Alaskan_Son

You can also do something like this... stairway2 mod.plan

The shelf ceiling has its uses, but in a situation like this, it is very difficult to control. It will automatically hang on 2 or 3 of the surrounding walls but will always frame over at least one wall. I have yet to figure out the program's logic as to which wall(s) it chooses to cut short. Anyway, you can get the walls not to cut short at all by utilizing an extra single layer wall with a very small (maybe .01" thick) Insulation/Air Gap layer. That way the filler wall gets cut short instead of the main wall. This works pretty well much of the time but definitely not all of the time. Depending on your design, I think you'll still find that using the shelf ceiling tool for this type of situation may prove to be more hassle than its worth...

Lance, the object eyedropper DOES "copy" (load) polyline fill information. As I believe Robert rightly pointed out though, you aren't trying to copy fill from a polyline, it looks to me like you are trying to copy fill from a box. I agree though that boxes should work the same way polylines do in this regard.

This^^^ is where I would put my money as well but there could be any number of video card and video card driver related issues as well.

A few ways to do this but one of the best... Add the necessary layers to your ceiling FINISH definition. From the bottom up: -Ceiling finish layer -Framing layer -Insulation / air gap layer Here’s a video I made a little while back. It was made to address a different issue but probably worth a watch anyway...

Post a plan with the symbol in it describing how you would like it modified and I'll see if I can make you a quick video.

You don’t actually HAVE TO do that. You can also go into your Plan Defaults and check “Ignore Casing...”

They aren't all "molding tools". You have the following 3 tools Make Room Polyline: This will create a plain unfilled, unbroken polyline that follows the inside (normal rooms) or outside (exterior room) surface perimeter of the room. These can be used for any number of purposes but are commonly used for things like area calculations, to convert to floor material regions, to convert to other architectural objects or for moldings that ignore openings. Make Living Area Polyline / Make Standard Area Polyline: The name and function of tool varies a bit depending on which type of room is selected. For exterior rooms it is called Make Living Area Polyline and will create a hatch filled polyline that follows the main layer perimeter of all areas set to be included in living area calculations. For normal interior rooms it is called Make Standard Area Polyline and will create a hatch filled polyline that will extend to the exterior main layer surface of exterior walls or to the center of main layer of surrounding walls depending on the Include/Exclude From Total Living Area Calculation status of both the selected room and the adjacent rooms. Again, this tool can be used for any number of purposes but is most commonly used for area calculations. Make Room Molding Polyline: This tool is the only true molding tool of the 3 and will create an unfilled molding polyline that will automatically remove any existing room moldings, place breaks at all openings included at the set molding height, and automatically suppress moldings and the aforementioned openings. Again, this tool can be used for a number of purposes but is typically only used for moldings. Its automatic behaviors don't make it very well suited for much else IMO. Beyond those 3 we also have Expand Room Polyline. This tool will expand the selection area to overflow into adjacent rooms by ignoring all invisible walls and railings. If you click on this tool you will be given the option to create any of the 3 polyline types I went over above but for the new expanded area. Hope that helps.

It actually has nothing to do with the dimension defaults...only the grid snaps. The fractional accuracy displayed in dialog boxes cannot actually be changed as far as I know. If you hold down control to force a line to an off length you should still see the fractional accuracy display to the 128th of an inch...at least for lines. Not all objects can actually be resized to that accuracy though. Take windows for example...you can only resize to 1/16" accuracy and therefore you won't see any denominators beyond 1/16" for those.

-Soffits -Polyline solids -Roof planes All valid options, but you can also use: -Moldings -Ramps -Even a terrain converted to a symbol... If you really want flexibility and accuracy though, I would strongly recommend you get familiar with using SOLIDS and boolean operations (solid intersection, solid union, and solid subtraction).

It actually depends on what kind of object you use for your keynotes and what information you want to display. Some information CAN be automated such as subfloor height, finish floor height, finish ceiling height, room name, floor number, as well as a number of other values provided by Chief’s built in global macros. It’s certainly not automatable to the extent I would like to see but a few things are possible.

Agreed...at least as an option. Like so many other good suggestions, it needs to actually be posted in a usable form in the suggestion forum or sent in to Chief if we want Chief to even consider it. Otherwise, I can pretty well guarantee its never ever gonna happen.

