VisualDandD

Maybe for appraisal standards. But NOT for construction standards. I have been involved in building before I started designing. Almost 30 years now. The accepted construction standard in residential homes has always been outside of framed stud (where dimensions go to on plans, and stairs only on one level. Using the ANSI standards often yield a higher sqft anywhere from 100-200 sqft and even more on full brick homes. Stair config can have a large impact upon this. By using a non-industry standard, you are costing your clients and builders more money and making their homes more expensive to build. This is because a significant portion of the subcontractor base bills by sqft under roof. About 10 years ago, I started producing 2 sets of plans for each home. There is a "bank" set, with specific notation of sqft being calculated to ANSI standard (with a big watermark NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION on it). And then there is a "FIELD" set calculated to normal industry standards.

Open a 3d view of home. Make sure to turn OFF terrain so just the house and foundation is shown. Convert that into a symbol. Next, build your site model and then set your home into said model. Depending on the plan/foundation, sometimes I cut a hole in the terrain using a copy of the orignal home perimeter, but if not a basement, or you are only looking at views outside home, it should not matter.

Wow! Been away from the forum for a while. X15 looks pretty good. I have a current ssa and have not even take the time to download it. Might have to get around to it at some point. Love to see more of what can be done in it so will be following along this thread. I have been using TM for a while. Dont really consider myself a rendering person, but it comes along with some of the higher end jobs I do. Be interesting to see what can be done. Here are some examples or recent stuff I have done in TM. No post processing. These are the direct images out of TM. Video also renders at same quality. Need to catch up for sure!

I need to get around to installing x15 I keep saying when I get done with the 'next' project.. Just as a follow up. I rendered it (very quickly I might add...no sidewalks or drive and just dropped in a few bushes to break up the front). It actually rendered fine...

Looks like it might be fixed in X15. Thanks! Maybe I should get around to installing Thanks!

Forgot this work around. Set upper mulled trans unit to have sill. Un check apron and I created a very small cad block so sill is very small. (uncheck 'apron'). Hit 'clear' under the library profile and it will remove molding. Set lower mulled unit to 'lintel' and hit 'clear' to remove the molding. Looks pretty good, except in 3d the molding for the 'sill' extends to outer part of casing. OK for plan view but no good for 3d color. I made a 1/16 sq molding for sill but it will only let it go so small. For 3D I see 2 solutions. -Take casings off all windows and then add casing as molding polyline manually from ele view. -Use my lintel/sill trick and for the 3d make a very small solid that hides the sill and color match. Latter one is probably the fastest. Fin product elev and 3d with sill/lintel trick. Note: I did not do the color mask for the sill. Just showing how I got around it.

I had forgotten about this one, but anyone else have a fix? 4-mulled units. Two lower mulled first. Two upper (1/2 arch) mulled second. When you then mull the top and bottom together it makes the upper trans both full arch. Disclaimer. Current SSA but still working in 14 as I have never taken the time to upgrade to 15. Dont know if it is fixed there or not. But might be worth my time even if it just fixes that bug. Any body got any ideas? I The work around I have done in the past, is make single arch above and fudge my elev w/ cad line work to make it look like there are two frames. Pics of pre-mull (upper and lower) and post mull result below. Fixed in X15?

One of the methods I have come up with when dealing with finicky wall connections that I want to define intersections that Chief will now allow is to create a very thin wall (often just 1" thick). I can then draw some very intricate, even short return walls to intersect like I want to. The catch is I do a CAD fill box that only shows on my Floor Plan view. I set color of fill to wall color (gray in my case) and remove the line color. On the plan set it look perfect and 3d looks perfect. The thin wall bypasses a lot of min wall lengths that try to 'snap' walls to certain increments. Some may call it a 'work around' but pretty easy to do.

Here is my other work station.

Here is my messy office My son built my keyboards custom for me. (He had me pick the switches that I preferred...nice tactile ones).

