Alaskan_Son

HAHAHHAHHAHHAAAA!!!!

Totally agree. I’ve heard people argue to the contrary that it’s a regional thing, but it’s not. It’s incorrect. It’s just become normalized in some areas. It’s the slow but certain degradation of the language. It started as Tray, it turned into Trey, and now I’m even seeing Trace in some places.

Top setting...Default Sets. The Annotation Set function has remained...just been renamed.

Here's another little detail that must be considered. In order for a Brick Ledge to automatically generate, right or wrong, Chief seems to need a framing layer to tell it where to stop cutting the brick ledge. In the example wall type you posted above, you won't be able to get an auto generated brick ledge at all unless either; A. You force one by using a sneaky wall definition for your Slab Footing walls below (I believe this is what you did and why your dimensions aren't generating like in Eric's example). B. You change the material definition for that Block layer to be a Framing type. C. You set your upper walls to be pony walls and assign a special wall type to your lower wall that exactly matches your upper wall but with a framing layer instead of a block layer. Just set the top of your lower wall to zero (or whatever your floor level is). -For scenario A, you should just have to change the "Dimension To" layer for that particular wall type. Note that this method doesn't actually produce a brick ledge at all but only addresses your plan view concerns. The 3D foundation won't be right and you may have to modify your section views to get them to be what you want. -For scenario B, you should be good to go for purposes of your OP, but you'll have other little issues to deal with if generating Auto Details, material lists, and/or schedules. -For scenario C you should have no problems at all except that you won't be able to use the Pony Wall definition for anything else at that level, and if you have a stepped foundation, you'll have to modify the lower wall top height in an elevation view. Hope that helps.

You shouldn't need to be moving anything to down to the main layer. As Eric pointed out above, it can and should work just fine. Post a quick plan, it's gotta be one of your other settings.

You have an errant wall up on the attic level. Delete in and you should be good to go.

Your problem is not the wall, its that you somehow managed to put 1,024 (one-thousand-twenty-four) doors in that wall instead of just the one that you actually need. Not sure how that happened, but group select and delete those doors from the wall and you should be good to go. I think you owe that wall an apology.

Just so we're on the same page and use the correct terminology so as to not confuse anyone... We still have Active Defaults, those haven't gone anywhere. It's just that Annotations Sets were renamed to Default Sets in X12. That's really what they have always been anyway. Annotation Sets are nothing more than a saved group of Defaults, which, when you switch to them, become your Active Defaults. The naming is just more consistent now.

Ray Tracing is really in art form in my opinion that takes butt-loads of time to master. I could spend all day writing up some of my own personal recommendations...but here are a few of the quick tips I would offer right off the top... Make sure you really need the Ray Trace as PBR may suffice. Ray tracing is more time consuming and although its results can be far more realistic and its capabilities far more robust, its also quite a bit more complex and has a larger learning curve in my experience. When playing around with settings, don't render the whole screen. Under Ray Trace Options, set the size to a small sample area just so you get a feel for what it's going to look like. If its obvious it's going to look bad than you're only out several seconds or maybe a few minutes rather than many minutes or even hours. Don't expect more passes to fix glaring issues. In general, you should see a pretty close example of what it's going to look like be about the 4th pass and 16 passes is typically about as good as its going to get. It will continue to clarify and improve in minute amounts, but IMO, anything beyond about 4 will just be for clarity and anything beyond about 16 will be inconsequential for almost all standard uses. Turn off lights that aren't affecting your scene. This accounts for more extra processing time than anything else (except maybe the image size). Lighting and Material Definitions are key. This subject alone could take all day and I don't really have time to get into it, but maybe someone else will chine in with some pointers. Don't undervalue post processing. Sometimes a dark scene can be all but completely fixed by simply using the Adjust Image Properties tool or by editing in an outside photo editor. Remember that a good, realistic render starts with the model itself. Sometimes the difference between a great scene and a mediocre disappointment has nothing to do with the rendering quality and everything to do with the time and detail put into the model itself and how its set up. Take time to add the realistic elements and little details, and decorate the room as necessary. Throwing a cabinet and a tub in a bathroom will look like crap even if you took an actual professional grade photo and tried to pass it off as a ray trace. Same bathroom with an appropriately selected high quality tub symbol, detailed tile work, moldings, a well thought out vanity cabinet, light fixtures, outlets, switches, bath hardware, etc. will make all the difference. Add some time creating cabinets, countertops, and moldings with slightly eased edges (a tip I gleaned from @Renerabbitt a while back...thanks buddy ), etc. etc. and you go from mediocre to pretty good. Next step, master that lighting and those material definitions and you just might move into great. P.S. Your video card doesn't do anything with Ray Tracing. That's all done with your main CPU.

If you just migrated all your old files and settings, then you likely don't have it at all. Easiest way to get them is probably to simply rename the Templates Folder in your Chief Architect Premier X11 Data folder. Next time you open Chief it should automatically install the template folder that shipped with the program.

I haven't seen any example where the behavior sticks when the redundant copy is moved or deleted.

Not an error on your part. Just a weird bug. Not sure it's worth discussing though because it's really a non-issue. As soon as you move the redundant copy, the behavior goes away. You might want to report to tech support though.

Also uses less material so it’s less wasteful and they almost always look a lot nicer since they don’t have unnecessary seams. Having cabinet shop build groups of potentially separate cabinets into single units also allows for a lot of configurations that would otherwise be super inefficient or even impossible. It’s something we’ve done a lot.

Curious. Did you just stop there or did you check any of the other files? For example, did you click on the link in that file the directs you to “Saved and Unsaved Plan Views”?

