rgardner

We’re the balconies set manually and not to default?  By chance were the windows that went wonky also sharing the room that didn’t change?

Doesn't really help you right now but did you know Chief is giving a free webinar on this exact topic tomorrow?  

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/livedemo.html

2 hours ago, ChiefUserBigRob said:

i am pulling my hair out

Nothing to add to Erick’s great advice but love this part in conjunction to your profile pic!

2 hours ago, stephenbc said:

That being the case, what if one has 3 windows, essentially stacked over two floors, like in a stair well where the second floor is set to open below, how does one get around wanting them all mulled but also being able to show a window on the second floor plan (if they are all placed on the first floor)?  Adding a 'ghost' window on the second floor won't provide a proper count for window schedules.

Pretty sure I did this on a modern plan I worked on.  If I remember right it worked fine.  I believe the key was ballon frame the wall first and then you can mull them together.

On 6/17/2020 at 11:23 AM, ValDesign said:

Looking for Seattle local experienced drafters for architectural and interior projects.

contact email info@valdesignstudio.com

 

@jbaehmer is local to you and a great technician with lots of experience if he is available.

May be something with those particular symbols.  Not sure what.  Would need the plan file as Joey mentions.  But the two labels are identical so something is up.  Maybe just the labels are set manually??

24 minutes ago, SMC2992 said:

Hey Friends

 

I have used the excellent tool for ceiling in x12, while creating a ceiling it say (recessed) however i want a drop down in the center, but unfortunately i could not find a solution, exvept to make a counter top or poly line solid and raise to required level, can any on help in this, a sketch is attached.

Try the Trey ceiling polyline tool in x12.  The bottom portion of your ceiling would be your ceiling height (looks like 8') then you would recess the inner portion 4" up into ceiling.

3 hours ago, BrianEgr said:

How do you make the foundation wall and footings lines below grade appear as a dashed line, and the wall lines above grade appear as solid? I'm using Pro if that matters.

 

Thanks!

Erick is right you should be looking for the solution in the Home talk forum, but I believe the method I use would work in hdpro as well.

The process is called a CAD mask.

1.) First draw a poly line around the underground area but much wider and below where you will crop it when you send it to your layout page.

2.) Now draw the lines on top of the footings where you want to see dashed lines, and change the line style to dashed.

3.) Select the first poly line that you drew and change it to have a solid white or background fill.  It will hide the foundation but since the other lines were drawn after it they will show as dashed lines.

One point to make, it is also bad form to hijack others posts so please delete your post after reading this and I will do the same tomorrow so as to not derail this very helpful post for others.  You have 24 hours and then this message will self destruct...

3 hours ago, architectEd said:

I'm having problems printing to my HP Designjet 111 - which was working fine just days ago.

Now when I try to print to this device my Chief Architect program crashes.

I can print to an HP Officejet 8-1/2 x 11 printer, but when I attempt to print to the HP Designjet 111 plotter the software crashes.

Let me know if you have any ideas for fixes.

Thanks, Ed 

It is quite possibly the size of the file or if not that a driver.  Have you tried printing to a pdf first at say 600 or better dpi then printing from your pdf viewer program to the printer?  That is generally quite a bit faster anyways.

28 minutes ago, wagurto said:

Is there any way to show in plan view how the cabinet doors swings?

thanks

If you want to show the doors or drawers open there is an option.  Select them and use the open door or open drawer button at the bottom. It only shows once you have selected a cabinet.

It can also be done partially open in the DBX to show it only open a little bit with selecting the item you want and setting the amount it is open at the bottom in the Percent Open box.

I usually leave them close but open up certain items like garbage/recycle centers slightly to see them as it feels like things get pretty crowded in plan view.

1 hour ago, RaquelPorlamar said:

Hi Everyone,

 

So I have been using CA Interiors 9X since it came out, and have not renewed the SSA since it expired. I am contemplating upgrade and thinking maybe I would upgrade to Premier rather than CA interiors , so , my question is, In terms of interior design focus.... would premier have an advantage over Ca Interiors, or even home interiors? Anyone used them all and can tell me the advantages of having one over the other ? I don't really want to pay all the extra for premier if interiors has most of capabilities plus better interior elements????

 

Thank you 

5 minutes ago, DavidJPotter said:

Click here to compare Premier against Interiors please. There is NO comparison between Chief Interiors and Home Designer Interiors, in fact Home Designer no longer offers HD Interiors, it has been dropped from the Home Designer line up, forget about it!.

