Chopsaw

Just a further thought.. When printing vector views in black and white for elevations etc. You will find that the default mortar joint colour is almost white for red brick 5 ( that I had a problem with ) and your red brick 4 that is only a little darker. So you will find when printing in B&W that you will see a blank wall unless you darken the mortar joint (Lines:) enough that they show up depending on resolution and printer settings. My experience was that the mortar joints would show on screen, and print preview, as well as in PDF, and then disappear when printed on paper.

Thanks Michael, You just isolated the problem for me so I could solve this one. If there is a change when you rotate the plan, then it is a lighting issue, or more specifically a Material Definition Problem. I have never run across this one before but if you adjust your "Shading Contrast:" to 50% then I think you will like the results. I wonder how many more years I can keep going on learning something new in Chief every day?

Your plan looks great in Standard view but your same problem is showing up in Vector view. I tried swapping out the pattern file but no luck there. None or the other tools in my limited tool box worked either. Is it the colour or the pattern that is most important to display? You might want to send this one in for tech support on Monday or maybe someone more knowledgeable will take a look. Best of luck and I would be interested to know how this one gets resolved.

Another approach that I was taught about notes is to keep them all on your layout pages. This keeps your drawings cleaner when editing. Also avoids the need to use extra layers for each view which can get confusing on a big job. If you want to try this just remember to always Send to layout as "Current Screen" this allows you to adjust your layout box borders,if necessary,without messing up your text and Leader Lines. If you want to have some notes appear on multiple views you could leave them on your drawings. Just something to try.

Could you please explain how you were able to make the camera continue down the stairs at the end of my posted walkthrough.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post David, Chief has been working on my inquiry since the middle of February and they still do not have an answer for me. Yes perhaps they do not understand my problem as I am not so sure you do. I have downloaded and am testing in a CA sample plan to eliminate the possibility of a design deficiency. The walkthrough that I posted is a tour going in the front door and going up the stairs and around the second floor. The camera is stuck at the top of the stairs where I would like to go down and finish the tour of the rest of the main floor. So my problem is I cannot make the camera descend the stairway to continue the tour.

Not sure if this is the only way but try this if you are stuck. Select your roof plane in cross section and open it to check pitch in degrees under general tab then select upper edge of polyline, open and go to selected line and set angel from roof plane the same for your polyline solid. Should make it parallel. Hope this is what you need. Parallel tool does not work for me in X8. I assume that you tried that first. Just attaching a screen shot now not sure how it works first timer. is this anything like what you are trying to do?

Posting your plan will get you an answer from an expert but I think the callout reads what you have inputted into the Label: box of your Layout Page Information dialogue box. So that may not correspond to the actual page number. To check this open your layout and go to Project Browser (between Library Browser and Active Layer Display Options) select Pages under your layout file and got to Page 3 and right click and select Edit Page Information... (Label) If I remember correctly, if this is not filled out, you get nothing on the second line. Hope this helps.

I am still rather new to this but I think I have experienced that issue before and hate staying up all night. So if your sidewalk top is sitting at 0" on your Terrain Perimeter and the subfloor of you building is 12" above that then you need to go to Terrain Specification right beside your select objects tool when you are in Terrain Configuration Mode and under the general tab adjust your "Subfloor Height Above Terrain:" to 0" or a little more so the door clears your doormat. Best of luck with your presentation tomorrow.

Hi There, I am currently working on a video walkthrough tour of a four level building that has the Chief developers stumped as to why the camera will not consistently go up and down the four sets of stairs in my plan. So I thought it might be a problem with my plan and while I am waiting for an answer back from Chief I have downloaded the X8 Modern Bungalow plan as used in training video #10033: https://video.chiefarchitect.com/?search=10033 and, sure enough,the same problems are occurring there. I was able to get the camera to climb the stairs as described in the video but no luck going down. If there is anyone who has mastered this move, I would love to hear from you. Not too worried about the details as I know how to shoot a single level video, just need to get downstairs again. Please see failed attempt in attached Plan. X8 Modern Bungalow walkthrough test.zip

I am currently using a User Defined macro for my header in layout, it is written as t = Time.new.strftime("%B %d, %Y") and displays as February 26, 2016 a format that I am happy with but would like to have control of when it updates. If it could be updated with a couple of clicks when I choose rather than every time the file is opened that would be great. I assume that my idea of a "Print date macro" would have to be written right into the program, possibly X9. I am currently using X7 ( just for a few more days ) so I assume that the printed date macro you are talking about for layout is a Global macro where there are only two choices %date.long% which displays as Friday, February 26, 2016 and %date.short% which displays 2/26/2016. I believe that both of these also update every time the file is opened, no choices. Many thanks for taking the time to help me out.

I am rather new to this but I was wondering if anyone has or knows how to write a "Semi-Automatic Date Macro" that updates only when the text box is opened rather than every time the file is opened? I noticed that X8 now has features that update when printed so this would also be a practical solution for a "Print Date Macro". The issue I am trying to avoid is putting a new date on an archived file when it is opened only for reference. Any help or suggestions on this problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.