DBCooper

Try going into your folders area of your preferences and clicking on the "show" button for all program paths.

Another tip: you can always move things that bump into walls inside them by holding the control key. Not as accurate as the transform/replicate dialog but certainly handy in some cases.

I don't think there is an easy way to create a plan view like this automatically. You can turn on "show closed doors/drawers" in the "general cabinet defaults" but even this won't show you the box sides. For now, you could create a plan view that shows the outlines of the boxes and then convert it into a cad detail where you could then manually add the box insides as cad. BTW, a cross section view will show you most of the cabinet details. It would be great if you could create a top down floor overview as a vector view and then use the cross section slider to show a horizontal cross section. The other option is to just not show these details. Unless you are spec'ing out some really custom cabinets, I'm pretty sure the cabinet shop will know how to build the boxes with just the floor plans and elevations. Might just be a case of trying to provide information that is not really needed.

From the pictures on their website, it looks like they can only do "presentation" floorplan drawings. I didn't see any pictures showing actual construction docs. Also, for $100 a month, it seems pretty lame that the "professional" version will only let you make 10 full HD renderings per month. Even the "enterprise" version only lets you make 20 per user per month. I can't understand why they would have any limits, especially such low ones. BTW, Chief will let you make as many as you want at whatever resolution you want (even much higher than 1920x1080)..

Try turning off "create auto fillers" in the "general cabinet defaults".

It's already there. In general plan defaults, you can set your living area to either surface or main layer. Also, you can control which rooms are included or not and then you can use the "make living area polyline" tool to generate the polyline that was used for the living area.

I always seem to have more problems with the winders made out of curved stair sections. They will sometimes do very strange things and it is very difficult to get what I want. I will usually just use landings to build each winder step because then I have complete control over the geometry. The problem with this method is trying to get the railings the way I want them. Of course, they don't always work out well with the curved stair winders either.

Ask your engineer what format he prefers. If all he wants is a pdf of the working drawings, then that's all you need to send him. If he wants a cad file, then send him a dwg with just the info he wants. My guess is that he would prefer the individual floor plans rather than the layout though. If he wants an actual model that he could play with, you could send him the plan files. If he has a version of Chief (or even just the client viewer) then he could open the plans and do what he wants with them. Here are some DWG basics; https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00013/converting-plan-files-to-dwg-or-dxf.html

You haven't really given us much to go on. For example, what rendering technique are you using? Do you have a video card that supports real-time raytracing? Are you a new user or a long time user? A picture showing us how your view looks would help but a plan would help even more. The bottom line is that getting good results takes a lot of practice with lighting and materials. It also helps to have a good model to start with. I would recommend reviewing the training videos: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/102/cameras-lighting.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/170/materials-patterns-textures.html

Random ideas: Try turning off or on the crosshair cursor (preferences). Try turning off or on "synchronize with cursor (also preferences). Try updating your video card drivers. Does it only happen in one plan or in all plans (even a very simple one)? If all else fails, I would try contacting tech support.

Unfortunately, not in this case. Would be nice though. So I just downloaded the Aristokraft library to see for myself. All it contains is door styles, trim, and materials and not actual cabinets. This means that you have to place a generic cabinet and convert it into a manufacturer cabinet by using these components. When you do that, you should also go ahead and type "Aristokraft" into the manufacture field of the object info. Basically, you need to build your own manufacturer cabinet.

The %manufacture% macro just displays the info that you put into the "manufacturer" object information. You have created an endless loop but apparently Chief already anticipated this and doesn't blow up. So yes, you will have to manually enter the manufacturer name for all of your cabinets. If you are using the same manufacturer for all of them, just group select them and type it in once. There are also a whole bunch of manufacture cabinets available in the downloadable libraries. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/3d-library/

Just like I thought. So when you want to use a custom counter, you don't need to set the cabinet lower and turn off the automatic counter. Just draw the custom counter over it. It will replace the automatic one and it will be the shape you make it.

In Chief, the cabinet "height" is always the box height plus the counter top height. If your cabinet schedule is showing two different heights, then you have probably done something that you don't need to (like making one cabinet shorter). You don't need to make your cabinet shorter to use a custom counter top. If you just draw the custom counter over the top of a base cabinet the program will use your custom counter instead of creating an automatic one. If you want your cabinet schedule to show the "box height", all you need to do is remove the "height" column and add the "box height" column. If you actually want to build all of your cabinets at 35" instead of 36", then just set the cabinet height to be 35" and your counter top thickness to whatever you want. If you set up your cabinet defaults this way, then it shouldn't matter whether your cabinet has an auto counter or a custom one. You don't put %manufacturer% in the object information. You put the actual name of the manufacturer, like "KraftMaid" or "Wellborn". You can use %manufacturer% to extract the manufacturer name when you want to put it into a label or a custom macro. All of this is just my best guesses, if these don't help you solve your problems, then I recommend that you post a plan (as suggested by Eric).

Next time you have to import a dwg, I would import it into a plan file, not a layout. While you are in the "importing drawing assistant", you can select which layers you want to import and you can even map them to whatever Chief layers you want to using the "advanced layer mapping". You can find lots of info on this by using the help button in the assistant.

