Alaskan_Son

Lew, I have no doubt the method you described would work and I don't believe it would be too difficult to accomplish. I just think it would miss the target by a mile. You would still have 4 different plans to manually modify and sync. I guess it's not a bad idea and it might serve a purpose, but its nothing like the "phase" idea. The key to making any good, usable "phase" system would be to be able to place ONLY the new objects being modified and have the connections work correctly for all options.

Just figured this out. In your Window Schedule defaults, you have to check "Include Type" in the label tab for the type to display in the labels (whether or not a schedule is even dropped into the plan). And it works the same way for other schedules. I think what must happen is that when we check that box the additional macro is added to the automatic label for that particular object type.

You bet.

Johnny and Boxon, you have to Convert Curve to Polyline AND THEN Convert Polyline to 3D Molding. If you've started with a 3D Molding Polyline you'll have to convert that back to a plain polyline first.

You can also just specify each one of those segments as a Blank Segment (Segments tab of the dimension dbx).

1,000 words...

Click on that little "Number Style" button in the lower left hand corner of the dbx.

I'm not at my computer and I don't use window schedules much so I'm not sure about this, but if you drop a window schedule into the plan, open the schedule, and click on the label tab is there a checkbox for "include type"?

Click on the door or window. Down in the edit toolbar is a tool called Components. Enter comments in the comment field for the door or window in that dbx.

Painting walls works a little differently in X8 than it used to, but depending on which mode you are in if you use the spray can it can change the material for all the walls in that particular room. When it does that, it does not change the actual wall material...only what you see in 3-D. That material change is recorded in the room definition and not the wall definition.

Wall materials are a little unique in that they can be controlled by EITHER the wall definition or the room definition... but not both. Not at my computer to verify exactly where it is, but if you open the room dialog box, click on the material tab, and then double-click the material you want to change you should have an option down near the bottom that says "use default material" or something like that. Check that box.

I would welcome a feature like that as well, but I think its a whole lot easier said than done. Because of Chief's room based modelling approach and because of the way walls, floors, and roofs make automatic connections, I'm thinking multiple walls would be next to impossible...which is probably the reason we're currently limited to having only 2 walls occupy the same space (1 normal and 1 no room definition)...even with just those 2 we run into connection issues. Any more than that and how is Chief supposed to know how to make any of those connections? Like anything there would also be unexpected costs and consequences . We would either have to start manually setting each and every wall, floor, and roof connection parameter, or the program would become slower and more complicated, or it would get more expensive, or likely a bit of all 3...before you know it we have Revit. If that's what you want, go buy Revit. Would the feature be cool? Maybe. Would it be worth it? Probably not. Just my opinion.

Two things I'd like to say here. Number one, just because we hear a request often doesn't make it realistically feasible. Chief's room based system works differently than many other design programs. I think it may simultaneously be one if its biggest strengths and its biggest weaknesses. I believe most everything and everybody that is really good at anything is going to have this same problem. Number two, just because you see another program do something doesn't make what we're doing in Chief a "workaround". That's simply ridiculous.

Yep. That's what I was talking about.

Turning off ceiling break lines didn't actually fix anything. It just hid your problem so you can no longer see it in plan view. I only took a quick look, but truth is that I don't see any "glitches". As Johnny suggested you just don't have a super clean model is all. I'm not sure where to start as I'm obviously not very familiar with your project, but you have some discrepancies between your roof heights, your ceiling heights, your roof structure settings, your soffit settings, your roof overhangs, and/or your deck wall settings...maybe all the above...and maybe even more than that. All the issues can be fixed by changing the correct settings though.

No no no. This idea is not that crazy. I don't feel the need to use it for very many things, but for a handful of items like light fixtures the library is just a huge hassle to search through. Only a couple clicks to open a light fixture plan and create an overview where you could quickly and easily see all the various options and compare/contrast.

Wow Johnny. That is a super cool idea in my book. The mask most people use could become the CAD block for the symbol. I see no reason why that wouldn't work. You could even make symbols for various components or layers. Not sure I would personally ever use the idea but very creative thinking nonetheless and could potentially result in some pretty stinkin cool presentations.

Check your ROOM's material settings. Make sure it's set to use default material.

Build your terrain, make the skirt taller and place your cameras outside the terrian. Or, use a CAD mask.

This sounds like a very interesting plan. I'm curious to see who cares enough to participate. I'm liking the warehouse plan idea though. Very cool idea.

As long as you are actually moving the LABEL and not the symbol, the label should move independently for the various camera views. I definitely agree that using the automated schedule method for elevation notes is a bit more difficult. Not bad at all if you can get used to the process but nowhere near as easy as using the system for notes in plan view.

Although our suggested methods are similar, my opinion differs from Joey's in that I don't think there is any problem at all using Chief for remodels.

There have been countless threads on this subject. Search "demolition" or "as built mask" and you'll probably come up with several. Don't have a lot of time to get into it right now, but three quick notes... 1. Using layers for this sort of thing in Chief doesn't work very well IMO and you can only have two walls occupy the same space at any given time. The key to getting this method to sort of work is to set one of the walls to "no room definition". 2. What most people do is draw up the as built, use that to create a CAD mask, and then overlay that mask onto the proposed plan to represent demolition walls. 3. What I personally do is draw up the as built, do a save as, use that to draw up the demolition plan, do another save as, then use that to draw up the proposed. I just send views from all three plans to layout as necessary.

Here's my method Scott, and you'll have to bear with me a bit... I leave them in the folders Chief provided.

Here you go. Took a few minutes to make a quick video...