TeaTime

If you use Adjust Material on your glass, reducing the Index of Refraction also reduces its reflectivity.

default 1.52

vs 1.0

1 minute ago, Chopsaw said:

 

Sure.  ALDO > Cabinets, Soffits > Line Style:

I'd just move that Soffit to the Beam layer so it'll look like the beam it's pretending to be.

Just in case you have other soffits around.

*can even put it on a Framing Schedule if you need!

I guess it depends on which way you want them to follow the pitch?

Roof Beams will inherently follow the slope up, and generate underneath a sloped ceiling, but if you're going sideways, most framing won't rotate to match the angle.

ex: this was just posted yesterday:

So depending on the situation, 3D Solids very well may be easiest.

Pretty sure the callout size is adjusted according to the size of the text inside it - turn on your Active Layer Display window and select one, you'll see the Text Style it's using at the bottom, changing that should change the printed size of them.

I usually put Terrain spec data on Floor 0 to avoid this - then the Hide Terrain option can still be used, but only cut around the foundation.

Hey Jim,

Turn on the Filter Results panel.

When you select a folder it becomes the active Filter and the containing objects are listed as results:

13 hours ago, mthd97 said:

For X15, the recommended laptops are at the bottom of this list from your link

Yes I know but also 

On 4/13/2023 at 3:35 AM, stayfitjim said:

I need to be able to create rendering in real time if that is possible at all.

so an assumption can be made that Mac isn't probably the best fit. He doesn't list his version, so maybe he's using X14 or older and it doesn't matter, but if he plans on upgrading at any point, then it's very valid information to consider.

No shade to Mac, they're just going in a different direction.

14 hours ago, glennw said:

 

Construction lines will display in both plan and elevation views.

This is true, Construction Lines were my first thought too, as they can be set to display infinite, however they still aren't ideal in Elevations since you'll only get vertical lines from the ones drawn in plan so you'd need to re-draw horizontal ones. But what's worse is Drawing Group can't be adjusted on Construction Lines in Elevation views.

On 4/14/2023 at 11:49 PM, mthd97 said:

I am just showing what some Apple products are capable of in comparison to other popular video cards that are out there.

 

There might be a mobile Apple alternative out there that can do a good job of real time rendering as well ?

 

My advice would be to test an Apple laptop first before buying if that is possible? I guess you may have tested the new MacBook pros with the M2 Apple Silicon in them ?

 

You guys who do high end rendering would know what works with mobile devices. 

 

All good !

re: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-02761/chief-architect-minimum-system-requirements.html#X15

For GPU real-time ray tracing, a Windows computer with an NVIDIA RTX or an AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card is required.

Mac simply doesn't support the real time ray tracing that Chief has implemented.

The above replies are addressing the "how do I make a brick ledge profile look like the attached detail" question, and not 

2 hours ago, ChiefUserBigRob said:

Which setting drops the brick ledge to show like the detail below at 11.5"?

--which is literally just the Brick Ledge Depth setting you have circled.

However there are some other things that need to be done to get it to do this correctly.

To match that detail I created Ponywalls on Floor 1, Siding-6 / Brick-6, ponywall Height Off Floor at 0", then defined Brick-6 to have a 11.5" Brick Ledge Depth and reduced the default 1" Air Gap to 1/2" to back it in under the siding.

When Building Foundation, set to Monoslab and hit Edit Default Slab Footing to 18" wide, 20" deep (+4" slab = 24" total).

But certainly, if you wanted bricks themselves to look like that, a custom molding profile is needed.

Maybe this is a little extra, but it will print CAD, so:

1. Draw two CAD Lines, 1 vertical, 1 horizontal, intersecting at 0,0, long enough to be as big as you think you'd ever need.
2. Set both to a new layer, something like "- grid"
3. Transform/Replicate them +12"/-12" in both X and Y axis, again however many as you feel necessary.
4. In Layer Display Options, check Modify All Layer Sets, change color, line style, and check "- grid" to be locked.

Now you can show/hide a grid whenever you want, change it's style, etc, on a per-view basis.

This would be a good thing to do in a blank plan and save in your template if it's somthing you need often.

Of course that only affects plan views. If you need it in Elevations too, you might select a chunk of the grid and create a CAD Block to save to your catalog. CAD Blocks don't save their Drawing group info though, so you'd have to Send to Back every time it's placed.

As far as I'm aware, only Blocking and Purlins will auto rotate to align to the roof plane.

But if change your Roof Plane's Ceiling layers to a single Roof Purling layer, defining the desired beam size

you can then draw in a Purlin and have it build underneath your rafters -- however if you're doing this in a vaulted room area, this will remove the ceiling finish since the "Use Room Ceiling Finish" option gets turned off when the ceiling layers are manually changed. But after the Purlin is drawn you can open the roof plane and re-check Use Room Ceiling Finish - the purlin will remain and ceiling finish will be generated.

