DBCooper

There is no way (that I know of) to animate the trees and plants the way they did in Chief. The cottage may have been modelled in Chief and then exported but it's pretty hard to tell. The perfectly flat roof and stonework looks very similar to what you see in Chief (and the most unrealistic part of it, IMO). I did not see anything in their walkthrough that I didn't think you could do in Chief although I am not 100% sure since I don't do that many of them. There are a couple of walkthrough training videos here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/19/virtual-walkthroughs.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/10208/3d-walkthroughs-how-to-make-great-virtual-tours.html

Too slow this time.

Open the deck room. Edit the floor structure. Mark the joists as framing. Turn auto rebuild deck framing back on (or manually rebuild the deck faming every time you make a change).

OK, so I finally figured out what was going on here. Your plan has 3 different concrete materials that are all named the same. If your stem wall and your slab are using different materials, they will show these extra lines. Just open up your "plan materials" dialog and merge the 3 concrete materials into one and your extra lines will go away

One thing that can cause this is if you have messed around with your wall top/bottom heights. You can fix them by using the "reset to defaults" tool and selecting "wall top heights" and "wall bottom heights". You may need to do this on each floor though. Another thing that might cause problems like this is that somehow you have messed up your floor platforms. Not sure exactly what would do it though because I played around a bit to try and make it happen and couldn't. For problems like this, it is usually best to post the plan. Someone on the forum can almost always figure it out pretty quickly. If the plan is too big, try "zipping" it up first (when the plan is closed) and this can make it much smaller. If it's still too big, then make a copy and delete stuff that isn't needed to show the problem.

You can tie your dimension defaults to your saved plan views (along with your layer set and all of your other annotation defaults). They actually have a whole video series about this: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/100/saved-plan-views-layers-annotations.html

Just to clarify what I said before, if you have cad in a block, you can use the separate object layers to control things like line style, line weight, and line color (depending on the "by block layer" or "by object" setting) but you can't use them to control visibility. Visibility is always controlled by the block layer and I think it is always an all or nothing. Either everything in the block shows or nothing shows. You might be able to fake it though by setting the line style to "invisible" or the color to white.

I am getting the same dialog as GrizzlyBear. I think this is controlled by the door symbol and not by whether or not the door is int/ext. My guess is that Chopsaw has an older version of the library that used to have more materials assigned to it. Maybe he could post it on the forum to share? @Chopsaw At any rate, it would be pretty easy to create your own symbol just using poly solids and that would be a useful skill to have for future doors that Chief doesn't have. Here is a tech article that might help: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01808/creating-a-custom-door.html

I was playing around with this in a new plan and couldn't make it happen. There must be something different about your plan but I don't know what. I checked the materials because I know that you will often get extra lines between things when they have different materials but that does not look like the case here. Might want to send it in to Chief.

I think the reason you never saw this before is because it is new in X15: • Garage slabs now extend over the top of stems walls at openings After searching, I found it mentioned hidden here: https://cloud.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/documentation/chief-architect-x15-changelog.pdf I haven't figured out if there is an easier way to get rid of it though. You could always just leave it since this is how the slab is built IRL.

Or, if you don't want to wait, you could try posting the plan on the forum. Then someone can see if they have the same problem and maybe figure out what is blocking the move. I'm guessing like chopsaw that you have something that is blocking the move. Although usually when this happens you can move it right and then move it back left until it hits whatever is blocking it. Of course it could always be something else, like somehow you accidently mapped the arrow key to do something other than move? Also, just as an fyi, there are lots of ways to move things other than using the left arrow. Using the transform/replicate dialog or typing in a value for a dimension are other ways of moving an object that can usually ignore any blocking objects.

I'm confused about what you want (and no, the pdf did not really help). In the stair dialog, on the "railing" page, you can turn off the railing on either side or the handrail on either side. So, if you want the stair to be open on the left side, you can just turn it off there. Normally, you will automatically get a handrail when a stair is up against a wall. In your picture, you don't have one so the program may not be able to tell your stair is against the wall. If you need help figuring out why, then you probably need to post your plan.

You get to decide how it works by choosing "by block layer" or "by object".

The short answer is yes and no. The program can automatically generate a cross section view but it may not have all of the details you need. You may have to draw some of them yourself using the cad tools. This video might help you get started: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/16/cross-section-elevation-views.html?playlist=102 This tech article has some more info though: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00766/creating-cad-details.html

I think skylights and roof holes were added to schedules back in X13 or X14. So while you couldn't add them automatically in 2016, you can now.

A door in a plan will only use the material from the door defaults when it is set to "use default". If it is set to some other material, then it doesn't matter what you change the defaults to. When you use the material painter on an object, it usually changes the material from "use default" to whatever material you painted on it. You can always tell if something is set to "use default" by opening the dialog and looking at the actual material assignments. Assuming that your doors are set to "use default", then it becomes a question of what door default they are using. The picture you posted shows that you changed your "interior door defaults". Are the doors you have in your camera views actually "interior doors"? You should be able to tell by opening the door dialog and it should say either "interior" or "exterior" in the title bar. There are lots of door defaults and which one gets used depends on what kind of door you have and where it was originally placed. If you originally placed the door in an exterior wall, then it will be using your "exterior door defaults" even if you later move it to an interior wall. And if you change the type from say a hinged door to a garage door, then it will use different defaults. But if you want a better answer, do like Mick suggests and post a copy of the plan.

Yes, and no. There are no defaults for pdf boxes, so no. There are defaults for layout boxes, so yes. But you could also just turn off the layers instead of suppressing them.

Looking at your picture above, the math adds up: 4' 3" + 2' 6" + 3' 9 1/8" = 10' 6 1/8" Your cabinets may be on 3" increments but this doesn't mean they are positioned accurately. Maybe you have some small gaps or even overlaps somewhere along the row. Or, maybe your appliances aren't sized or positioned accurately. You might want to also check to see if both the 2' 6" or the 3' 9 1/8" dimensions are exact. My guess is that this is just a problem with how you have laid things out.

It might have to do with rounding. Depending on your settings, Chief might show a different value for the overall dimension so that all of the inner dimensions will actually add up. You might want to check each of the other dimensions to see if they are actually what you think they should be. If that doesn't help, then post the plan.

You need to make sure partitions are checked in the categories to include on the schedule general panel. I think partitions are always turned off by default (unless you already changed them in your cabinet schedule defaults).

When you get the message asking you if you want to regenerate the 2D cad block, just say no. The cad block will stretch or shrink with the tub and as long as you don't change the size by a lot, it should look fine. I think the reason you are losing the lines when the cad block is rebuilt has to do with the smoothing angle. I was able to get them to show by setting the smoothing angle much smaller but then I was getting extra lines I didn't want.

Try turning on your "filters". My guess is that you have set up a filter that is not finding anything but since your "filters" are turned off you can't clear it.

Hope no one tall needs to use that urinal.

Sometimes using the "edit area" tool works better then just selecting stuff and copying it. For example, you can copy all floors at one time using edit area and edit area should keep room info that you won't get if you just copy your walls. If you want true referencing, so that you can keep the plans separate but still show them together, using reference display is the way to go (as suggested by Glenn).

Sounds like more work than just pressing the "s" key to disable the object snaps.