 

In my opinion Chief Interiors is specifically for Interior designers who do not commonly model an entire home and landscaping or create fully detailed construction documents, where as Premier covers all the bases.

 

DJP

David summed it up well.  Just to add one point in your question is that premiere has every aspect interiors has plus so in no way would interiors be better for your focus.  It is a lighter version of premier.  So you would need to look at what your workflow entails.

Welcome to the forum.

It is just a room like any other but instead of a window you use the window pass-thru tool and set your room to Balcony, patio, or?  Just something with a roof.  Set your ceiling and floor finishes how you want (balcony & patio oob comes with cement floor and no room moldings so that is why I mentioned that one first.)

BTW it is really helpful if you can fill in your signature with information regarding your software and hardware specifications as many times that comes into play with getting the correct answer to your inquiries.

Warm regards.

3 hours ago, Terry121 said:

I was working on a new set of plans this morning and initiated a perspective full overview. The program would not generate the view. Walked away for 15 minutes. Came back and still had the little blue whirligig and could not access any menus. Had to use the task manager to close the program. Restarted and had the same issue. Tried a different plan and had the same issue. Any suggestions? Re-install?

By chance did you add something new to your user library?

9 hours ago, mjbusna05 said:

So I found an open box 2019 16" Macbook Pro with 2.3 Ghz Intel 8 Core I9 with 16 GB ram, 1 TB SSD, and AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 4GB VRAM. It was originally $2799 at the exchange on base (I am a reservist for the Navy) and was marked down 25% off and they included a 2 year warranty. Add in the lack of taxes on base vs at a store off base here in Cali and it seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. However, I have to admit I have been underwhelmed with the performance. Chief X12 crashed on me 3 times in a row, the bluetooth menu froze and I got the spinning balloon a few times while working, especially from within the 3d full camera. I am open to selling the mac and getting something else but was just surprised at the issues I have been having, but maybe I had unrealistic expectations. Thoughts?

I have nearly the same specs and have not seen anything like that.  I would recommend talking to tech support regarding the chief failures it runs perfectly on mine on even very large files.  Only problems I have ever had with the Bluetooth was a device I had that had a faulty firmware issue that was causing an issue. My sennheiser Bluetooth headset.

5 minutes ago, Doug_N said:

You're right, it is better but still not aligned.   The wall still requires manual adjustment to get the outer wall surface to match.

Try posting a pic of the wall definitions for each wall.

3 hours ago, Doug_N said:

OK Michael, 

 

Here is what I did, and what happened as a result.

I created a simple building with some rooms.  Added a second floor derived from the first floor.

Added a room schedule and simplified it to just show what we were interested in, including floor numbers and room numbers.

 

 

 

Set up the schedule to include all floors

 

 

So here you can see that the first floor works fine. Just to be sure that the schedule and room notes were synced, I changed the description of one room to make sure that the schedule and rooms where synchronized.  I change the description of a second-floor room as well, and it seems that the second floor worked equally well even though the schedule is on the first floor.

 

Just to clarify I put my schedule in a Cad detail and it still worked as how Michael said it should.  But I did need to have three seperate schedules reflecting one with level 0 one with level 1 and the third with level 2 in order to get it to number correctly (along with preifx 0, 1, 2).

5 hours ago, Windle said:

@rgardner So to clarify, the file transfer we will get into Cheif will not have the walls/roof that Hover produces?  Just a floorplan?

I tried one time and it was literally the exterior perimeter line in a single line format.  I never use it.  I use it for reference or if it is a complicated footprint and worth the time (10% of the time) then I will import the pdf as a layer in my drawing to trace my walls over after scaling it in chief to the right scale.  The dwg or dxf file was not worth the time it took to import it as usually I can do the perimeter in less than 10 minutes just referencing the hover and sometimes way less.  

11 minutes ago, Windle said:

Are you familiar with the Hover App - it produces exterior renderings and PDFs.  The app has the option to export in a DXF, DWG, and XKP file formats.  Wondering if they are compatible before we invest in this option?? 

I use it with a few of my clients to get as-builds of exteriors.  One uses hover as a backup to a matterport scam.  The hover dxf and dwg files are just single line outlines of the footprint of the house (at least in the past that is what it was.

2 hours ago, robdyck said:

Feel free to send me a PM. Whether I'm qualified could be a matter of opinion but I've got 20 years of experience as a custom residential framing contractor and I've been drawing plans with Chief for 22 years...and yet I remain the youngest member on this forum!

Only cause you lie about your age!

6 hours ago, solver said:

 

Windows has the Snipping Tool. 

