plannedRITE

Yes! I have had some of the most ridiculous roof issues with X14. It could absolutely be caused by odd things that I am doing but I do not remember having this many odd bugs in prior versions. Lots of gutter and shadow board oddities in X14 as I use them to try to mimic local designs as I always have.

Depends on your client base and services. For my business it's a necessity as we lean heavily on our models as a marketing tool. We get plenty of new clients that had a friend refer them because of how much they loved being able to see the build in the planning phase. Standard renders are still fine any client but a good PBR just sets you apart. Like Mark said, YMMV.

As everyone else has said, Print to PDF and setup a good watermark. I have one plastered all over but faint enough to not make it annoying to read the plans. I haven't had any complaints. Our first (rough) drafts to clients usually have the watermarked PDF, a link to the 3d viewer model, and a couple of screenshots of a quick PBR. Similarly, I have a few "sample"/"example" plans for clients that ask to see what our work may entail that are watermarked with most details, notes, and dimensions removed. Get accustomed to always using that watermark button when printing off any pdfs for clients unless it's a final set that they've paid for.

Good point! Looks like it's leaving that one last line in elevation views, no biggie. So now is there a way for the lower wall to show on the plan view in just that section? It seems that Chief treats this split like a pony wall but for the entire wall length. Works great for elevations/3D but in the plan view I'm not seeing a way to show the interior wall layers for the portion cut by the roof but exterior for the rest of the wall. Seems to be one or the other?

I just took a second to actually look at this, still no bueno since by making that wall continuous it made that interior shared wall have the same exterior surface as the exterior walls. It needs to be a different wall type, which is why it was broken up and shown as a different wall in the draft I uploaded. I do know that that's causing the problem so I'm trying to figure out how to make it work. The closest I've been able to get is by unselecting the attic wall classification for that upper wall though it still leaves a line and messes with the other perpendicular walls a bit.

Better! Thank you. I shouldn't have skipped that truss base here. I fight with truss bases too much since most of my roof layouts are a bit complicated so I usually avoid them. Yep, the line is still there in elevation views but it's not a big deal to edit out that line in the layout file after.

Here's something I've occasionally fought with. Taking this attached plan for example, there are 2 different ceiling heights giving a lower and taller roof. In between these 2 sections is a shared wall but the portion above the lower roof never seems to display properly in 3d and/or elevation views. I've tried a handful of different options but no matter what I seem to do there is an odd issue in a random view. I break up the wall to make the shared wall a different wall type than the exterior walls (drywall at each side instead of stucco). This, of course, changes the wall seen above the lower roof from outside into the drywall wall too. So that attic wall is changed back to the exterior wall type. Anyways, I've tried many options to easily fix this so I won't keep listing everything I've done wrong. What could I be missing here? I tried to trim this simple plan down to fit but it's still a hair too large. Google drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p8JZyxygt-D7q3N9t2im8GF0RGoWBcJp/view?usp=sharing

What Rene said, OBS. It's excellent.

Michael - I know that this is an INCREDIBLY old post and I may be overthinking this. I'm just looking to automate schedules for elevations and have stumbled upon the issue that you talked about here. Did you ever find a solution to this? The idea is to use notes or notes & arrows to grab object information from exterior walls/roof surfaces/fixtures/etc. and have it quickly report to a custom schedule. I tried just having those different points report the info via their own labels but it doesn't seem to quite work for my con docs. Quick example pic below, it obviously works with the wall itself reporting to the schedule but the note schedule is what I'd like to see work.

You are the man! I didn't know that you could pull a leader line from it, that's exactly what I was looking for. The arrow isn't entirely necessary. Did you just add the arrow and then flip the line around? Looks like Chief treats it as a separate entity from the note.

Thanks Joe I should have been clearer. The detail callouts in that screenshot are fine (I like your "Round Arrowhead" tip though it isn't an option straight from the callout so it would be drawing that arrow from the callout). With how my details are done it's easiest to manually type those int he callout tool. The other notes, the bubbles around the edges with the arrows, are the ones that I'm referring to. It would be great for that symbol to be useable via the Note tool instead of Callouts so that it can report to a schedule. Hopefully that makes sense.

I may be approaching this from the wrong angle or overthinking this. I prefer my note callouts on condoc elevations/cross sections to look like this: However to do this I've had to use callouts and manually type up a schedule. I'd obviously like to just drop them in and rename them while they fill out a schedule like the note tool allows. I like to keep the note bubbles from cluttering up the elevation views. Is there a way to do this without too much additional manual work? I really like notes->schedules and their simplicity. Thanks

I just tested it, no luck. I'm now curious to see if this is possible too. The shading/backdrop intensity in PBR seems to force some shade of grey.

