define custom formats, you ought to be able to indicate the component width (or height as appropriate) and then it could display the appropriate scale. For example, if you chose 2:1 tile and set the the width to 6", it could tell you the appropriate scale of the texture is 48" by 48".

Windows 8 or 10 introduced this feature which simply sets some kind of flag indicating a picture's orientation when the user changes it. It makes sense since rotating/changing an image requires it to be compressed again (this costs CPU time, battery life and may change a picture slightly if lossy compression is used). Phones probably started the trend for these reasons. Unfortunately, not all software honors the flag, especially older or professional image editing software. To do this quickly with a Save (rather than Save As), my preferred method is: right-click and choose "Edit" to open in MS Paint, then Save (Ctrl+S) and Close (Ctrl+F4). If using the Photo editor, just FLIP the picture twice to trick it into thinking a change has been made, then it allows the normal "Save" option.

Thank you. I will explore on my own some more this week. I am considering offering my services locally (and maybe online eventually) for basic rendering to help people visualize design choices in construction and remodel. So I may upgrade to chief at some point. I am using the chief demo, so I can justify posting here. The home talk forum is pretty barren unfortunate. It’s mostly just solver and DJP generously answering questions for people who don’t stick around.

@Rich_Winsor Thank you! @Joe_Carrick when you say symbol you refer to a 3D model? I guess I should look into how I can make my own from scratch. Hopefully HD Pro can do it some way, even if I need to work outside the program and import something. I don’t guess any external programs can operate directly on the .calibz files that Chief products use. EDIT: Ok, so "symbol" seems to refer to the special properties of 3D objects which are editable only in Chief, not HD Pro. HD Pro can import custom library objects, but doesn't seem to have any manner of creating them.

Just to reiterate, a cloud service like Dropbox or Onedrive does not let the network impact performance. If there are any services that do not use local storage at all and save yours data directly to the cloud, that would perform poorly, but I’m not aware of any that do that. With Dropbox and Onedrive you can work with files directly in those storage spaces defined for them on the PC and not suffer any performance penalty because a local non-cloud copy is used. It’s best to work directly in the Dropbox or Onedrive as your backups happen instantly and automatically... no need to remember to backup and no chance for user error. Now if you work in an office with a shared network drive hosted on another device (or a NAS) in the office, that can incur a performance penalty, but that’s a different kind of setup. If it’s designed well and the building has a good network, even that may not cause noticeable performance issues. These are commonly used in film production and other industries where teams need to share huge amounts of data. Summary: get a computer or laptop with a nice big SSD (not an HDD) and work with all your files directly in the Dropbox or Onedrive folder.

I know this is an old thread, but if a document is created and printed correctly, there should be nothing wrong with the scale. A user error at any stage can mess things up though. It’s easy to mess up at the printing stage by introducing some small amount of scaling (shrinking a document slightly to “fit” the target output size for example). If printing via Adobe Reader for example “actual size” produces the expected result. If your paper isn’t big enough, you’ll get a printing of a fraction of the page but will be able to measure on it with a ruler at the appropriate scale.

What you’re calling memory is actually storage, to use the correct term. Memory is typically used as a synonym for RAM. In any case, Dropbox and OneDrive are cloud storage services BUT your local storage device is used as a buffer. That is, the files are written to your local storage at full local device speed, then in the background (while you keep working) the changes are duplicated to the cloud service without slowing you down in the slightest. Now, both of these services have settings which can cause older files to be removed from your device to save space (while a copy is saved in the cloud). However, this only affects old files not files you’re presently working with. It should have little or no effect on your performance in most cases. Long story short, please do work directly in cloud storage. I’ve been doing it for a decade. It is the easiest way to be always backed up instantly. Make sure your device has an SSD and not an old rotating platter hard drive (HDD) as that will determine your read/write performance. I also have all of my HD Pro data libraries and directories set to use my dropbox so that installations on different computers use the same core libraries, user libraries and saved files. However, just to warn you, my drop box is always in D:\Dropbox so if you don’t use the same path on each computer, I’m not certain Chief will behave.

There are plenty of single and double doors in the libraries. There are also "segments" which you can use to construct a door by specifying the number of these segments that appear vertically. However, you can't specify the number of stamped panels that appear in such a segment horizontally. That's baked into the library choices and the only options are for 2 and 4 panel segments. What about 3? What about 8? They ought to just have panels ranging from 1 to 10 for completeness. I at least found a 5x8 panel door in a manufacturer catalog that works for my 18' wide door, but my 5x3 panel 6' wide storage garage door is left looking incorrect. Is there a way I can create a 5x3 panel door or 1x3 segment in some program to create a library object I can use? Or does anyone know where I can download one? EDIT: Sorry, I just realize there is a current discussion raging about this very topic over in Suggestions:

On the subject of textures, DavidJPotter clued me in to brick.com which has a nice tool for making brick walls: https://brick.com/onlinetools It's not 100% seamless, but as long as the bricks on the left and right aren't dramatically different, it doesn't seem to matter. The mortar is seamless of course. I went into this programs data files and modified the source images for one set of bricks using bricks from another manufacturer and was able to create a brick texture that looked essentially identical to my reference photo (included below). Back to grass... I felt the settings discovered by Westlanedesigns looked a bit too wild. So far, my attempts to produce neatly mowed grass have not been fully satisfactory. I reduced the size of the grass plant (provided earlier in the thread) to 15x30 and change the color of the source texture a bit. Then I applied it to the garden bed with a distance of 3.5 (instead of 6) and size range of 10 to 17% (instead of 25 to 50). I set the sidewalks at 5" (height and thickness) and the garden beds containing the grass to only 1/8". This produces a more clipped look but unfortunately has some repetitive spotting. I was able to use a smart selection and masking minimize the artifacts in photoshop however. EDIT: I added a picture with the original grass settings in the front near the street. The grass looks very wlid in general and especially around the edges which are not contained within the defined areas for the grass at all. I'm not sure what Westlanedesigns was doing to make his look a bit more contained than that (perhaps taller/thicker driveway and sidewalks).

