WendyatArtform

Thank you Bill! It might not be formatted the way I would do it, but this is exactly the kind of QC aid that can save a lot of time and keep your butt out of the fire. Check out this Part 2 idea - make your Roof, Labels layer a light grey so it shows on screen but doesn't really print - then you have it there to put your own label. And I feel a Feature Request coming on - would love to set this globally, at least the offset.

Thank you! Annotation sets are not simple to understand. So it ended up an awful lot of video trying - hope it helps at least a few folks.

From that first image it looks like you have a bigger area selected, and that you need to select the area inside the railing and make sure that doesn't have a ceiling.

In this series of 6 videos called "Walk Up Attic with Dormer...", the first 3 deal with converting an auto floating dormer to a usable attic gable dormer. The next 2 deal with manually creating the classic New England expanded cape type rear shed, where the ridge line matches the main roof. And the last one shows how to replicate the front dormers http://www.screencast.com/t/FotMcxvnpAI

Well that's a completely illogical place for it! But thanks.

I know it's here somewhere - but I can't find it. There's a setting that determines whether the ceiling break line is at the finished surface or framing, but I can't for the life of me find it. Anybody know where they hid that thing?

I seem to be in Video Making Mode! So here are a pair of videos about this for y'all. http://www.screencast.com/t/5eDj4NvQ http://www.screencast.com/t/8CNjuHHpY

Here's a whole bunch of videos illustrating some things I've seen folks not understand. This is by no means some comprehensive training sequence, just something that might help folks understand things and techniques you could adapt to your own style and needs. I advanced the attached file a wee bit after finishing up the videos. My goal was to show minimal adaptation of Chief's oob annotation sets in a way that's closer to real world needs. <a href="http://www.screencast.com/t/vicroy80XHQ">Chief X7 lessons</a> Chief Plan and Layout.zip

I realized at the UGM that not everyone knows something very important about about sections & elevations: Cad & dimensions that you add to a section or elevation are always updated. You only need to open and close/update when you've changed the model itself. And a productivity tip - if there are parts where you've felt the need to use the Edit Layout (little pencil) tool to do some cleanup, you don't have to choose between doing that cleanup and converting the whole thing to cad. You can do a "cad patch" where you put a little virtual white-out on part of it with a cad closed polyline with a white fill. For example - if you don't like the multiple small lines that sometimes show up at the top of the terrain, put a cad patch over your terrain and then add a nice thick line at the terrain top itself, for that satisfying base line look.

Oh and thanks Scott!

I know a lot of professional architecture photographers put the camera pretty low - makes the house or room look bigger. So I think that's mostly about the effect you want. I tend to want to see a little more roof than I get with it that low. I think the point really is that most of the best images have the building less elevation-like and more three dimensional. What I avoid is zooming and rotating. It makes unrealistic images, even "drunk" images. I plant the camera, and adjust via the Edit Camera dbx. Some of my decisions center around the house - what's the best feature, can you see the front door (or sometimes just part of it), are we focusing on the good stuff (hence my preference for views from off center, opposite side from the garage. I always want yard foreground, not driveway. If I have to have driveway, I'll put a real leafy tree that gives it that sun-dappled shadow so it's not unrelenting pavement. I'll even do that for sun-dappled shadows on part of the house if it helps focus attention where I want it. In short - try a whole bunch of difference camera placements and just really ask yourself the question "what features do I want to be prominent?"

And if you want to see if works for you - here are my lighting settings (attached image). I use these WITHOUT TONE MAPPING. I also skip photon mapping on exteriors. For interiors I use both. By cranking up my sun and avoiding Tone Mapping I get nice deep shadows, which let's the viewer appreciate the 3 dimensionality of the image. And here's the library file I forgot to attach two posts ago! Oops. Design Diva.calibz

I agree with others on camera placement - you're making your house look flat. I generally avoid head on and instead favor one side or the other (usually view has garage on far side) and I stick to camera at anywhere from 60" to tops 100" above grade. Agree with others on skip blur - just distracting.

