VisualDandD

Yep....my biggest gripe with stairs is where they have to go from inside to outside of a wall. The winder tool is just WAY too finiky. Sometimes it displays right in 2d and not 3d and at other times the other way around. If you use "landings" to make the transition, they skirt board breaks and does not look right as does the handrail. It is a major pain and getting stairs RIGHT can take way more time than worth. I will often just draw 2d cad to show it if I can get away with it.

I think the above comment is spot on. While some of the "features" may not seem like big deals, heck...program functionality is most important to guys using the software to work daily. Even just the improvement in undo-redo, would be a BIG one for me. While not looking "sexy" on paper, a revamp of internal program optimization would be well worth it even if there were no "flashy" new gizmos. Think about the 1000's of pauses every day we wait on (even with very fast computers). If they start optimizing what they already have, that sounds pretty good to me. I agree on stairs....and am always hopeful. Wish they could be edited like roof planes (to break them and move the treads in and out instead of trying to get the fussy winders to work with invisible walls and room dividers) I am hopeful...and fingers crossed.

I found that if I got the vantage point I wanted (which is putting the camera way back), I could send the vector view to layout UNCHECKING the line scaling box. Then I could enlarge it on the layout page and all the shadows would scale properly with the image on a editable line drawing. For some reason, using the magnifying glass "zoom" tool messes up the shadows on an vector drawing. (have not tried it on others). It appears as if the shadows stay the same size as the image before you "zoom in" and the main part you zoom on, gets bigger with the shadows being left small....(if that makes any sense.)

Love the new shadows on elevations. But since release I have seen them act quirky for me . I could never figure out what caused it. I finally have it figured out (and hope they can fix it as well). I like to send elevations to plans as plot lines and then I change the pattern lines to a lighter shade of grey. This does not exhibit these quirks when you use live views. (but with live views, you cant do the pattern line color changes either)..... So the "problem" comes from how Chief now "zooms". The zoom wheel, used to change field of view. With the launch of 3d mouse support, I believe this changed. Now when you "zoom" the camera just moves in and out. So when making a perspective shot for a cover page, I did not always like the extreme amount of perspective that being so close to the model gave. I would set the camera back further, and realized you could use the manual "zoom" on the tool bar to "zoom in" without changing perspective of the drawing. I imagine this is just "cropping" somehow. Anyway....that is what causes the shadows to map improperly. Finally figured it out. I then went into the camera to see if I could just manually adjust fov and I did not see any options there. I thought I remember there being some in older versions. Anyway....that is where there is a glitch in the shadows. If you just take the camera from far back (and dont "zoom in") and send as plot lines, when you blow it up on the plan, it looks all fuzzy. (but at least shadows are in the right spot). I need to send this one in. See pic. The lower one is a camera taken further back for less perspective distortion and then manually "zoomed" in using magnifying glass icon.

Yes, use annosets. One trick though, is you cant use "Rich text". It wont reformat when you change text style, but normal text does. I have finally started using this and dropped almost all my rich text usage for this reason. (except in certain cases). Make sure you have things set to change "by layer" so you can easily change text styles and get the desired result.

Wish the "old" site was more easily available...... Looks like lots of great info. The only thing more rewarding about drawing stuff, is getting to build it too! Now I building this one.....

Exactly. The answer to the Op would probably have been better stated that your best option would be to have the plans engineered by a licensed PE. They then seal the drawings and no architect required. I have worked with some that do it several ways. Some annotate my plans by hand and I transcribe their notes and then they seal my drawings. Others make their own drawings as "S" pages and seal those and the "A's" require no seal.

Why not try the new user account first? MUCH easier and you can do in 5 minutes. Your issue is not a chief one. It is your PC. As frustrated as you are, misdirecting it to Chief is silly. WHEN you get it fixed, it will be the same version of Chief running just fine on your computer. I've been there. Try the new account first.

