4hotshoez

I am doing a lighting layout in a room that has a two story space (includes first and second floor) with a cathedral ceiling. I usually shoe the lights on the level where they are controlled. When I place a ceiling mounted light on the first floor it can be seen on the electrical layout on the first floor, BUT in the 3D view they float in the air rather than automatically go to the first built ceiling. I want the plan lights to be seen on the floor level of the switching, but I want the lights to no float in the air, but go up to the ceiling like in real life. How is this done?

Try this. MasterBathPinto.plan

The plan is getting very big, maybe I can make a copy an delete the rest.

1) The walls for 1, 2 & 3 need to be 84" tall and not go to the ceiling as 3 does. 1 is a half wall with a door in it and will not put a door header in it. How can I put 84" high walls with in a space that has cathedral ceilings? And then put doors in those walls to behave properly? Door 1 does need a header as it is to be a pocket door. 2) The glass shower wall has a base mold on the out side as it is following the room requirements. How do I make the molding not go around the shower wall as I show? I want glass to the floor. BTW, the shower glass wall is also a half wall, but no head is required.

Aerial View in new to me and looks helpful since my project is getting larger, but it does not solve the problem. I tried to draw a box while holding the left mouse button, but cannot get into the Aerial View window unless I release the mouse, which defeats the purpose. I tried the hotkeys, but you must maneuver the pan keys just right in order to get the zoom-in key to go where you want. Since no one has come up with a worthy solution, I will take this to the suggestion forum. Thank you,

I have been finding it to be difficult to manage dragging and object or drawing a box and expanding the view screen or scrolling at the same time. For instance to snap a box to a wall surface at a corner I must zoom in to get it and not the stud surface (just an example) then click and drag out the other corner of the box AND zoom back out with the mouse wheel with another finger, then zoom into the area I want to snap for the second point of the box or moved object then release. Is there an easier way to deal with this? Most other apps (CAD or Photoshop, etc.) do not use the click-hold-drag-release method like Chief, which avoids this problem.

I imported a dwg file for reference. it has lines, arcs, blocks, text and a few other thins only in 2D.

Move to front of group has a button, but how do I move one layer to display below other objects. I tried to select everything accept the one I want to go to back and bring to front, but the button disappears.

I have a great room with one side vaulted "A" shaped and the other half is flat under a larger roof. So from one side of the room the runs up parallel to the roof then comes to a peak and drops down at the same slope, but away from the roof plane leaving a larger attic/truss space. I know how to do this part. But as this leg of the "A" drops to normal ceiling height, the ceiling is flat, say at 10' until it runs into the opposite wall. The question is how do I make the that level ceiling while maintaining the vaulted ceiling in the same room? (like I am trying to do in this image)

In Archicad we had similar objects but in the dialog window both the dimension to the current floor and the dimension to the main or first floor was given and you could modify both. I would like to make this a suggestion. Do I have your permission Scott Hall?

I just thought of that after using the Soffit for a soffit on the second floor. Has the inconsistency with the polyline solid been lodged with "star command"?

Either this is a 1. bug 2. poor programming 3. I am not understanding the benefits of the Polyline Solid on different floor levels. I made a plate glass mirror from a Polyline Solid on the first floor and then copy it to a bathroom on the second floor. It shows fine in the second floor plan bathroom but not in the 3D camera. As it turns out while it shows in plan as being on the second floor, it is actually sitting on the first floor in 3D but not the first floor plan. This is just stupid (or I am). Why does a polyline solid not reference its height from the floor it is placed? Why Should I have to calculate the height placement why Chief has all of that info?

Here is a problem of a window that is stacked split at the ceiling. The space inside has a cathedral ceiling and the gable wall was auto generated. I will have a wall full of these on the other side of the house. What is the best way to solve this?

So if I change it in one place, does it change it globally for all other locations?

I had used this beadboard texture before without a problem. I the vector view the pattern indicates a proper scale, but the Standard view shows the texture mapping at about 20 times too big and I have no idea how this happened or how to fix it. BTW this built-in bench was created and imported from Sketchup without problems before.

In the Interior Door Spec select the Hinges category/tab. Then under the Hinges heading select "Standard" or choose from the library, then change the number of hinges as needed.

So if I have a 12"x12" recess 3" deep, I make a door that size and make the material to match the wall? No trim if a tiled wall? Thanks for the input.

How do you assign "transparency" to an image? What is the process? What software is needed? How is the image scaled?

What tricks do you use to make a partial hole in the wall?

Autobad does have a command that is similar in concept, but I was relating to a tool in Archicad and in Chief. Softplan also has a half baked solution to this idea. I have not been utilizing the User Library as much as I could for a project.

Doesn't everyone make their own materials all the time? I am still learning, so how did you make it transparent?

I have had problems with this method as I make a change to one window and then they all change to match the one I wanted different.

That is what I was hoping someone would say. How do I scale and make transparent (alpha channels) with Chief?

After creating a wall or door or window or cabinet that is different from the defaults it would be nice if there was a tool I call "Do it", which works like the material eye-dropper by copying all attributes and making the tool active to start placing a new item with the chosen attributes. I do not want to mess with the defaults, but "copy" without actually using the copy-paste-move-rotate-move-adjust into position. I would make this a suggestion if I was certain something did not exist. So, "do it": does it? Then, an extension of "Do it" eye-dropper tool would allow you to extract attributes of a wall, door, window, cabinet and "inject" all the attributes of an existing item of like DNA (wall to wall). So a full 6" wall with siding could become a pony wall with stone or a half height wall or whatever.

With adjusted lighting in both images the stainless looks nearly black. Why? These are default settings.