Lots of ways to handle it... You can paint the walls (could be done with "Blend Colors With Materials" toggled off or on depending on the situation). I do this all the time. When I hear people tell new Chiefers "DON'T DO THIS" I think they're doing a disservice. Better to teach people how to use the tools properly than to tell them not to use them at all. You can create a new "Drywall" or "Siding" material for each color you'll be using. This new material can then be applied using paint can, or by changing material in room definition, or by changing material in wall definition, or by changing material in wall type definition...all of which have their upsides and downsides. Again, you can optionally simply paint your material with "Blend" toggled on which will automatically create a new material for you. You can use a Wall Material Region. You can apply a Wall Covering. In the end I don't think there is any right answer. Just learn how the tools work, and then decide what works best for you and your particular situation.

Your problem is in your wall definition. Chief only wraps the outermost layer around the end of your wall. Your outermost layer is 0" thick so that's what you're seeing.

...or toggle the Ceiling Surfaces layer off... ...or use the Cross Section Slider ...or use the Delete Surface tool Kinda depends on exactly what you're after. Floor Overview should probably cover the vast majority of situations for most users though.

Ya, Chief doesn't get its framing material definitions used in the material list from the plan materials and as far as I know there is no way to get the material list to automatically report any custom information for framing objects (unless you specify the material as something other than framing but then you have other problems to contend with). I think the best (and perhaps only) way to change the material definition for framing objects in the material list is just to edit the desired field(s) directly. You can do this pretty quickly by copying the desired material name and then selecting one or more fields and hitting Control+V (paste).

Probably the fastest method at this point... 3D>Materials>Plan Materials. Select the framing material you are using now ("Fir Stud 24" OC", "Fir Framing", "Fir", or whatever it might be), click Edit, and rename to "#2 SYP". Now open your framing schedule and click Okay.

I assume you've already tried sorting out the problem on your client's end? Sounds to me like perhaps one of his print(er) settings just needs to be adjusted.

I think I've posted this tip for you a few times Alan... Click once as usual to start your operation (draw, move, resize, etc.). This can be using any mouse button as necessary. Drag your item outside the drawing window and without letting go of your original mouse button, click once on one of your unused mouse buttons. Let go out of your original mouse button. You can now return to the drawing area and pan and zoom as usual. Just click again to finish the operation. NOTE: During step 2 it is best to click once using either your center mouse wheel or your left mouse button. If you use your right mouse button and you aren't completely outside Chief's window you may get a little popup menu. If you DO get the menu just move your mouse outside the menu box but still outside the drawing area and left click to get rid of it. It might be a bit unusual but if you take a few minutes to get used to it, I think you'll be happy you did.

Here's a video going over some advanced symbol manipulation techniques--in this case, used to model a mitered glass bay window... There are quite a few variations, optional steps, and other ways a person could model this kind of thing, but I wanted to share at least a small number of the tools and techniques that I personally find invaluable for this type of thing. Hopefully some of you guys will be able to appreciate them as much as I do. As always, if you find this or any of my other videos valuable and helpful, please consider sending a small donation my way. A quick thumbs up or reputation point is always appreciated as well : ) Thanks for your support guys.

Like the other guys above have already mentioned, I would encourage you to model that situations like it will be built, but just so you understand what is actually going on... The reason your windows are "filling in" like that is because the walls below are trying to build through to reach the roof above. There's no main layer or floor above to stop them so they just keep going. There are quite a few ways to address this depending on how it will actually be built, but one of the methods is to simply manually drag the lower walls back down in elevation... That may or may not be the best solution for this particular instance but hopefully that at least helps you understand a little better whats happening. There ARE times when we are using an unusual wall definition to model actual real world conditions and so its good to know how and why Chief is doing what its doing so we can force it into submission. There are other methods as well.

Yep. You can use macros. Here's a tool I made specifically for purposes such as this... You can also use this method though without having to use macros...

I would really recommend that people try going through the Tutorial Guide too. In fact, I would suggest that the Tutorial Guid e is probably the single best place to start. The Help files, the knowledge base, various tutorial videos, etc. are all great but that approach inevitably leads to people skipping over important fundamental basics. The Tutorial Guide serves as a very good introduction to all the important concepts each user will need to understand to effectively and efficiently utilize Chief.

By the way, before I forget... Don't try to add any architectural blocks that include distributed objects with CAD blocks to your library. Not only does it not work but you'll likely end up in a never ending loop of errors and you will be forced to close down Chief using Task Manager. I came across this problem a while back but I forgot about it until just recently while testing out a new tool. I'll try to remember and report it when I have a chance. If they if you guys end up trying it and experience the same thing maybe you should report it as well. It would be really nice if we could store these types of things in the user library.

I might be missing something here,but if you want to import the whole plan, why not just save the plan as your Profile Plan? File>Templates>Save As Template.