I don't quite understand what issue you're having, I see that the second picture has roof a bit odd with a seemingly off centered ridge. Depending on the roof construction, it's generally best to draw the roof planes first and then uncheck flat ceiling in the room(s) below. Then add in manual ceiling planes at the pitch and heights that you need. If you haven't already, make sure to go through the Chief training videos. They are generally excellent and should get you where you need to be. Ceilings - https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/69/ceiling-basics.html?playlist=96 Manual roofs - https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/25/drawing-roofs-manually.html?playlist=95 Good luck

Sure, there's a chance that could work but I don't have the time to update another template. However, I turned off auto save and the occasional freezing is gone. So there is absolutely an issue with the autosave feature, as suspected by some other users. X14 continues to be slower than 12 or 13 for me but thankfully it doesn't keep freezing up now.

Data Folder under Documents in Windows. I made a copy of a default template, renamed it as my template, and adjusted it. I scrapped my old template that was carried through old versions of Chief to try to eliminate issues.

Quick update to this, it's still obviously horrible, but both of my draftsman (one on Mac and one on Windows 11) both have complaining about the exact same issues. I did experience it using the windows 11 user's computer today. So it absolutely seems to be an issue entirely within Chief...it's just so darn frustrating.

Yep, the slowness has been very annoying. Frequently (how frequent varies, sometimes it's every 20 seconds and sometimes every few minutes) X14 will just freeze for a few seconds and then continue. It doesn't matter which view I'm in, 3d views and plan views are all the same. It was doing it in beta so once it went public I made all new templates from the X14 default templates to try to rule that out. Didn't help at all. It happens with a fresh plan, even off of the default templates, so the amount of items in the plan aren't involved. Everything's up to date, computer is very powerful, but it just doesn't matter. On top of that it just runs slower across the board. Everything feels a bit more delayed than X12 or X13. I have no idea what the developers did differently but my goodness I wish they hadn't done it. Here's a quick video showing one of the pauses that happens often.

It's suddenly working after closing and opening the plan again LOL. For sure, I've been doing a handful lately. I've got another few in my queue. Yeah it was set at 200, also just used a few different light sets to try to get it to kick on. It all worked after restarting the darn .plan file. Side note - do you know if we can have light sources on multiple floors enabled simultaneously? Seems that chief enables the lighting for the floor that you are on but I didn't find a setting to adjust that.

Classic "Did you try turning it off and back on again" situation. Once I reopened the file it's cooperating. Odd. That screenshot that I linked had the camera view on the first floor, which is why the upper light didn't turn on but even going to the second floor wasn't working. Not as important but a related question, is there a way to turn on the lighting in that upper floor at the same time as the lower? Other than setting the loft fan to the first floor and raising it up?

This is a bit odd, I can't figure out why the lighting will not turn on for this ceiling fan in the loft. The first floor is working as intended but I can't seem to turn on any lighting fixtures placed in the second floor/loft. The light source is enabled for that fixture, same as everything on the first floor, but the only thing that happens when switching the light on or off is the bulb turning from white to black without casting light. What could I be missing? Thank you! Plan file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r76Lg_qzHYBz4K2BbrujhxzgRkZWDWhw/view?usp=sharing

It's definitely an odd issue. I just tried turning off all terrain features, perimeter, etc. that make the elevation much wider on another plan that has the same issue but it still has the color shifted to the side and a bit blurry. Even after sending a new elevation it's still bad. I can't figure it out.

Occasionally when sending an elevation view to a layout using plot lines and color fill the colored portion becomes blurry and offset. I have seen a few other complaints on the forum regarding this issue but with no concrete solution. I did see recommendations related to items in the distance that may make the view very large but I don't have that issue here. I've tried new elevation views but with the same issue. It shows on the layout view in Chief and the PDF it spits out. I have this happen every couple of projects that I work on, it's not every project but it's a bit annoying. I usually just forego color but I do want color on this tiny ramada project that I'm doing. Has anyone found a fix for this? I'll attach the plan (drive link) that I'm referencing. I've sent the elevation to new layouts and the issue persists. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYNsWuGkt9oSVmAMzVCqm1kYi1Du0ydp/view?usp=sharing

The foundation will not adjust manually, oddly enough. At least no way that I've discovered. Room divider would need to be in the main floor and it'll work fine. I'll have to keep doing that, I just prefer to not have the divider there as it tends to make my plan behave unexpectedly.

Happy Friday everyone, I swear I had figured this out on a prior project but I can't find which one it was. I've got an addition that I am currently working on. The existing space is floor framed with a basement below but we are enclosing a portion of the patio and extending out the kitchen. The new portion is slab on grade. I can't seem to get this single room to have part of the foundation as the existing framed floor and the new to be slab on grade! The addition's foundation has the floor height below the framed floor thickness, which I do understand seeing that the floor thickness is set for the room. But is there a way to make this work other than using a room divider above that foundation split? Thank you! File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PkD-mcRCqJ01LCDqnuLiGvt0BQ3baLni/view?usp=sharing