 

From within Chief: Tools>Screen Capture

 

And going forward, please post images directly -- no need to make a PDF of an image. This makes it easier for others as an image shows in the forum.

Just in case Mac OSX also has the screenshot tool which does the same thing.  Not sure if shipping is this way (imagine so) but in screenshot on a Mac you can set it so the area you grab copies to your computer’s memory so you can go right to your post you want to place the picture in and Cmd (Ctrl for PC) + V (or right click and paste) the picture right into the post.   If that doesn’t work you can just drag a .png or .jpeg file right into your post box and it will do the picture for you.

2 hours ago, DMJRestorations said:

Yes, that was the origin.  I am using this plan as a practice to get better at using the Chief Architect software so that I can do a better job when I work on actual client projects.  I want this one flushed out so that i can try creating more framing, roof trusses, electrical plans, plumbing plans, layouts... all the things that make for a complete plan.

I know these issues are really minor... but you know how it is, start with small problems, and leave them unresolved and pretty soon the whole thing is a mess.  I want to get these figured out before I get too far.

 

I've already fixed many issues myself, but these little things are just beating me.

 

For example, when I to close the gap in the board and batten, the wall shoots through the roof... and changes shape much more than anticipated.

You are getting some solid advice from the guys above.  One more bit that will save you lots of headaches in the future.  DON'T adjust wall heights in elevation mode.  If the wall is not closing in that section there is a reason and something else is causing it to happen.  99% of the time you do not need to adjust a wall top or bottom height.  Try going through and selecting all of your walls>open dbx>Structure tab>Select (first two options) default height for top and bottom of the walls.

Think about it this way and it may help as you try to learn more.  Chief builds rooms which are boxes  Box top gets controlled by roofs (if the roof is 12" higher than that box chief will automatically fill in the gap with "attic walls" so that it models out like you would build it.  Box bottoms are controlled by foundation heights, set your floor default settings how you want them built at least before you build the foundation and second floor or roof (unless you leave auto-roof on the whole time ((another suggestion on using auto-roof as much as you can.   Chief can do very complicated roofs automatically and you don't have to do it all manually as some will recommend.  Let Chief do the work for you.)))

Hope all of that was helpful and understandable.  Best of luck (BTW read up on Copyrights and Architectural design for when you are working with clients.)

Mull them in sets first then together.

5 hours ago, glennw said:

Or...you can paint a material onto the deck boards by using Material Painter Room Mode.

That was my question above.  Sorry probably wasn't very clear:

15 hours ago, rgardner said:

So @glennw if I am manually framing the deck it loses all capabilities to change via the room dbx including material changes so the only way to change the decking for example after the fact would be to use the material painter or to group select all of the planks and change the material?

I guess I don't understand why it would be set that way since when you manually frame a wall you don't lose the ability to make changes to the materials on it?  Correct?  Just seems like an oddity.  I will have to mull that over.

28 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

 

There are a handful of different custom text macro solutions that could be used and that I would be happy to write for a fee, but for your particular use case, you don't really even need any custom macros. Simply create a text box that looks like this...

#%room.schedule_number%

%room.name%

%room.internal_area% sq ft

 

In order to get the floor number you just need to either change the prefix in the schedule to the appropriate number for the floor it represents.  You could also optionally use %floor_number% as the prefix which would work for all floors, but you would need to place each schedule on the appropriate floor for that to work correctly. 

BTW as I am still trying to figure out macros and writing/tweaking the simple ones.  Is there a way to see all of the system macros?  I know there are the ones that come up when you click on the insert macro button in a text/label box but it seems like there is a short list there of the most common ones.  Is there a list in ruby that I can look at?  Or is it you just look for the property characteristics for different items and just list it the same?  How do you know to use a period to space vs. underscore?  I know lots of extra questions.  Trying to soak it all in from you guys!  Sure appreciate all your time and valuable input to the forum.

21 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

 

There are a handful of different custom text macro solutions that could be used and that I would be happy to write for a fee, but for your particular use case, you don't really even need any custom macros. Simply create a text box that looks like this...

#%room.schedule_number%

%room.name%

%room.internal_area% sq ft

 

In order to get the floor number you just need to either change the prefix in the schedule to the appropriate number for the floor it represents.  You could also optionally use %floor_number% as the prefix which would work for all floors, but you would need to place each schedule on the appropriate floor for that to work correctly. 

Thanks Michael.  This actually helps alot more and I think having three schedules broken apart by floor would not be an issue especially as I organize them this way anyways.  Thanks for the nudge in the right direction with this.