Alaskan_Son

Its actually pretty easy to do this... Open your roof or ceiling plane, check Pitch In Degrees, and copy that angle. Create an Orthographic Full Overview. Use the 3D>View Direction tools in 3D or the Make Parallel/Perpendicular tool in Plan View to orient the camera so that it is perpendicular with the desired roof or ceiling plane. Open the Camera in Plan View or click the Edit Active View tool in 3D and paste the roof/ceiling plane angle into the Tilt Angle field. Use the Delete Surface tool to delete surfaces until you can see the profile of your ceiling surface. Create a CAD Detail From View Draw the desired molding outline in that CAD Detail using your ceiling plane shape. Cut that closed polyline, paste into a plan view Convert To>Molding Polyline and apply the desired molding Convert Selected To Symbol and using Advanced Options... Rotate the symbol along the appropriate axis (likely the X axis) to the roof/ceiling plane angle Place the object into your plan and reposition in plan view and section view as necessary so it attaches to your ceiling as desired. NOTE: You can also forgo changing the angle of the symbol and use the flush mounted option as Dermot suggested. It has some of its own quirks to contend with though and I find you still need to go through basically the same steps to reposition it in section anyway. It does however stay attached to the ceiling which is a plus if you decide to move your ceiling up or down.

This can actually be done pretty quickly with Chief for quick renderings... 1. Find or create a texture with an appropriate grain pattern that is large enough to cover the door and drawer fronts of your entire unit. 2. Paint your cabinet boxes with the appropriate material and paint the door and drawer fronts with a different material (any material should do, it just needs to be different) 3. Group select the desired cabinets and Convert Selected To Symbol 4. Delete those cabinets (assume this is done in a separate Save As version of the plan) 5. Drop that new symbol into your plan to replace the deleted cabinets 6. Paint the desired material onto the door and drawer fronts 7. Define the material as NOT Stretch To Fit, set the appropriate scale (needs to be large enough to cover the unit), and check Global Symbol Mapping 8. Inspect in 3D and then adjust Horizontal and/or Vertical Offsets(s) as necessary

They are faster, a little easier, and offer near instantaneous feedback. They’re definitely not higher quality though. They simply cannot depict lighting and shadows nearly as realistically as ray traces and there’s nothing even the most advanced user can do to fully remedy those limitations. Control over said lighting and shadows is also a lot more limited in those PBRs. There’s a lot that could be said on this topic, but the most glaring issues to me are the way PBRs basically handle lighting as an aggregate differential, the lack of effective soft shadows and ambient occlusion, the jumpy way it handles reflections depending on the camera angle, and it’s lack of proper reflective glass behavior. Now don’t get me wrong. Ray traces have their issues too, and PBRs certainly have their strengths and can be a totally useful and effective tool. I wouldn’t call them as good or better though.

I think multiple cabinets and manually placed moldings where necessary are your best bet for most of that. For the manually positioned moldings here's a little trick to throw into your toolbox in case you don't have it...

Custom door and drawer front symbols if you want my advice. Probably best to simply build from scratch and set up so that the main symbol and the crevices use 2 different materials. I just picked a random door style to demonstrate the basics, but here's an example. Its an X12 library object that includes an Architectural block (so you can see how I built it), and the finished door symbol itself. Again, it's very basic and there are a million little ways the modeling and materials can be done and improved, but hopefully gets the idea across. Pay attention to the stacked molding profile in particular... Simple Glazed Door Examples.calibz

Patterns live in the library now and are handled as .CALIBZ files. File>Import>Patterns is how you can import .PAT files though.

Yes. In that case it would and should work just fine. No reason not to. When there's only one ceiling height to use, of course the software will get it right. In this scenario though, there are 2 ceilings as well as the open to below area. Remove any one of those variables and and you make it clear as to what's supposed to happen. The stairs just add even a fourth layer of complication though. At any rate, here's another fix using some very strategically placed room dividers and some very specific room definitions...The main key is a very very small room in that open to below area (expanded for clarity in this screenshot)... Stair Area Fix 3.plan ...I basically just thought to myself..."How can I make it clear to Chief that I need a lowered ceiling and a lowered wall in this area?"

Just a quick side note here, but the originally posted plan was far from complete. I typically wouldn’t invest too much time in forcing changes till the plan was a little further along. Sometimes with the completion of various aspects of the plan, these problems end up fixing themselves. Plus, you don’t want to spend a bunch of time perfecting a solution only t adjust it an hour later once you realize the second floor was t quite right.

Yes. That's exactly what I was saying. Chief doesn't know what to do with that area. Like I said, it's in a sort of no-man's land. Does it belong to the stairwell/open to below area? The lower ceiling area? The higher ceiling area? I don't expect you to answer. As builders and designers we might know exactly what we want to do with it, but I can certainly see why the software would be confused and ultimately just have to make a decision one way or another. If it dropped that wall to be part of the lower area, I can gurantee you that behavior is going to cause problems in another plan with a different layout. Not sure I follow. What are you using as you basis for "normally". How would that section normally not be a problem. Have you modeled this exact scenario before and not had this issue?