Man your work is INCREDIBLE!!!! Just had to say that! Awesome job!

I am in 100% agreement with this. I would never take the time required fiddling with trying to get chief to draw all the roof perfectly in an automatic fashion. This becomes especially true with varying plate heights and offsets. It is quicker to just draw the roofs you want then it is to fiddle with the plan, make invisible walls trying to define 'rooms' to get the roofs to auto gen. I will use auto sometimes to just put a rough start on a a roof, but then I shut off and edit and draw roof planes as needed.

Glen I just used the square window (no casing in or out) and then made 3d solid overlays to 'hide' the part of window I did not want. I then made my sills out of solids and precast casing is a 3d molding poly line. You can see my solid selected in 2nd pic. Did same for interior. Does not look bad. I do my elev in 'line drawings' so I will have to delete the lines created by solids but this was the best way I could think to approach. Just was wondering if I was missing something?

Have current project that needed gothic arched corner free window. I could not figure out how to do normally within chief. Corner windows easy. Goes away as soon as you arch or shape. Am I missing anything? I used some 'work arounds' to do this. Also the keen eye will notice the wood insets cutting the brick veneer. Chief does not like to do this either. Even with material regions, it leaves some of the veneer material at sill and header. This was an easier work-around than window....

I used to 'back in day' when chief came with a printed 2+" manual in the box, sit down from time to time with the manual to explore ways to use the program. It would do me good to continue the habit in the electronic form. I am 'learn by doing' guy and only called tech support one time (back in 1999). I drew a home that exceeded Chiefs ability to move from model to line drawings when sending to layout. I remember when one of the guys from Chief explained that you can use CAD boxes (altered to any shape) along with the "Edit Area" function. This is now part of my 'go to' items I use ALL the time when making revisions. Such a simple little thing that saves SO much time making edits. Some day, I need to make it to one of the user group gathering. I am sure that even after 20 years there are some of the most simple functions I have missed over the years! Thank you @TeaTime for the help!

WOW....how did I miss that one! Now I have to sheepishly ask how long we have had that feature As long as I have been using Chief, I realize there is so much that I dont yet know it can do! THANK YOU!

My ways of doing it would be to elim the 'landing' and replace with a solid at same ht so sections dont recognize it as a connection point and then manually place 2 stair sections in. But I would probably just fudge is and do as below and then use a solid to fill in stringer/riser area of run 1

Hate to ask what might be a 'dumb' question.... I have done work arounds in the past but wondering if I missed something or a better way to do it. Currently running x14 (have not taken time to install X15 yet My basic question is: Is there an easy way to alter individual stair component run styles/properties of a stair composed of multiple sections? Eg: In my specific example, I want the #1 run of stair to NOT be open underneath. Then I want the #2 set to be open riser w/ one center stringer. I am wondering if I missed an easy way to this that may have been introduced in recent years. Thanks

Interesting! I dont ever mess with PS. I have a super old version it from like a decade ago that barely runs on win 11 I brought the DAE of the terrain from SU into Chief so I could add the 3d elements. Roads, structures, prop lines (transposed off surveys)...etc Are you saying there is another workflow that will work? I was tasked with not just making a pretty picture but representing the property in true scale and layout proposed roads, entrances, guard home placement and see what size structure the island itself could accommodate and the client specifically wanted a "120' pool". I would LOVE to learn more about the gradient map import as it seems like a GREAT way of getting backdrop context. My 'lake' is a 'slab' that I had to cut (roughly) around the coves as the GIS info is conflicting and small differences of a few feet VASTLY change the shape of the coves. To get past this I made 'slabs' for the lake and converted to water material in TM. Also the SU gis topo changes accuracy with level of zoom, so I did one zoomed to extents of property itself, and then a larger one (really big) with the entire area. This got a little glitchy meshing them all together to be faithful. LOVE to hear any of your thoughts! Your PS work (and all your work really) is quite stunning. Mine is a little more rough and certainly less polished