1 - I'm attaching a library file with some materials I got from Pat Abood back when she was active. These roofing and grass textures won't tile as much. 2 - more casual varied plants, and NOT hot pink! In the base library, try Plants - Perennials & Biannials (sic) - Foliage - Hosta. There are a couple of tall ones, some wide ones, etc. Put in a nice varied little group, then copy and paste around. And as others have noted, vary the heights a wee bit on any repeating shrubs and trees. Just grab in 3D or elevation and drag top up or down a bit. 3 - design thing - but still - I'd put a better surround around the front door!

I'd need to poke around the plan to answer for sure. So post the plan if you want. But it looks like you might have one value assigned on the first floor (ceiling height) and another value on the second floor (ceiling below). In Chief Architect, when there's a conflict, the floor above governs.

Our template (profile) plan has some things drawn in it that we just delete before starting the new project. Having our custom walls there means they are available in the drop down. Having a whole bunch of stuff in the template means we can just do "New Plan" at any time and have really fast access to all our most frequently used stuff - faster than the library. Copy and paste baby! Where in the library you have to block the living room grouping, you can just Shift Click what you want out of a plan - no blocking and unblocking necessary, no scrolling, it's just there. If I need a custom wall for a plan start prior, copy, paste, delete - it's now on the drop down.

To be specific - Dimension defaults - locate objects tab. If you have it set to "main layer" you're dimensions go to the framing. Assuming 1/2" drywall on each wall, that would be the 1" you're missing. When we measure and draw existing, I use a saved dimension set with Locate Objects set to Surface - 'cause that's what I can measure.

We are using color more and more, including for permit docs. We can print in color in-house. Color coding various elements can add a level of clarity. With the cost of color printing coming down, we can do that more often.

Say "no" when it asks you if you want to turn that layer on. If you said "yes" at some point, and checked the "don't ask me again" box, go to Preferences, Reset Options and reset your Message Boxes.

Sneaky trick - temporarily make that material name display as hot pink. Makes it real easy to spot!

Oh baby - I didn't see that (the 2x6 rafters). Yes. If your code officer doesn't flunk you, mother nature will!

RE: tieing the roof, semi-vaulting, etc: Myth - you can tie if you are 1/3 from the top of the rafters. So if your 10 ft ceiling on 8 ft walls works depends on your roof pitch. Truth - to tie the roof you have to be 1/3 from the bottom of the rafters, or lower. And, you are allowed less rafter length. Crack the code book and look for the slope adjustment factor. Or better yet, buy yourself about 2 hours of an engineer's time and make sure your spanky new garage doesn't sag on you!

As far as I'm concerned - if it's in one of mine, have at it. I would picture bogarting a wall type as pretty stingy!

You can use Delete Objects to delete any object type that's not pertinent. Terrain, plants, furniture, fixtures, cabinets, lighting, text, dimensions.... those all increase file size. You can remove wings or sections of the building that don't show the problem. You can do this either manually or using Edit Area - a very powerful tool. And you can manually remove things that either increase file size or "complete" a plan you don't want "borrowed" - stairs, even doors and windows that are irrelevant. To manually select by type, select the tool and just put a box around areas. For instance - select the Window Tool, put a box around a part of your plan, and it will select only windows. View the file in 3D and just start selecting your various exterior moldings and such and hit the "delete" key - Basically, use all your edit tools and reduce, reduce, reduce. Just make sure you leave the problem! Stripping a plan down not only gives many some comfort about their work not becoming "open source", but cutting the file size is kind to those trying to help.

Me too. It's the walls. Stairs just love to think they need to be beside a wall, not have a wall under them. But they are a little schizzo about which wall! I've seen them move from beside Wall A with Wall B under them, to beside Wall B with Wall A now under them! I keep complaining, but then I have an example that repeats, then one where it behaves. I haven't succeeded yet in making my complaints repeatable enough and frequent enough to get this fixed. But make no mistake, it's blinkin' annoying!