I *think* this applies to X12 still ... but yeah, unfortunately you can't do it with Roof Planes alone even though that seems the most logical

The highest a roof plane can pitch is 89 degrees, and boy it gets wonky when you try it.

It's not the most elegant thing but Applying a CA-001 Shadow Board around the roof, you can set a 0" Eave Overhang and let the Shadowboard fill the exposed edge, set it's height enough to meet the siding of your new wall type that's defined to use the same roof material - and shadowbaord's thickness to the same thickness as the siding

little tip: set the shadowboard's vertical offset to 1 and it'll create an angled edge on the top. Left at 0 it'll probably create a goofy gap

Looks like your Deck Railing Defaults are set to be Furred Walls (Structure panel, Double Wall section).

Furred Walls are essentially No Room by definition, so the option is checked, then disabled so you can't Undo it.

Even if you only have one monitor, if you hit + to add new Source and choose "Window Capture", you can choose Chief as the capture window, then after you hit Start Recording in OBS, you just click over to Chief, do what you need, click back over to OBS and hit Stop.

With Chief set as the captured window, it'll only record Chief, ignoring any other window you have overtop. So the start and end of your videos may have your mouse moving around "randomly" as you click between windows, but oh well.

Also under Settings> Hotkeys you can set Start/Stop hotkeys to avoid that stuff too.

55 minutes ago, solver said:

Please post questions in Q&A. Tips & Techniques is where you share your tips and techniques.

^ This

But also to answer your question, you can't slope walls in Chief Architect. For an A-Frame structure, just build your "walls" with Roof Planes since they're one in the same with that type of structure anyway.

I'm guessing it'd take one of the Chief software engineers to figure exactly whats happening under the hood, you're probably just hitting some weird threshold that Auto Dormer doesn't like. Auto Dormers are handy but they can be a pain, especially when trying to make them fill the full span like that.

I'd use the Explode Dormer tool and adjust it manually - though, for those types of dormers I usually just do them all manually from the start.

46 minutes ago, VisualDandD said:

I do this all the time.  Chief can be a little finiky, but I have a way I do it.  Not sure if it is the 'right' way, but it works for me.

Here's the Chief video that shows that in action: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/1956/flared-roof.html?playlist=95

Haven't watched the video in a while but I think that's the same process?

I'd also like to point out that in OP's example photo, that's not a curved roof, just a lower roof plane, and that can be done on a wall-by-wall basis using the Auto roof tools by setting Upper Pitch/Lower Pitch settings on the bearing wall, just be sure the "In From Baseline" is at least 1", 0" doesn't work.

So if you're looking for a very simple bell, and not a fancy curved one, try this:

11 hours ago, heidistokoe said:

now i'm just trying to not have them show up directly on top of each other. 

Oh, if I'm not mistaken this is an issue with older versions that was fixed some versions back. it's specifically Room Labels and their "Area" labels.

If you hide the "Rooms, Interior Dimensions" layer you'll at least be able to read your room names...

Cue the sound of the Beta testers reading their NDAs...

1 hour ago, VWCALBUG said:

it shows 698 feet of "base moulding". I assume this is the baseboard, right?

Certainly should be, "Find in Plan" should take you back to the plan with the object(s) selected - it may seem like nothing is selected because, well everything is selected. One way to test this is to open a room, go to moldings, uncheck Use Default and delete it, then remake a Mat List. The length should drop and Find In Plan should highlight all but that room.

This is a kind of tough one to manually verify in HD but it's simply tracing the perimeter of each room (that has Default Casing).

1 hour ago, VWCALBUG said:

there is "interior casing" at 1140 ft, that's starting to sound more reasonable.

That's specifically all door/window casing.

If it makes you feel any better, I've never seen the MatList get anything blatantly wrong, if anything there are some rounding flukes here n there, but it's just measuring all the things it sees in the plan.

Oh, sorry I meant like in release notes, etc.  Thanks though!

I'll bet it's come up a few times over the years.

Hope it gets heard though, it's a small thing but I often tab too fast and have to start over.

3 minutes ago, javatom said:

Never change the name of the plan or layout files.  You save the most recently worked on version of these files in a new folder.  In the folder name, you add the date and initials of who last work on it.  Something like this    SMITH PROJECT 011223 RM. 

This is my preferred method as well - .plan and .layout should never change, least you derive some strange pleasure in re-linking plan/layouts when they invariably break.

6 minutes ago, MarkMc said:

...

PS: Box Construction must be Framed to access Stile values.

I don't recall ever seeing anything about this, so I'm gonna guess the answer is "No", but it would be a handy addition!