Post the plan for a more accurate answer, but the short of it is that you DO have control over most of that. Those automatic fills are created based on your various object settings. Click on Help or hit F1 and search Auto Detail but here are a few quick examples of where your settings are coming from... -For your roof/ceiling planes you won;t get insulation unless you check this setting... -For insulation in walls... -And in the absence of insulation, walls get their auto fills from these settings... Like I said though, use the Help files to your advantage. It's all spelled out pretty well in there.

I'm talking about this red section of wall that really seems to be the source of most of the problems. And the stairs themselves add even more complication to the matter. There's just a lot going on there.

Not so sure I can totally agree with this. I can definitely see why this scenario confuses the program. That little section of wall is kinda in no mans land on multiple levels (stairs, 1st floor room definitions, 2nd floor room definitions, and that open to below room).

This is definitely a weird one. When I run into stuff like this, I'll mess with some of the various tricks to make walls and room definitions work for a little bit, but if I can't force Chief into submission, I'll typically resort to just modeling it manually using any number of methods. In this case: 1. Change ceiling material for that lower ceiling to a Gap material type. 2. Create Room Polyline, convert to a Polyline Solid, reshape as necessary to get the desired ceiling, and set to match ceiling height, thickness, and desired material. 3. Draw a polyline solid in elevation view to create that upper wall section. I used a CAD Detail From View to get the snaps exact. 4. Create Room molding polylines for both rooms (for the crown) and adjust as necessary. Looks like I forgot crown on the end of the problem wall area BTW. Maybe not the most ideal solution, but it really only took a few minutes. A lot faster than the time it takes to futz around with settings sometimes... Stair Area Fix.plan

I mostly concur. Totally depends on the project and the nature/extent of the addition. As a builder, one thing I’m hyper-aware of is that the more information I provide, the higher the possibility that we’ll raise extra concerns. I like to provide as little information as possible to get the job done properly. Extra information typically only invites unnecessary complications.

You should be able to simply use the auto generated Story Pole dimension and drag off a new segment using the diamond handle too BTW. There does however seem to be a bug preventing this behavior when the original Story Pole being edited was automatically created with only 2 markers that have no height disparity. When that happens, that particular string will never behave properly. It only allows segments to be added that are higher than the original. Any attempt to add lower segments just pushes the whole string up by the distance you are attempting to go down. In addition, the dialing box acts as if though it’s a standard dimension string and some of the options are missing (Marker options in particular).

What exactly would this Auto setting use if... 1. Your lot is sloped 2. You are referencing sea level or some other elevation reference with your terrain elevation data. Are you suggesting that it would just automatically match the Subfloor Height Above Terrain Setting? If so, I suppose I would have no objection. It would be handy for simple flat lot drawings for sure.

I personally won’t likely report this because I don’t care enough, but I’m case you want to add the notes to your report... -The window Lites Across and Lites Vertical (a similar type of data entry with the up/down arrows works fine. -In the Shading Contrast field, notice how the percentage sign is added when you click Okay. You can just see it before the dialog closes. So I t looks like the program is executing the setting...it just doesn’t stick. Similar with the Scale. If you enter a decimal value without the leading zero or a whole number without the trailing zero, the decimals and zeroes are added when clicking Okay as if the program is doing the right thing. Again though, it just doesn’t carry through.

The issue in X12 only seems to be affecting numerical entry fields with the little up-and-down arrows.

I get it. I'm just suggesting that it's good practice whether its written anywhere or not. And by the way, they do touch on the behavior and recommend it in a number of places in the Help files and in the Tutorial Guide.

Just as a side note, but there is still a good reason to hit tab or click on something else in the given examples. The preview window won't update until you do.

Just got back to my computer and tested this out. I agree. It looks like a bug. And I confirmed that it didn't behave that way in X11. Again, it's not something I would have personally noticed because I tend to always hit tab. I'm not saying that to suggest it should be required, just to point out why its easy to overlook issues like this. Hopefully you reported it if you want to see it fixed.

Yes. Don’t use the Auto Story Pole tool. Just use a normal dimension tool, click on the Extensions/Markers tab, and select Draw Elevation Marker. You can then drag out Elevation Markers wherever you want including at custom locations and label them as desired.

Hitting tab does a few things. It forces the operation to get executed which helps immediately bring attention to any errors. That execution also carries out any calculations that were placed into that field...again helping you to catch any errors, and it updates the entire dialog to accommodate any changes in that particular field...yet again giving you a chance to catch any errors. Simply clicking Okay or hitting enter can subvert all of that. You don’t know if you’ve messed something up or incorrectly entered anything until you noticed unexpected results at some later time.

I think it was set up to work that way to give us options. A couple quick examples: - Say you imported all your elevation data for a house in the mountains using sea level datum. You don’t want to have to change all the elevation data just to get your Story Pole working correctly. - Say your building department decides that they want to see heights referenced from flood plane but you originally drew it up as heights from grade. There are a lot more reasons, but those basic examples should get the point across. In addition, don’t forget the complexities involved when drawing a complicated sloped or hilly lot. You don’t want to have to perfectly position your terrain zero height just to get your desired story pole results. That would be a nightmare.

What are those things in real life. Is it possible that they’re really ceilings (hint hint)? Try using the ceiling plane tool as another option. If you do, I think you’ll likely be better off UNCHECKING Use Room Ceiling Finish. Having said that, even in X12, I would prolee just use polyline solids myself .