JKEdmo

Rob, There's a rustic wood materials catalog available. Maybe something there. Jim

Shayne, Click on "buy more catalogs," upper right. I guess the "premium" catalogs are the extra 3D plant catalogs, aside from the crime scene and medical stuff. My SSA license expires August 2025. Jim

I thought so. I wonder if what I was seeing is a bug. It's a pretty big house project and I brought it forward from X15 to X16. Oh well, I'll keep an eye on things. Jim

Hello, Was working on a finish schedule and noticed sometimes if I made a finish change, the schedule would not update dynamically. I would then need to open the schedule and close it for it to update with the change. Most times pretty sure changes happen automatically. So, my question is are schedules supposed to be fully "dynamic" or do they need to be "refreshed." Or, is there a setting somewhere for this? Or is this just a quirk? Thanks again, Jim

I have a full permanent X16 license. There are a few catalogs Chief still charges for.

John, Thanks for this tutorial and your other detailed posts. Hope to try this one day as I become more Chief-proficient. Jim

Might be an object Draw Order issue. Select the object and change the draw order to bring it forward, i.e. in front of the other objects. Jim

You might send an email to Chief tech support. They can probably help. Jim

Drew, I was able to do this. I just modified the Material Transparency Property. In this case, my deck boards were Redwood. Is this what you needed?

If you use Autocad, you can use Express Tools to create Arc Aligned text: You can then explode the text and convert to an extruded 3d object: which you can import into Chief:

Melissa, Possibly this setting? The setting highlights dimension text that has been "messed with." Which is explained in Help here:

attached. test plan.zip

Here's a window I just opened as a test. The model's rendering is technique is set to Vector View / Color On / Opaque Window Glass Off. Yet, the preview panel shows up with opaque glazing. Go figure. Perhaps a bug?

Follow-up... I got this response below back from Chief Tech Support. I guess it's not possible. I suppose the "fix" would be to make the view settings in the preview panel persistent, i.e. once you set them how you like them they do not revert. I'll try to post in suggestions. Hello Jim, For objects, you can determine what view they will be displayed in by going to the "Library Browser" tab of the Preferences dialog. However, for materials, it will always default to Physically based. You can't default color off in either instance, unfortunately. I hope this helps! Maxim

Yes. I had opaque window glass turned on. I just switched it off. Still persists.

David, That's for the library browser. But, thanks for pointing me to Preferences. Looks like it is controlled by Appearance / Dialog Previews. Vector View with no color (linework only) was what I was hoping for. Strangely, there is no color on/off control to achieve this. But, Standard view seems to work well enough. Jim

I bet there is an easy answer to this that I'm overlooking, but every time I open my Window Spec, the 3D view defaults to color making the window preview illegible: How do I get it to default to color off like below? I'm on X16. Thanks again, Jim

There are a bunch of Chief tutorial videos that may help you here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/98/moldings-primitives-3d-cad.html

There may be some 3D people in Chief -- not exactly sure. I am no render pro so I'll defer to the forum experts. But, one trick is to add people later to the rendering as simple 2D images or "decals" using Photoshop or Gimp. An old coworker of mine used this technique a lot -- he was really great at 3D renders -- and I thought it was really effective and convincing. Another advantage is it is fast. Here's an example (done in Revit) that shows the technique:

Another thought -- to make the building look "lived in", I'd suggest adding people, car(s), outdoor furniture, etc. Jim

Levina, The front facade is in shadow. I'd play with the sun settings to get some direct lighting. Jim

Thanks Rene' -- I'll look into this tool. Jim

Thanks all! I got it fixed and learned a bit more. I was certain it was the X15 --> X16 upgrade, but that was a red herring. Goes to show not to jump to conclusions. Jim

Thanks for all the help. Working on cleaning this up right now. I'm curious for my own education -- how did you all zero in on the problem area so quickly?

Update: I submitted the model file to tech support. (I keep forgetting I pay for this resource!) We'll see if Chief has any good advice. Jim