RodCole

I would suggest that you check with a local community college and either take a class in structural drafting or just buy the book and study it yourself. Text books are often available for purchase online these days. Other than that it is generally good to tour projects in order to see what is popular, and, as mentioned before, the bookstore. Even better for my purposes is checking out amazon online. Better prices and greater availability of the material that may be of interest to you. Good luck.

Here is a storefront that I just finished the renderings for. I modeled the signs in another app, but the building was done in Chief. The rendering was done using Octane Render and took about one min. This is one of the lower modes, Direct Lighting, but I liked the lighting effect a bit better this way. Direct Lighting is a single bounce render, so it does not deal as well with glass and other translucent objects. I was not really intending to do a close up of the entryway so please excuse the open below effect and the blue color of the siding in the entryway. Color selections are only rough at this time. Just thought someone may be interested.

One advantage of the text method is that you can still select the dimension and then use it to reposition objects. Not ideal by any means, but it does work with the exception of having to reposition the text if the dimension text is moved.

I also have done a considerable amount of custom framing in my day. When I hear a framer saying that they basically already know it all and don't need to see a detailed and accurate model of the framing, that tells me something about their attitude. Winging it on an engineered custom design is a formula for what in job costing is called reworking. As in, they change things to suit their own ideas without knowing the overall design intent. This is one of the best ways I know of to run up the cost of construction, or any other form of manufacturing for that matter. Chief's framing is fairly good, but it does have a few areas that could stand some work. What I am working on is exporting CA framing out to another app where dimensions and 3D hardware can be added and sent out to a U3D PDF file. CA cameras can capture these elements if everything is set up properly. Even then you will find people who think they do not need anything like that. Funny how that works, and it ought to tell you something. I posted a U3D file of framing on another thread on BIM. That file is not on this computer or I would post it again. Sorry about that.

I do this quite a bit myself, and I have heard other comments on this subject as well. If you want a PDF file to update, then do not embed the file. Also the PDF file will only update when you first close CA and then restart CA and open the file. Not sure, but it seems that at times even this process does not always work consistently. CA is not up on this computer or I would have let you know which box to uncheck. Sorry about that.

Woodworks is a very good program if you are an experienced engineer. Strucalc is a nice program as well, and it is a little easier to use. These are stand alone programs. There are no plug ins for Chief to do this sort of thing. Hope that is helpful.

Very nice ray trace Jintu.

No, I had not heard that. Are you saying that they might have been trying to "Deflate" him?

As Marshawn Lynch would say. Yeaha

Very interested Jeff. I actually follow Revit developement farily closely. Not so much the details of running the program, but more along the lines of the concepts they are working to accomplish. My approach however, is to use the best of CA and other apps to do the same things. What I am finding is that with a combination of traditional CAD and a good solid modeling tool set a great deal can be accomplished. The problem I run into is that for the most part the import export features in CA are stuck in the early 1990s. That can be overcome for the most part, but it requires far more time and energy than it should, and you have to jump through the same hoops every time a task needs to be done. Not a fan of recreating the wheel on a minute by minute basis. An example of what I kind of stumbled onto the other day regarding Revit features that can be done in CA with the aid of other apps. When I was using Blender to set up a CA model to export out to Octane I fumbled around and ended up dragging an exterior wall out away from the building. CA to Blender equals axons, cool. There are other things that I am working on that came from this happy accident as well. If I can pull the wall way, then what else can I do with it? Tilt it, cut it, reshape it? Maybe send it back to CA as a symbol.

Check out the web site for Bluebeam. It seems like they give a list of apps that are capable of producing U3D files. BTW their viewer is capable of viewing this file type, and it is actually easier to use than the free adobe viewer. However it is not free. There may be an update to Bluebeam since I last looked into it. Seems like I remember that a new version would be out around the end of Jan or the early part of Feb.