Thank you for posting this. This works quite well with a bit of tweaking and also works in HD Pro not just Chief. Even without a grass "plant", using garden beds can be helpful because you can set an exact shape and thickness so that the simple grass rises above the sidewalks properly.

@Chopsaw, your elevation does show exactly what I'm after. I didn't realize there would be so much confusion about this or I would have posted the elevations for the house I live in. I'll post them now. The house I live in is 9/12 and 12/12, but I made the example 9/12 and 16/12 just so the change in pitch would be very obvious. And you're correct, the roof baseline polylines don't show the upper pitch on the label. I can see why DJP might assume the roof changed height as that is often how this situation is handled. I have no idea how rare this technique is, but I can at least say that the architect for my new house is also using it in one spot. Maybe it's more common in south Louisiana. If I have to do this with a manual roof, then it's probably premature for me to ask questions about how you did that. I need to go through manual roof tutorials and get some practice first. I know the very basics of drawing new planes or modifying existing ones, but whenever I try to do anything complex I end up with seams that won't meet up. Note about the attached elevations: I doubt anyone is looking at them this hard, but there is a section of house visible on the rear elevation which is not actually present and doesn't appear in the front or right-side elevations. I guess they shrunk an existing plan and forgot to remove that from the rear elevation. If anyone wants a plan file for the house in the elevations, it's attached to this post: https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/6331-using-roof-baseline-polylines/?do=findComment&comment=32722

It’s close, but the roof baseline height does not change between the sections. The roofline, eaves and soffit are all seamless along the two sections where the pitch changes. The house I live in now has this design. It’s on the plan and you can see the change in pitch from 9/12 to 12/12 clearly from within the attic. Might be time for me to learn manual roof editing.

I know, but there are a lot of similarities between the programs right? Chief Premier has roof baseline polylines and automatic roof generation just like HD Pro does. The answer to the question might use features that are available in HD Pro, so it's worth a shot.

DJP, I've asked a clear question and shown a clear example of what I want to achieve and outlined in detail 4 ways I've tried to achieve it. You say it's easy and I clearly don't know what I'm doing, yet you don't actually address the question (how to create two different pitches along a single exterior wall) or show how to do it. Can you do it without manual roof planes or can't you? If you can, please explain or demonstrate how. And if roof baseline polylines and roof groups are so useless, why did Chief create them? Clearly they are there to bridge the gap between wall directives and a fully manual roof, and personally I find they do a good job except this one issue I can't seem to resolve.

I'm using HD Pro 2020. I tried to ask about this in Home Talk Q&A, but no one there answered. I'm assuming the auto-roof system works the same in Chief, so this should still be a relevant topic here. I need to do a hip roof with pitch changes along a single exterior wall (common on real-world roofs). I've attached an example image of what it should look like. The ceilings are the same (9') throughout. The low roof is 9 over 12 and the higher part has a 9 over 12 skirt around the edges to match, then changes to 16 over 12 starting 0.5" from the baseline. As you can see, the 16 over 12 section has 4 roof planes, but the 9 over 12 section only has 3 planes with the side planes intersecting the higher roof section. I've tried making this in several ways: 1) If you try to simply split the long exterior walls in half and give different pitch directives, the auto roof chooses one of the two pitches and ignores the other. This almost feels like a bug as it's not the behavior you would expect. I realize that this kind of roof creates a roof plane over the interior, but the auto roof could at least guess at what the pitch should be or use the default. 2) If you make two roof groups using a room divider, you end up with two entirely separate roofs (8 planes with two points instead of the 7 planes you see pictured). In this case the system sets the internal pitches to the roof default, but won't join hip roofs. 3) If you make two roof groups as above and make roof baseline polylines, you can change the interior pitches. Set the low one to "against wall" and the high section to 9/12 and 16/12 to match the exterior walls, and manually intersect them by moving the "against wall" baseline into the higher roof. However, then the lower roof extends into the attic of the higher roof which isn't ideal since I'd like to visualize the attic space properly. 4) Finally, if you use one roof group and manually create two separate baseline polylines via copy/paste. You can set the separate roof directives as above, but if the outer lines are flush, then just as in (1) it chooses one of two baselines along the edge and ignores the other. If you separate the baseline polylines by a fraction of an inch along the exterior wall it creates separate planes as intended (this is how I made the pictures and it almost works), but it creates a discontinuity along the eaves that you can see in the 3D view (pictured) and it causes the shingles over the 16/12 hip to extend all the way down whereas they should stop around 0.5" from the baseline. Is there any way to do this correctly without resorting to a completely manual roof? As a separate issue/observation, it seems that roof baseline polylines inherits the roof group from the room it sits on top of when created, but there is no way to see or change the roof group of a roof baseline polyline in the Object Specification dialog (opened with Ctrl+E) of HD Pro 2020. Maybe you can see it in Chief Architect products.