michaelgia

There's a million posts on this subject but the consensus seems to be... - gaming PC with solid state drive, as much memory and video memory money can buy. - if you're going apple then Mac Pro is not a significant upgrade over standard Imac (for the money).

...anyway, basketball never really caught on in Canada, ball kept getting lost in the snow

Agreed. The only work around is to first place the item you want to lock on its own layer and then lock that layer. Not elegant but it does work. For example, I always place my exterior walls on their own layer and lock that layer.

I was a revit user myself. (1 year only) Things you will love about Chief: - Kitchen cabinets and the like - The "room" concept where it's easier to have baseboards, crown molding etc. set up the way you want instead of creating wall profiles which is Redit's cumbersome approach. Things you will hate: - Dimensioning to anything that isn't in plan, such as dimensioning in elevations. It's a mess. - stairs and their railings. Revit kills Chief in this department. - 0 collaboration possibilities. You're it. These are the main ones. However I will say that if you are in a rush to get a complete set of plans out to the city you will appreciate Chief's efficiency. Also this forum can get you out of any mess you get into.

Draw your straight section first and raise the bottom of that section by the total rise of your three winder risers. Then draw each winder as a landing. You can shape a landing to any shape. Just don't forget to uncheck the automatic height when connected to stair, box.

What are you talking about? 2D trees do cast shadows. However you have to place two of them. One at right angles of the other to get the shadow to display. The first faces the camera so you don't see the shadow. I copy and paste in place and then rotate it perpendicular to the sun direction so it casts a shadow and yet is not visible in the scene.

Not sure why anyone needs such "realism"? Is it to impress customers? What customer would not be impressed with just about anything in 3D? I get the impression that most people in this business going after hyper realism is just to impress themselves. The customer is not impressed. If anything the more "realistic" it gets the cheesier it gets. Just my two cents. If you're posting your plan in architectural digest then spend the money and hire a company that specializes in cinematic rendering. Otherwise draw the plan show them some images and sign the contract.

I use the already built in SIP wall by Chief and just modify the thickness of the exterior layer to represent the 2x4's and the middle concrete layer as the air space. Shows up great and behaves as it should. Just adjust thicknesses and hatch patterns. Do not use two wall. You will regret it. Plays havoc with everything else.

While you can adjust the ceiling height and/or draw a ceiling plane I usually take the sloppy route and just draw in a p-solid. That way I can cut a hole in it to make a coffered ceiling and add crown molding etc... If you adjust ceiling heights don't forget to close off your room by way of invisible walls so you get room definition. I used to make this mistake a lot and wondered why the program changes all the ceiling height for the entire floor. I mean, can't Chief read my mind? lol

That's what I do. I have a duplicate of most anno sets. One for sending to layout and one for messing around in plan. I never alter the main anno set used for sending views to layout. Layout anno set is in all-capitals and the other is all lower case with copy tacked on. It's always a small sense of satisfaction when I click on the "real" anno set just before sending to layout and seeing everything turn on and off just the way it's supposed to look.

"It's just like having template layer sets" Genius! But so simple... Why didn't I think of that? Why isn't that in the documentation? Chief needs to contract out a new owners manual written by Glen.

So OP has to put invisible walls to define a lowered ceiling height for the part of the garage that extends past the upstairs facade wall. That way he can keep the rest of the garage at the higher ceiling height. I also get this a lot even when I have a pitched roof over the extended garage front. I like to drop that part of the roof so there isn't too high of a wall above my garage doors. I hate that look.

So OP has to put invisible walls to define a lowered ceiling height for the part of the garage that extends past the upstairs facade wall. That way he can keep the rest of the garage at the higher ceiling height. I also get this a lot even when I have a pitched roof over the extended garage front. I like to drop that part of the roof so there isn't too high of a wall above my garage doors. I hate that look.

....plus Apple makes you look all edgy, hip and design oriented. Clients who own apple products will be impressed that you use apple and clients who use pc's are in awe of this mysterious machine they usually only see in movies. in short, Apple = $$$ I actually carry around my 21" imac to see clients. Very portable for a desktop. Little wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. From the feedback, minds are blown.

Download Archicad trial and try designing a kitchen. Then search online to see how other guys do it. You will RUN back to Chief. Also for fun try fitting your room with baseboards, crown moldings and chair rails. lol Hint - you have to individually set up a new wall type each time. Infinitely more flexible and powerful but Archicad is a real chore for this type of stuff. You actually need a full time staff to constantly update and create wall types and other items such as cabinets etc... Archicad is a team effort type of software. Why do you think they invest so much energy making it collaborative? It's because you can't do it alone! Now, the only thing that I wish Chief did have that Archicad really blows it out of the water with - is the ability to snap to objects in all views, elevation, cross sections etc. it's amazing how you just hover your mouse over an object like a wall or door or window and the object and its various components glow and give you feedback of what you are snapping to. Dimensioning is amazing as well. Immensely more flexible and accurate. But still not worth switching. At least not for solo residential design. Stop drifting and get back to work.

This is still the big elephant in the room deficiency for Chief. Such a powerful program yet you still can't pull a dimension line in an elevation view without popping a blood vessel. So sad. To think you need to resort to point to point dimensioning is disgusting. Story pole is quite an awkward alternative when all you want to do is dimension between two items on a facade etc... I think we're leading people on when we tell them "sure just use story pole or point to point." Ummm no. Just don't.

I am going to take a wild guess and assume the OP's issue is that he's drawn a polyline, that is, a multi section line and now he wants to edit an individual part. So he's looking to "Un-poly" the polyline. Am I right? That's called a polyline section. Different versions have different methods to select just a part of a polyline or to disconnect polyline segments.

I use the perimeter to calculate sheet rock as the openings in a typical house usually account for the waste. That is, perimeter times height plus ceiling area. Wish I had a macro to do that for the entire floor...

abooot ...now that was funny. Do we really sound like that? nevermind, don't answer

Michael, I don't think you quite get it. lol But that's ok, I guess that's why metric never stuck in the US.

10000 in meters would be 10 000,00 or I assume in AUS it would be 10,000.00 Either way if it's meters always show the decimal and two or three places after decimal. No decimal means millimeters always so 10000 in millimeters is 10 000 Or 10,000 Basically once the decimal makes an appearance then this signifies meters. Europe usually uses a space for thousands separator. Comma in Britain and Australia (I think) I'm Canadian

Conversely.... On any plan, If I see a number with 2 decimal places such as 7,14 I'll always take this to mean meters. Even if there is no "m" suffix. If I see just a number with no decimal place, such as 378 I'll assume millimetres, since mm is the standard unit of measurement on a plan and meters with two decimal places the standard for site plans. hurray metric system

wow That's all I can say. New it must have been me all along. Thanks!

I'm sure I'm doing it wrong, but I make my schedules at the very end, send them to layout and then promptly delete them otherwise they mess up my labeling on the plans. That is, if the schedule is anywhere in the vicinity of my plans it seems to convert my door labels from the width macro to a label callout. Is there a solution to this problem? Can I keep my schedules?