You can do some pretty cool stuff w/ chief and TM. I have found the limit recently! You run into glitches with HUGE models in chief. I did several square miles of lake to model this estate plot for a perspective buyer. The lot is only 12ac but I did more than a sq mile to give it context. This is 4 models combined. All DAE files. I used GIS topo draped over aerial imagery in sketchup. Then I brought some of the smaller DAE models into chief and added Chief elements to represent the 20,000 sqft home and how it might be laid out. This is nothing about a home design, but all about showcasing what the land can be. The only problem comes in with LARGE dae files in chief. Once you exceed a certain size and bring them in, you cant attempt to resize them or they will auto shrink to the a default size (smaller). That must be the max that Chief allows. So as long as you dont have to mess with them, you are OK. Lots of 'work arounds' go into doing this, but it gets the job done. It takes some fun work arounds to bring in DAE's into chief and then work to add to them in Chief as you lose reference. The DAE just imports as a large rectangle. To deal with this I imported 'pictures' and used resize and point to point. While putting a 3d solid reference points so I could cross reference in 3d to get everything properly aligned. Not the best renderings, no grass or other things that would really 'pop' but the purpose was to show what the land could become. The sports fields are just for scale. When you get that much land, you need some way of relating to the space. It might seem a little over the top with 3000sqft guard house and 120 foot pool and 20000 sqft home, but that is what the client requested to see if it would fit and how. Given the property is 12mil, I guess that makes sense. Guessing this would end up being a 20-30mil estate if they purchase the land. I like trying to do things that you are not really sure how it can be done. Working with Chief for many years, 'work arounds' just make you better.

Home currently under mold remediation The 'bad' thing about Chief is it will automatically build some roofs that no one in their right mind would ever think to construct in that manner. The funniest part, is the guy does not even point out all the issues he has with water and only is trying to fix cosmetic ones..... My guess is that guy is no longer designing homes.... Or should not be.

In my experience chief generates all kinds of those in vector view. (they dont appear in the standard render) I deal with them in 2 ways. 1- for most exterior elevations, I send to layout as plot lines and then delete the small unwanted lines. 2-for most interior sections, I 'create cad detail from view' and do the same....delete unwanted lines.

Thank you for the well thought out AND informative response. In Twin motion, one does has a decent amount of controls. You have a camera exposure, but you can also play with environmental light and then of course direct sun light. I choose to use all dynamic skies (meaning it is rendering my actual sun and sky for all the light). There are HDRI sky models which if you are a noob, you can get good results faster, but I find to get (my) best images, I want a true dynamic sky. Getting that blue sky is tricky depending on sun positioning. (it is easy with a sky backdrop) Same exact lighting environment in both these pics but different sun orientation to the camera. I just try to get a little better each time I play with this stuff. But I might actually be seeing more a demand for it which is why I am back playing with it. Thanks for you help!

@Doug_N this is where it is actually going. I did a model of the lake island for the builder. I did not use it as the 'back drop' since the builder was not sure what lot he was placing the house one. What I did was really a 'proof of concept', but when I insert it in my actual site model, I think it will really 'pop'. This is the model of the actual lots and cove (also this was in what I consider 'rough' as I did not do grass...etc). But the homes on here were just sample homes I had lying as place holders to see scale. This is GIS data of the entire lake area, converted into a skp file in sketch up with an aerial image overlay. Then brought into chief and converted into a symbol. Then exported as DAE and into TM. I did a little experimentation on how in TM I could improve the look of the imported terrain. There is one still I did. If you look at right hand shore line of fist pic, I have a nice rocky transition that looks a lot better. vid was rendering without RT. Quality will come up to stills...but of course A LOT more detail would need to be added.

I was given a sample vid (of a real social media campaign of an actual home for sale) from realtor to emulate. It will go out on social media. They wanted it less than a minute. I get you, but in todays tic tock/instagram/facebook, even the 56 seconds is long. Instagram used to limit stories to 25 seconds.