From what I understand, there are a few programs that can create U3D files. I don't remember them off of the top of my head since it has been a while. It seems like I did post that information earlier in this thread though, so you might check that out. What I believe to be the case is that the more expensive apps will create the U3D file with dimensions and possibly text as well. Most of the less expensive options that I have seen did not have that ablilty. What I use is a combination of Cheif and TurboCAD Pro Platinum version 21. This is partly because Chief does not have the abilty to create either text or dimensions directly as 3D objects, but there are ways around that. There are layer issues involved when exporting from Chief as a 3DS file, but the geometry is quite good. So far the other file types I have checked do not do so well. Chief also has a few issues with certain types of geometry as well, even when using the 3DS file type. Hope that helps you out Kc.

Yes, welcome to the forum. Please keep us posted on your progress and questions. Just a note, be sure and post the plan that you are having problems with so others can better assist you.

Octane is GPU only. That means if you do not have a Cuda enable video card that is supported by the current version it does not work. Octane is very new and is being developed quite rapidly. Vray is a very nice engine so far as I know, but the reviews that I have seen like Octane a bit better. Octanes claim to fame is that it is physically based and unbiased. Very powerful yet time intensive process for CPU renderers. Workflow is CA export to 3DS, Blender export to obj. There is a Plug In for Blender that I will probably pick up before long that would allow for physics features in animations from a Chief model. Blender Cycles is worth a look as well, a bit spoiled already with Octane myself, but still intend to check it out. Love to see a Plug In for Chief, not holding my breath. The biggest advantage I have seen so far is speed for one, and the ability to fly around the scene "interactive interface" and as soon as you stop the camera the image is nice after 3-5 seconds. I have had clients call it, and they both said 8 seconds was fine. Nobody wants to wait on a standard render interface once they have seen Octane. Basically real time ray tracing with clients present. Higher setting will take longer of course. The disadvantage is learning how to run it at an advance level, very different from Chief. Another disadvantage is not having materials readily available like we have in Chief.

No, I have not tried BunkSpeed, I have been playing with Blender's Cycles renderer though, it is also a hybrid. I am getting a bit spoiled using Octane. Me spoiled is not pretty. I still have a ton to learn about it's lighting setups, and I am actually still using Chief and it's materials more than I thought I would. Chief has a lot of really nice features, I am just kind of charting a course for down the road now. Anyone here use Corel's Painter for any of these special effects. I will probably pick up Photoshop pretty soon, just too much going on right now though to get into that. jon, I really like the lighting effect you achieved with Chief's render in that pic. Nice, kind of reminds me of Impressionism, Renoir and Degas work has a similar look.

Chief can do a very nice job, yes. Especially since the materials and lighting are already available in the program. But, Chief does not have anywhere near the potential, at this point in time, where animations are concerned. I also like using an interactive renderer that I can fly around in and have the image resolve to a fairly decent picture in under five seconds. As GPU rendering advances and the cards get even more powerful I can see high quality animations being a lot more practical to produce. One of the main reasons that I looked into an alternate program was because of the type of lighting that Chief uses. No black body emmiters, no HDRI, in short, no physically based lighting. What this means is that you can not get a physically correct image with this type of lighting. A very nice image to be sure, but not physically correct. I fought Chief's lighting trying to get interior renders to get the wall colors to look right with unsatisfactory results. I guess I just got tired of fighting it. I have to use the advanced render modes to produce true color matches, which do take longer, but I can get the results I want. I have not given up on Chief's renderer, but I am not spending much time with it these days. This is just one more of those areas where Chief can not try to do everything and still keep pace with the industry. Otoy has programers working around the clock focusing only on developing their rendering engine capabilties. BTY the image above in Direct Lighting mode is not using the physcally based capabilities of the program. There is probably no perfect solution available. Octane is a professional use program and is a bit hard to learn as far as the advanced features go, but I intend on giving it a go. It appears that it won't be long before Chief is the only Architectural Modeler on the market that does not have a plug in for Octane. Not an island I want to be on, so I am taking the time to learn it now.