Andy I had a similar issue which I thought was tied to the move to X8. Tech support tried very hard to help, but could not track way. I started examining crash reports under the "Event viewer". With some googling, I found that I had a few corrupted files within windows somehow that were causing this. I saw other people with graphical type programs were experiencing similar crashes with similar corrupt files. I tried manually deleting and reloading these files from a command prompt but it was not working.... Faced with the option to have to do a clean install, I thought of something MUCH simpler to try. I created a new user account. Chief was already installed of course so I copied over a few plan files and after a few days, I realized I had no crashes. (and this was coming from 2-3 a day!) So, it was VERY easy to just copy all my "User" directories over and I just killed off the old account. Problem solved and never looked back. Should be something easy for you to try. Worked for me.

Joe Thanks for the tip. It is funny, I have never needed this, and then the other day, I ran into a situation where this detail might be needed in a garage (to elevate the slab enough on a crawl to have only one step). I was not going to fully detail the area, but heck...that is so easy, I think I will. It is a good exercise anyway. Thanks so much for sharing!

Can you send to layout as "plot lines" and then manually delete?

As someone who dabbles in rendering from time to time, I must say your work looks GREAT! Very nice.

I had assumed that you were an individual trying to draw your own home. I know "custom" homes, as that is how I have made my living for the past 20 years. OK....lets just start with basic design. You have bedrooms with almost no bed wall. Unless your clients who want a 5000+ sf home plan on only using twin beds. Or egress requirements....how about that. A 26 50 wont meet basic egress requirements. Your roof looks like you only know how to use an "auto build" function. It is really bad. I dont think you are doing right by someone to accept payment for something like this. I am sorry, but that really looks like something that someone who know almost nothing of design would draw. This may come off as impolite, but I really am blown away. More power to you if that is the "service" you sell. Lots of good trey details though. It looks like you have invested a good bit of time to learn how to model decorative ceilings. That is one compliment I can give you.

WOW....saying that there is a lot of work is an understatement. I am not sure if you are just trying to draw your own home, but I would hate to think of someone putting so much money into this to build where the design is soo.......well, unrefined. You have baths with tubs made all kinds of non standard sizes, wacky crazy dimensions in other rooms. Odd to have a 5000+ sf home with 10' or 11' bedroom dimension. All kinds of windows that dont meet egress Wacky non standard room heights.. Really odd design in many ways....and the roof is, I am sorry, terrible. Really a strange design. Again, tough love. I would hire a designer, or buy a stock plan that is well thought out. You are going to spend quite a bit to build a 5600sf home. I would hate to see anyone build what you have in that file.

You must live in a bubble. LOTS of houses are still stick built. Custom homes are almost all stick built. Most complex roofs are not worth the headache to truss. Sure, they work on paper, but the labor cost to block and infill is not worth it in the long run to have a job that does not come out as nice. Volume ceilings and treys are much more limited in truss homes. Sure, run of the mill boxes that you are going to build the same plan 100 times,...by all means truss. Also done a lot of commercial mixed use (as a framing contractor back in the day). Most plans done by architects (and we are talking big firms and 50,000-80,000 sqft 3story complexes) are very low detail. Just showing a few basic shapes and aprox layout. The actual "detail" is done by the EWP manufacturer. Silly to invest a lot of time into laying out something you cant run the calcs' on anyway, and you are not going to seal.

Andy I tried your method. I was not seeing how you got it to drag across.?.... But, I heard back from tech support.... It was actually importing. The problem was there was some stray text that was making the extents so far back that you could not see the import. It was over 200miles wide with one small text block causing it. I was able to find and open it now. Only question I have now, is does Autocad lock you out of importing some layers. All the borders and title blocks from his layout (which you can see in the viewer) dont import in the file. No big deal in the end as I can get him to send me a PDF for permitting. I really need it to triangulate points for stakes that get taken out during clearing...etc. Just saves me trip charges to restake points at a non critical stage. (eg overdigs...etc)

Yes....should be no problem doing what you are talking about (but it wont make a sloping bottom which will have to be separate. Just create a moulding polyline and add the moldings and adjust horiz and vert offsets and sized.

Here is a thread on pool design I did in chief. I went outside the box a little and created it with roads, terrain and molding poly lines. I attached a plan file so you can see what I did. See if any of this helps you https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/9078-drew-a-pool-in-chief/

Thanks David. Sent into support, but I think I am stuck for the weekend..... I also saw that I could open it with autocad viewer and all info was there, but it did not want to import into chief. None of the versions.....weird.

