HumbleChief

I added a video. Really don't understand Elevation Regions or Terrains. http://screencast.com/t/Yv8WRwHtO4kU

Yeah I've got that entire lower area beyond the house set as a single elevation region. The plan has it being short of the edge of the terrain feature but extending it all the way doesn't change that weird upwards slope. Plan is attached if you have time.

Sorry Perry it is an elevation region. I'll edit the previous post.

I'm always befuddled by terrain features and I've created what I'd like to be a flat 'elevation region' but for some reason it slopes up at the edge (technical term). Here's a pic and the plan's attached. terrain question.plan ...and yes it's a very strange subterainian garage with even more terrain hell coming up but if I could understand this elevation region that might get me started.

Shawn, The 4790k is a lot of CPU and you should see good RayTrace times but good RT times are never fast enough. Did you try and directly compare RayTrace times between your new rig and your old laptop? If your times with the new rig are slower than your old LT then there's a setting that's wrong or there's another problem. If your new rig is faster than your old, by how much? If your new rig is faster than your old then there is one more, much more difficult, adjustment you have to make - your expectations. I got a rig with dual Xeon's and I think the RT times were halved from my older i7 - still takes forever in my mind. So unless you compare directly, with the same file, same settings, your expectations might be getting in the way. If the new is slower than the old call the tech support guys, they are a great help. Also like the other posters said RayTracing takes 100% of the CPU (mine pegs all 12 cores at 100%) unless you have your preferences/render/raytrace set to "Optimize for Chief Architect" which should use less CPU and leave more resources for Chief. While I'm RayTracing and all 12 corers are pegged I can still use Chief with no problems so that's another thing to look at. Get's me back to the tech support guys. Let us know what you discover.

Good solution I think, but for me, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, it took a while to figure out it was the return. After that you could probably solve it in a couple different ways.

Thanks Perry. Never really used it, didn't realize how powerful that tool was. Took a bit to figure it out but it worked great. I'll put that in the data base.

"Generate Cross Section Views along a custom plane and use breaks to create steps in the Cross-Section" https://www.facebook.com/ChiefArchitect?fref=nf

Great idea and never thought of using that tool that way, actually never knew that tool worked that way. Thanks

What I would like to know is how do you get that railing wall that's up against the garage to butt against the brick instead of ending up a few inches within the brick wall?

Michael, It's the Auto Roof return from the garage wall. If you look at the garage from the front that left side wall has auto roof returns turned on. It looks like you want it turned on for the back corner but as you extend that roof plane to the left it's building a very large return (actually still over the garage wall) that's showing up as that orphaned, wild, roof plane. Can't select because it's auto generated. To fix it I broke that left garage wall in half (see pic below) and spec'd the front half of the wall with no auto roof return. Now you can extend the roof to the left and it won't build the roof return on that side.

Didn't know that - Thanks Lew

Happened to me on the Chief forum posts. Couldn't figure out why everything was so big. In windows if you hit the Cntrl + or - key it will zoom your browser in/out.

I agree Bill.

Is the size of this vid better? It was shot on a smaller screen http://screencast.com/t/QalZjMSb6

Nice one Perry. Didn't know that. Could you see that video better?

Video of changing casing settings. Nothing worked on this end. http://screencast.com/t/QalZjMSb6

I get that same 'z-fighting' when at certain angles. Never noticed it before but couldn't get rid of it either no matter the setting.

That is really sweet Kevin. I never use those tools and would probably use a circle and subtract but your method is very very cool.

Fun trying out the video thing and certainly understand your frustration coming from ACAD. Talk about different paradigms - sheesh. I would shoot myself if I had to learn those techniques. Powerful I'm sure, tedious for me. Anyway glad it helped. Hot keys are a real fast way to do certain tasks in Chief. I live on the Copy and Paste in Place hot Key (Q for me) and I put it as close to my left hand as possible. I hit it without even looking and use it all the time. I also use 'A' to open any spec dbx, again close to my left hand (use the mouse in my right hand) and hit it without even looking. Everyone has a different style but hot keys are a great speed tip.

Just playing now using Glenn's method. http://screencast.com/t/1tilaNcV

Whoa, That's huge. Must be my screen size but it's not huge. 27"? Maybe I need to grab a smaller portion of the screen? But I want to include everything so maybe the free one has those limitations? Looks good here even on my smaller screen. Here's one done with a smaller screen size. http://screencast.com/t/89s3JqqWO

Glenn, once you open Jing, select the area you want to capture then, click the video record button. When you're done recording name your video, hit the share via screen cast button and Jing copies your video to their servers (I assume) and gives it a dedicated url. Now you have to paste the video url somewhere. It can be text or a web page or any place you can get t the url. I don't see a way to get to the video's url once you copy and paste something else so I think you have to paste right away. And yeah you need an account.

Could be dangerous with the videos. I think this is what Glenn is suggesting, very helpful as always. http://screencast.com/t/AfaKjRTEz

Me too Perry but the initial set up is so different than ACAD I thought it would help to see Chief's tools in action. Again not sure if this is exactly what Alan is looking for but should help him get closer in Chief. Seems way easier in Chief but again only if this is what Alan's actually trying to do.