stevenyhof

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About stevenyhof

  • Birthday 03/19/1962

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Holland Michigan
  • Interests
    Home design, family fun and fishing

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  1. Here are a few... This was more of a process in testing to find ways to draw cathedral ceiling beams with the correct wood grain... Chief does not have good garage doors so I made up a few... And this one, another thread about simple rendering one why with some backgrounds I made from Twinmotions, and ended with some pretty nice looking renderings done completely with Chief. Here are some backdrops I made for daily working within Chief. Stem walls using alternative methods...
  2. Unlike AutoCAD and others, Chiefs walls, roofs, etc. all work together within a relationship with each object/element to seam things together. Softplan and Cedreo use this same type of relational modeling. Some just do it better than others. To answer your "interesting" query, I have been designing with CAD since the late 90's. It does not take me long to know if a piece of software can do what I want or not. Even when Chief shows us things like auto trusses, I step out of the box for only a moment (meaning, do something a bit more complex) and Chief falls apart. It is these types of things that I would test or spend a few minutes in forums to find out what others are running into to not even bother with a trial. I know of Architects that do such complex work that Chief needs to turn into a manual solid tool (like AutoCAD) just to pull it off. I love Chief and it's automation, but I have also spent time building tools, solids, materials that help me where Chief's automation fails. So far I have been drawing about 120 plans a year with Chief on my own, and few are very simple like they were just 10 years ago when every builder and realtor were building spec homes. You've been here for almost 10 years. I see you have Softplan on your list of tools you use. What is your thoughts on Softplan vs Chief?
  3. It was a number of things I do not really recall, but a number of the questions people were asking and the answers that were given. I could tell in a few minutes that Chief was ahead of the game with this type of relationship modeling.
  4. Thank you, Rich! I could make everything flawless if I wanted, but I mainly wanted to prove to myself and others that Chief has the tools to do a great job with rendering. Here is a modern home I drew and just completed the construction docs. Then I spent two hours making a rendering. Spent an hour just messing with backdrops, and lighting inside and out. One thing I am learning, and that is that with the simple method I am proposing at the start of this forum thread, a nice looking rendering can be done quit fast. But when you start to mess with photo backgrounds to attempt to make the whole image look real, the lighting and backdrop hue causes a very individualized camera experience. House designed by BD/DSGN Years old fake plants by Chief
  5. Its not very nice in the window. I just wanted to figure it out. The window is insulated air to blank out the glass and the broken glass are solids turned into glass. If you put the sunlight on the floor the glass turns black and unimpressive.
  6. I don't use features. The client and I are talking and watching my screen and I point things out. I did get "Region to Share" - a small piece of software so you can show only a part of my screen - that is very nice. Zoom has that built in, but most do not. Outside of that, I do not use drawing tools, etc. So it can be a very simple system.
  7. I checked out streamyard, but is it simple for non video conferencing people to connect on their end? Seems it needs to be done in a browser and depending on their devise, what browser is best to use. Have you run into any issues with that?
  8. I do not have auto framing on, and rarely use framing. I think I did use framing on this house though if I remember correctly.
  9. I purged those things and it did not change. I am including the plan. It may be my molding I use around the house that is stone. I have a few region trim boards on the elevations, but I have that on a number of my homes. If you open the plan and open the front elevation and drag one of the region boards, or anything for that matter you will experience the lag. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HpRKPxrJlsF4Ru_idKphKKWaS7_9JNVA/view?usp=sharing Thoughts anyone? Thank you
  10. Now that you mention these, I do remember. I just haven't done it before so it did not come to mind. Hope my age isn't showing I will do this and let you know if it helps Thank you
  11. Yes agree. After I closed the meeting and thought about it a while, I opened the plan back up and went back to the same areas, like the front elevation view and a section and both were sluggish in the same way. Some chief issue on those views. So it was something with the plan. However, the voice thing will need to be addresses. I may need to add an Eth card as the built in one is not working well so I'm on wifi where the modem is like 2 feet away from my computer. But I also have a networked modem situation from Verizon because one is in the house and the other in my office, connected to my garage. So there are surely some variables here. Speaking on a chief issue, like with AutoCAD, is there a way to purge old and unused entities, etc. to make the file size smaller? Or a way to find out what is causing the change.
  12. Thank you, Rene! I left loom because it was doing funny things with my monitor setup and their controls, but I will look into Steamyard.
  13. I Just tested Google Meet with a client and right from the start there was delay to my clicking around. She also said that my voice was breaking up. I stopped the meeting and met her on zoom and while things were still laggy at times (what I have been used to), she said my voice was very clear. So, onto the next video conference tool to test.