Or, just place the light on a ceiling and then move it under the polyline solid. You will probably need to adjust the height though. Or, use a cabinet soffit instead of a poly solid because the recessed light should mount underneath it.

A pencil and some paper. But seriously, if you have better tools available, why wouldn't you want to use them? The new features don't just make the job faster, they allow us to do things that you would have never done back in the "old days". I mean who would have ever created a framing overview when drawing by hand? The fact that most people have software tools now that can do so much more has changed the world so that now these things are requirements, not just pretty pictures. Not that I have anything against pretty pictures because these can make a huge difference between getting a job or not getting a job just because your competition spent all of 2 minutes making one. I think it's pretty obvious that Chief has already made up its mind. I wouldn't expect them to change back unless they saw a significant decrease in income. I plan on sticking with Chief but if you think there is a better tool available (not just cheaper, better), then by all means you should jump ship. Best of luck. This is turning into a zombie thread. It just won't die.

So a couple of things that I can see in your new picture... - The toolbar to the left now has a double arrow (>>) symbol which I think means that you currently have some buttons that are hidden. I think this can happen if you push toolbars together and they overlap. - In the default toolbar configuration, the floor down button is to the left of the floor number. You can lay them out however you like, but that's just wrong. - The 3 dots show you that you have placed the floor down button into it's own toolbar (as well as the display reference button). You may want to group them all in the same toolbar so that if you move them around they will stay together. - You already have the display reference button on the right side of the screen so you probably don't need it in two places. If it's not obvious, I can get a little bit OCD about my own toolbars.

I don't think it matters what floor you are on and what floors are below. That only affects whether or not the floor down button is enabled, not whether it is displayed. I don't think your button is being hidden by another toolbar. You should see a little arrow/flag symbol on your toolbars if all of the tools are not being shown. I assume this is the same on the mac but I don't really know for sure. I think you probably accidently removed the floor down button. You could try going into "customize toolbars" and adding the "down one floor" tool back. Also, you can delete your other thread on the other forum.

It's actually even easier. If you just place a barn door and make it wider than 4', it will automatically turn into a double barn door. You only need to use the dialog if you want a double barn door that is smaller than 4' or a single barn door that is wider than 4'.

It's called a "throw". You let go of the mouse button while you are dragging it and it should spin the camera. How fast you are moving when you let go controls the speed of the spin. You can also spin the camera manually using control+alt+s. Do it again and it reverses. You can change the speed of the spin by changing the "incremental rotation angle" in the camera dialog (and yes I actually forgot how to do this until I did a search as suggested by @solver)

That's not a very easy question to answer because making your own symbols can either be very easy or very hard depending on what type of symbol you are trying to build. In simplest terms, a symbol is just a collection of 3D surfaces that will show in a camera view, a collection of 2D cad that will display in a plan view, and some other settings that help control how it works in Chief. The 2D cad may or may not represent the 3D surfaces. Think about an electrical switch. What you see in plan view has very little to do with what the 3D surfaces look like in a camera view. So editing the cad block for a symbol, or replacing it with a different cad block, won't really have any affect on what it looks like in a camera view. To build your own symbols with the 3D surfaces you want, you can use any tool or combination of tools in Chief that creates 3D surfaces. Poly solids, moldings, and other shapes can be very helpful. One of my favorite tools that a lot of people don't think about is cabinets. Cabinets can really be considered a building block tool and many things can be created using cabinet components as a starting point. Here is a tech article that has some good general info (and it includes links to some other related articles): https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00761/modeling-custom-3d-objects.html There is also a lot of good info on the symbols forum (which is also a good place to go for how to and free stuff): https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/forum/9-symbols-and-content/ Be careful though because trying to design the perfect symbol can really be a massive time sink. Don't underestimate how valuable an existing symbol that is "close enough" really is.

There is no good way to explode a symbol in Chief. You can manually delete surfaces in a camera view and then create a new symbol out of what you have left (and what ever else you have added) but if you are trying to remove a bunch of surfaces this will be a big pain. You would be better off only exporting out the components you want to keep from 20-20 and then bringing them in to Chief separately. In my opinion (which is probably worth every penny you paid for it), you should not try to do your design in 20-20 and then use Chief for your renderings. You would be far better off using Chief for all of your design work, working drawings, and presentation views/walkthroughs and then only use 20-20 for what it is actually good at (pricing/ordering). You could actually do everything in Chief but you might have to jump through some more hoops to do your pricing (and convince the manager that this is the best way to go). There are a number of people I have seen on the forums that moved to Chief from 20-20 that might have some better advice about how to make the transition easier. I believe that there are some that only use 20-20 for pricing and some that don't use it at all anymore. You might want to post a new question geared more towards how you can use 20-20 and Chief together.

Assuming that you are using "text styles" (instead of custom text) everywhere, then you should be able to change most of them all at once. Just go into your text style defaults and then you can group select all of the text styles to change the font in one step. Then do the same for all of your rich text defaults (since they can't use text styles).

You could try zipping the plan, posting it somewhere online like dropbox, or strip things out of the plan until it is small enough to post.