HumbleChief

Ralph, I think if that 'safe room' had been defined as a room with a floor height that corresponded to the height you wanted for the room, auto build foundation would have recreated the foundation around that room. And PLEASE do no think I'm apologizing for Chief's many land mines and pitfalls. I've been caught out so so many times it's crazy but another approach to your dilemma might be to post what you want to accomplish and get some help here. Safe rooms are underground correct? It seems like an underground 'room' could be created quite easily but I haven't really tried. Maybe this will help. http://www.screencast.com/t/2NHcdWo96AB

...or create edit points and use the 'Edit Line Parts' tool.

and make sure All Layers are on in the All Layers Layer Set.

Start by setting your 'floor' defaults to what you'd like. Defaults/floor/Edit - make sure you're on the floor you want to set the default for. Then sometimes you just need to muscle through each floor/room to get it right. I've been stumped many many times by a similar thing. Just this morning all my rooms were -6" instead of 0" for some mysterious reason. Checked defaults and still had to change each room back one at a time.

Todd pony wall heights are changed here.

There is no way to 'auto cut roof at intersection" but it's a great suggestion and one I have advocated in the past. Currently you must manually cut each roof where they meet and form valleys but once you do then the join roof tool will do the job. Should not take several hours - perhaps several minutes.

Will this help?

Not messing with you. 2 different tools. http://www.screencast.com/t/1Cb67ecpSUB7

Yeah it's closed. Click the 'New Chief talk Now Available" Button. Oh wait but you already know that or you wouldn't be here. Hmmm What's up Antoine?

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00683/

Thanks very much for the tip Perry - really is appreciated.

This is probably true but darn I wish I could trace the culprit brain spazz down. Anyway onwards and upwards to bigger and better things.

Must admit I've never used the texture toggle but I'll try later today and see if I have a problem.

Thanks Jay, My defaults are set to unspecified room name. If that changed to a porch or a garage then that's another thing that mysteriously overtook that plan.

Thanks for the advice Bill. I got it figured out and truly mean it when I say I do not know what I did. Just thrashed through each and every room with each and every structure tab till it worked. Even though I set the defaults for the second floor as wood framed joists I ended up with monolithic slab floors and the defaults were all over the place. I think I just started clicking defaults for everything in every room until I beat it into submission. User error? Probably but this one just went wonky at a certain stage and was hard to retrieve. Again thanks for the reply and advice.

If you're getting tired of these please let me know. http://www.screencast.com/t/7CvFFU5Y3m7T

Stoner? Love it. I would draw p-solids in elevation view and adjust/space to taste.

Funny, and frustrating at the same time.

Depends Jay, In the San Diego area new houses are almost all monolithic slabs poured at the same time as the footing. Older houses can be stem walls with crawl spaces and wood joist floor framing, like the remodel in the plan. The stem wall foundations give me the most problems when modeling in Chief.

Dennis, I almost always bail on the structure dbx and simply draw in the needed section details but always thought there must be a away to get the model right - all the time. Apparently there isn't but the help is always enlightening.

Thanks Perry, I think the exercise in futility is good in a lot of ways. At least I get to cuss at the 'hell box' on a beautiful Sunday morning.

A little more for those who might be helped by such wandering thoughts and musings. http://www.screencast.com/t/UOmw8LqB

Thanks always for the great help. I did get the slab to lower just as your dbx showed Glenn, but then the framing and sill plate were all wonky. It seems that now the outside stem wall height is following the new slab height and the sill plate is gone and raising/lowering itself along with the slab height. http://www.screencast.com/t/NArZUQvEL

Nice Bill.

I still call it the hell box but I bet others can find another name for it. Thought I would spend some time and try and figure the Structure dbx since it always stumps me. But alas it stumped me again. Still, after almost 15 years, simply no good reason (for me) to use it to create an accurate model. Here's my pathetic attempt and the plan in case anyone wants to play. I'm sure it's very very easy but my brain will not let the simplicity in. http://www.screencast.com/t/YQAVj4BE6BvT structre dbx.plan