Alaskan_Son

Here is my second attempt at making crappy videos. Sorry I still have no good microphone set up. I'll try to get on board with that soon. A few notes... -Being that there's no sound...I tried not to use any hotkeys or shortcuts so that you could more easily see what I was doing with my mouse pointer. -I used Richards method of creating a CAD detail from view. Its not necessary to do that step, however I found it easier for snapping purposes. -I didn't spend a lot of time getting everything perfect. Just enough time to give the basic idea. http://screencast.com/t/bwuIwUyCv

Pretty much exactly what I would do as well...solids and Boolean operations.

I believe INTERIORS does as well.

If you could attach a plan, or at the very least...a picture of what you're talking about, that would be helpful. You should also post this over in the "General Q&A" section (instead of here in the "Symbols and Content" section).

Not sure what you did Graham, but the walls you have that show as connected don't seem to match the length or angles (relative to each other) as any of the other walls in the plan. Robert, I can't seem to get the walls in the upper section to connect either. I was however easily able to replace that group of walls with a matching curved exterior wall (as you also mentioned you did). The walls across the bottom however are quite strange... If you break one of the wall connections so that the room is no longer enclosed, the walls will connect properly. As soon as you enclose the room again the strange disconnect shows back up. I also notice that the wall connection on the lower right behaves strangely. The wall coming down from above builds through the perpendicular wall instead of connecting to it. I didn't mess with that particular item very much, but the connection only seemed to work properly if the wall type for the vertical wall is changed. Probably an issue to send in to tech support.

It opens, and there's a plan file in it… There's just no information in the plan file.

Looks like maybe you forgot to close your plan before attaching it.

We don't have a tool like that, however you can get similar results using the tools we DO have. I would personally probably start with the spline tool (its probably all you need), however its definitely not as fast as a "freestyle" tool would be. Importing something from another program would probably be easier, however I think creating it within Chief would be far more useful.

I see a huge dark gray "fill" covering your elevation in the PDF you attached. I see it in my PDF reader/editor before even trying to print anything. It looks like perhaps you have something in your layout causing the problem. Maybe something on page zero? Can you attach the plan and layout that you're using?

Stair tools are actually not quite the same (very similar but not the same), and neither are the snaps and edit handle functions. In this instance they were both able to do the same job, but I agree. Chief is easier. For an extra $2,000 it better be :-)

Pretty good progress for only having used the software for 2 or 3 days!!

Here is my very first shot at making a video. Sorry I don't have a microphone on my desktop so there's no sound. I actually used the trial version of Home Designer Architectural 2016 so it should work the same for you. As far as I've figured, the key is to get your landing correct before you try to build the stairs. The stairs seem to only want to make the wraparound connection once (upon initial construction). If they are disconnected or messed with too much, the connection doesn't seem to be possible. Anyway, its pretty crappy, but here it is... http://screencast.com/t/m2rf0zvrS

Not an ideal solution, but if for whatever reason you need to have BOTH a room fill and a material region, you can place a CAD block of the toilet in the plan, explode it and clean it up so that all you have is a single closed polyline in the shape of the toilet outline...place that new polyline directly over the top of the toilet, select the material region, click on polyline subtraction, and then click on the toilet CAD outline that was just created (you may have to temporarily move the toilet symbol out of the way in order to select it). This will cut the shape of the toilet into the material region.

Open the Material Region DBX...Line Style>Drawing Group>select the Back Group radio button

I'm not actually working today, just surfing the web on my phone from time to time. I'll have to check that out next week. Before then though... All I did was create a landing and then 2 matching sets of stairs (one on each landing edge). The moment I drag the second set of stairs to the corner the stairs automagically connect. Honestly I only tried with a rectangular landing though and didn't try to reshape it (either before or afterward).

Sounds like one for tech support. Just in case, can you attach a plan where you've experienced the problem and mark the object(s) and dimension(s) you are having problems with?

Is it possible you were using the point to point dimension tool?

I'm going to have to learn to make videos. I was able to build with internal stairs with no problems at all.

So...I just downloaded the trial version of the software you're using, and the technique in the article I attached above WILL work for you.

Not sure if this will work for you or not, but here's what I think you're looking for... http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00788/160/Chief-Architect/Stairs/Creating-Mitered-or-Wrap-Around-Stairs.html Please note, this is in the Chief Architect knowledge base and may not work the same with the Home Designer product line. Also, the article is talking about stairs for a deck, but at least in Chief, the same technique works using a landing. I find it easiest to just build the one set of stairs, then copy and paste to the second location and reposition and connect to landing as necessary.

Eric, you may want to post your question over on the HomeTalk forum. This forum is more specific to Chief Architect which has more features and capabilities. We're likely going to have a hard time helping you over here because your version doesn't have all the options we're used to using...Specifically with regard to stairs and customizable landings. I'm sure there's a way if you get creative, bust quickly looking at the tools you have available in the Home Designer product line, I think you may have a bit of difficulty creating that set of stairs using the tool set you have available to you.

I've had the "Unexpected" error several times. I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly it was when I was trying to download older SKP (Sketchup) models and the problem was solved as soon as I switched the model to a different version (SKP 6, SKP 7, SKP 8, etc.). The "malformed" error I DON'T recall having seen before. Maybe one for Tech Support.

I basically created an orthographic floor overview, used the cross section slider, changed the rendering style to line drawing and then sent that view to layout. Then I sent a standard plan view with dimensions to the same layout page, resized and repositioned the line drawing so that it overlapped the normal plan view, and then turned off all layers except dimensions and room labels. I just picked a text style that looked somewhat hand written. It could use some work...One could definitely spend a little more time than I did refining the look (line drawing settings, text and dimensioning, layer settings, etc.) but I think its pretty close to what was requested too.

I agree, the first definitely looks better. It doesn't look like you quite compared apples to apples though. Your second picture doesn't have shadows and the ray trace/renderings don't appear to have the same settings.

That's some beautiful work !!