This is a work in progress test render created in Octane Render and the kitchen was created in Chief X7. I still have a lot to learn to be able to run Octane anywhere near it's potential, but I like working with it so far. Specs: Direct lighting mode, 2500 samples, 2 min 11 sec, good image at 8 sec but I let it cook a bit. Only have a single default light so far, that is why there is no ceiling showing. Still a lot of details to finish up the kitchen design. Just thought I would pass this image and info along.

I had a computer tech tell me to use the free version and only use the boot time scan. I run it overnite so I don't have to deal with it in the daytime. So far it has worked out well for me, but I do have a few issues that I would like to clean up. I use Avast "free version" and Malware bytes "free version". The problem I am having is that I have a system optimizer that I can not get rid of, and also add ons "pop ups" to internet explorer that will not go away. I don't have anything for pop up blocking, that is what I will look into next. Pop ups are very annoying, and the optimizer slows my system way down, not good. Any suggestions about how to deal with these issues would be appreciated.

Larry Some would say that Chief has a rather large learning curve. Learning and using another program or programs is just another step on the path to getting things done. I appreciate the points you made. However it seems to me that what we are talking about is not the particular business model of CA users, but rather the business slash marketing strategy of CA. Chief markets to it's strengths, which is why I like it so much. Those strengths are it's architectural modeling and automation. Long list, Glenn summed it up rather nicely. In a niche driven market IMO Chief has and will continue to pursue what differienciates it from the competition. If it didn't do that we would not have the program we have today, nor would it survive long in the jungle. However, those things that fall outside of that target market will probably always recieve less than adequate attention. I would rather have Chief at it's best, and use the best of breed programs from other niche market developers along with Chief. That is not saying that I do not appreciate the need to impove Chief's tools. Just not willing to wait when perfectly good solutions are already available.

yusuf I was thinking roof planes, but ceiling planes are even better. Somehow I was picturing the rafters as legs extending down below the roof plane. Nice one.

No, I meant to convert Chief's surfaces into Solids. As in import framing from Chief and then be able to treat it as a solid so it can be used in sections and cut sections. How about Cross Referencing of Layout views in VW. Is that something you do with VW? Chief's latest Layout tools along with it's architectural modelings capabilities make it ideal for the residential market. My own personal preference is to have one exceptional architectural modeling program paired with a very powerful modeling program. I really don't even want a parade of high end aschitectural modelers, just one very good one, and a supporting cast. No, Chief's Primitives are good for what they do, but anything beyond that you will have to be very creative to get it done if at all.

Very Nice, but not seeing anything I can't do in TurboCAD Pro Platinum so far. Didn't see any sectioning of Solids, at least not in that clip. Can you convert Chief surfaces into Solids in VW? U3D? Nice though. Thanks for taking the time to show that.

Johnny A bit off topic, but hopefully the OP would be interested in other options as well. How good of a job does Vectorworks do on complex objects such as SSTBs with and without threads, and the associated Simpson hardware in 3D? Hidden lines as dashed? Detailed section views of same? Not being contradictory, I would really like to know if or how Vectorworks handels these types of situations.

Sometimes if you Shift Select the object again it will bring up additional edit tools. Not sure if this will help in your situation, but often times it does. I just happened to stumble on to this and have not seen any documentation on it. Kind of weird science how they set up these tools IMO.

If you really are serious about doing this in Chief, then I would use Solids and Subtraction. You can also Extrude a Face using the edit tools. As in, create an object, cut the desired plane by subtracting another object from the original object, explode the original object, delete unwanted faces, use the extrude tool to extrude the face. Tip, I use a large Box to locate the workplane in Chief so you know where it will automatically place your profiles in cross section view. Do that over and over again because Chief does not have a workplane or UCS to work with and is not capable of doing a simple extrude operation like most other programs do. IMO Chief actually does a very respectable job of creating Solids. They just never bothered making it the least bit user friendly.