Hey all. Can anyone see if they can open this file and see in Chief? I have opened tons of survey files from my surveyors but for some reason this wont show anything. I have checked it in Autocad 360 viewer and it shows just fine....but I cant get it to import?... He also sent me a few other exports (a dxf, older versions of autocad....etc) and none of them work. I tried opening old stuff he sent me in the past and it opens just fine. He is gone for the weekend now and I was hoping to do some work over the weekend. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! plot plans.zip

Wow....seems like a lot of work. This is super easy to do with proper roof and wall defs. Took me less than 2 min. Pull back roof, add new roof plane, and lower to create clip. Offset the roof where it cuts wall. Check "Roof cuts wall at bottom" on selected wall. BTW....your roof settings are crazy. -107 or something baseline hts. You are not taking advantage of things that chief will do for you. Master.plan

Very cool! Post is up when you are done. Love to see it. I have a feeling I am going to be doing more and more as well!

I believe we have found someone we are going to begin working with. Was lucky enough to reach out and find another Chief'er not far from us who will be familiar with the way we do things. Cool what a small world it can be sometimes. I wanted to thank all that reached out to respond. Just have to say there are some great guys out there doing terrific work! Thanks again Justin

Hi all. Wanted to thank everyone who has contacted. I have been buried but I do plan on responding to every email. We have not made any decisions as of yet, but I will get back with anyone who responded. Thank you Justin

Hey all. Just a little background. I have been working in Chief since the late 90's. Up until a year ago, I was always self employed. I have built and designed for the last 20 years with extensive field experience. I took a position with a small home builder north of Charlotte NC. Really great people who are honest and have a passion for building the best house they can for their customers. (I dont say that lightly.....as I have never before met and worked with people of this level of character. That is the one thing that interested me in actually working for someone else for the first time in my life). We build aprox 10-12 homes a year all about 4-5 thousand under roof. We are growing, but only will do slowly as we do not want anything to suffer in the interest of just trying to increase volume. (the owner had a 350 home per year operation pre-fallout and wants to focus on staying small and building quality now). I have been handling a lot of things. All design schematics, client guidance, I work with the engineer to appropriately annotate plans...etc. (besides take-offs, and some field supervision...etc). We need someone who is versed in chief to start taking up some of my workload. I know this will be a challenge in some ways, and I plan on setting up good Anno sets to make the process as easy as possible. To start, I would need someone to transpose engineer notes and go through and getting final plans out. I also need some help generating some marketing plans (pretty simple process just not a lot of time for me to do it). This could develop further...as you never really know where things might go. Interested in someone who might be looking for some extra work. It could be a young guy/gal without a lot of experience looking to earn extra money, or a guy with good chief skills who can really pound out some work. We are flexible and open to see what opportunities can fit into our process. We are open to fair hourly rates or just coming up with a negotiated sum per scope. I understand greatly that a power user gets done more in an hour than can a newb in half a day. We are fair minded and open. Since I draw most every day, I know what it takes to get things done and we value peoples time. Must have X8. Open to finding something that works for both parties and open to any future possibilities. As an aside, we live in an area where plans are very simple compared with some areas of the country. Generally 8-10 page sets. Not many sections...mainly floor plans and engineering notes. Engineering notes are easy. Our engineer marks up the plans by hand and we transpose the notes. I'll attach a recent set as an example of the level of detail required. I also attached an example of how our engineer marks up the plans and those need to be transposed to plans. Contact me at Justin@build4g.com Thank you Justin 4G Design Build 16-3-15 4G-TheRiestererRes-Lot643FallsCove(seal3-14-16).pdf 4G-Hill Residence-Lot 243 Pebble Bay (seal12-2-15).pdf 4G-Hill Residence-Engineering Redlines-8-7-15-Fdn.PDF 4G-Hill Residence-Engineering Redlines-8-7-15-first floor.PDF 4G-Hill Residence-Engineering Redlines-8-7-15-roof.PDF