The main goal (at least the challenge I was personally trying to help solve) was to get a SINGLE cabinet for material lists and schedules (something that a block somewhat solves), and to get 2 sinks that BOTH show in schedule images and that BOTH carry with the unit when it’s added to the library (something that the block also solves). The block has various problems and the double sink symbol method also has various problems, but they solve the challenge that was posed by NateGeno (not the OP).

You are correct in that the need for such a tool is much lower with wall than it is with CAD and that's it's tough to come up with a relevant scenario when put on the spot, but I can assure you that I've run into many situations where I wish I had trim and extend for walls. Here are just a few scenarios and reasons though... Reason: It can be a whole lot easier to Extend a wall with a single click or by dragging out a quick fence than it can be to zero in on and grab the end edit handle. Reason: It can be much less error prone to click or use fence to extend a wall where multiple potential connection points exist. This can be particularly true of larger, busier plans, or when working on plans with off angle walls. Reason: It gives us a quick, fluid, and dependable way of working with angle snaps turned off. Reason: In order to use CAD and walls in conjunction with each other for trimming and extending the other. Scenario: Drawing double walls, furring walls, other multi-walls, etc. Scenario: Drawing large grids of rooms. This is something that's actually come up many times in my own personal experience. Scenario: Drawing walls for non standard purposes or non living space type reasons. Various fence, retaining wall, decorative wall, a no room definition wall scenarios come to mind...again especially when working on large busy plans, when working with a lot of angles, or when working with no room def walls that overlap regular walls. Scenario: Group select and change thickness of walls and lose all the connections. This one I have had had come up many times and its always a huge pain to go back and fix all those connections. Having the extend tool available could make this a lot easier many times. Scenario: Adding a quick bump-out or multiple bump-outs by simply drawing the bump-out(s) and then using Trim to remove the unwanted wall segment. I’m sure there are plenty others, but point is, for me, they definitely arise from time to time.

Same exact reason we use it for CAD. For productivity.

That’s a funny statement. Did you read somewhere that it SHOULD show up? And just FYI, you won’t find it stated anywhere that wall’s can’t be converted to elevation lines either, but do we really need Chief to tell us everything that a tool CAN’T do? By the way, all snarkiness aside, I totally agree with you. Walls SHOULD have this capability IMO and I’ve suggested the same thing myself in the past... In the meantime, the closest thing we have for walls is the Connect Walls tool.

Ya, I tried (apparently in vain) to point that out multiple times and in pretty extensive detail in my posts above. There are Header Label Defaults and Header Labels for individual doors and windows. There is a Default checkbox in both of those dialogs but they do 2 totally different things. At the Default level, it seems to do nothing other than tell Chief to use the built in Header Label Defaults. At the individual object level it tells Chief to use the Header Label Defaults. Again, currently the only way to disconnect the individual door and window headers from those Header Label Defaults is to group select them and uncheck the Default checkbox. Like I said, I told Chief early on that this was confusing and I might be missing something, but the more I think about it, the more I think that the Default checkbox at the Default level is not only confusing but just plain unnecessary. I’m guessing they just haven’t heard from very many other users on the matter. To be honest, I don’t use those header labels for a whole slew of other reasons including... -No height attribute -No way to move the label and leave auto framing toggled on -No way to pull other vital information from the Parent Object (individual Window or Door) forcing us to modify 2 labels instead of just one (change window to “(N)” and then change header to “(N)” for example). ...so, like Joe mentioned—still just using custom window and door labels for all of it.

Ya, I totally get it. Just not too common in my experience. There are other ways to show old vs. new too. Did you try the pony wall method I mentioned to see if that might work for you? I’m kinda curious if it has any other downsides in an average practical application (assumes of course you don’t need to set the wall as a pony wall for other reasons but that would typically be pretty rare for a mono slab in my experience).

Honestly never had to do this before (thus the reason for the reason for the somewhat uncertain nature of some of my responses) and my memory may be failing me, but I don’t actually recall having seen it in anyone else’s plans before either. I think Chief just set it up so that it works for the vast majority of users since typically a person wouldn’t want to see if fill. I wouldn’t be opposed to something like a Show Wall Fill In This View toggle though.

Yet another advantage that wasn’t mentioned and that remains in the shadows and largely forgotten it unknown is the ability to display pony walls differently in different Plan Views. This in and of itself is reason enough to use Plan Views for many plans IMO.

Was just chillin' here and it occurred to me that in addition to these and Glenn's extra idea there's also one more option that doesn't actually seem to have any downsides to speak of. At least none that I can think of off the top... Leave the desired walls as slab footings, leave the room as a Mono slab, but change the wall to a Pony Wall. Set the upper wall to be a copy of the Lower wall, but change the material to a copy of the Concrete material with a non-concrete material definition. Chief needs a concrete material to define the mono slab properly but it only hides walls that are defined as concrete...

I just stopped back into the office for a moment and it looks like there's essentially only 2 ways to force those walls to display as solid if you're using them to define a monolithic slab and they both come at a cost... 1. Uncheck Foundation Wall. This would require that none of the walls defining your mono slab area be set to a Foundation Wall though, and they would all get their footing definition from the Default Slab Footing Wall definition. 2. You change the room definition to remove the Monolithic Slab designation. You would lose your beveled footing shape though. and would have to join your auto fills in section views to get one solid slab/footing (you could add the beveled shape when you do this though.) There may be other ways and there may be other downsides to those 2 methods, but I think that's about it. P.S. You could also just add the fills with CAD.

Yes. It’s because you’re working with a monolithic slab and are using the Slab Footing tool. That’s how it works. Away from my computer now, but it feels like there’s a way to force what you want. I don’t recall for sure, but when the walls close up to form the slab, did they change to invisible walls? If so, try changing them back to visible and see what that does. Either that or maybe play with the settings on the foundation tab. I think for example that changing from a Monolithic Slab will also fix your problem but you’ll lose the angled footing edge.