grubba

Running it 10+ hours/day since it came out. Not a single crash for me. Rendering issues but nothing that stops me from using it. I would say CA has been the most stable software I've used in a long time.

Is there a way to select everything in the current selected layer(s)? That is, I have a few layers selected. I now want to select every object in those layers so I can move them as a group.

Rendering in general seems to be sub-optimal on a Mac Pro. It is still crazy slow and it seems hardware raytracing isn't supported. Is this a permanent thing or something yet to come?

That doesn't seem to work and rotating the entire plan sounds quite drastic for something that should be a fundamental part of assigning a 360°, spherical environment map. One should be able to indicate where "north" is (or some arbitrary 0° vector within the Z axis). In addition, currently the effect only occurs when the camera is rotated. When you move the camera, it feels the same as when using a flat, 2D backdrop. It moves the the entire scene while keeping the environment map static. The intent is to realistically preview what can be seen out of windows and that does not appear to be possible. When googling for this, I found some references to mapping images to "billboards" and placing them behind windows? I could not however, find out what that means.

I've taken several 360° panoramas of the actual building site. How do I rotate the 360° backdrop (z axis) so it aligns to the structure? That is, when I look out of a specific window, I expect to see what is actually there. While at it, is CA (down) resampling these panoramas? The image quality degrades considerably once rendered within CA (compared when rendering the original pano elsewhere). One image shows CA's rendering of the panorama. It's quite low resolution (and pointing about 47° away from reality). The other is a small crop of the same region when looking at the panorama outside CA. I had to crop it a lot because it seems this web site also samples the image way down. Thanks!

I'm having a blast with CA. I've only started using it and it's a great tool to experiment with different ideas. It's incredibly simple to change anything. A true free from architectural tool. The shortcomings I've found so far are the lack of georefering (importing and respecting GIS data), BIM, and its renderer. I've been doing the experimentation with CA but having to move the work to other tools for those things. Thank you all again for the quick replies. It's almost 4am here and I should probably call it the day. g

That was it! It would take me forever to figure that out based on trial and error. Thanks!

It's already set to Auto Rebuild. Manually rebuilding also doesn't change.

It happens when I switch from the default walls created when I create the new floor to a "Pony Wall" and change the upper side to railing. I'm obviously missing something (sorry for the barrage of images): Create 3rd floor: Change wall type to Pony Wall (It defaults to brick on the bottom and siding 6 on top: Change the lower side to Siding 6: Now I go and change the upper side to Deck Railing and the issue comes up: I believe I've tried every permutation of those options. Nothing seems to make any difference.

I should have explained better. I had switched away from that while experimenting. I'm obviously just getting started with CA and struggling with things that go beyond the basics. The default is to build to the exterior of the stud. What got me confused was that in VW, you define the layer(s) that extends below to reach the lower floor. Either way, no matter what I set the Build Platform to Exterior of Layer, nothing changes. I also figured out that the "empty" void was because I had framing layers off (duh).

Thanks for the quick reply, I had already done that after seeing an article about it. Vectorworks has something similar and I am familiar with that. This however, seems to be related to some mix up with heights.

I'm trying to create a flat roof. So far, the only way I found to build what I have in mind requires creating a third "floor". It all seems to work with the exception that the "roof" (third floor), floats above the second floor. That happens when I change the (automatically created) walls to a siding/railing pony wall. For completeness' sake, there will be an "observation room" on top of this. The actual floor of the "roof" is a drainage slab with decking above it. This image gives a general idea of the desired end result of the "roof": This is what my "roof" looks like at the moment (the main body of the structure is still just a study on volumes and form with no real dimensions, windows, etc.) I can't figure out what made it float off the main structure. Some pertinent dialogs that might give a clue: Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! g