jcaffee

14 minutes ago, limitless8 said:

splain your reasoning instead of just being plain sarcastic?

Ok.  Technology has a lifecycle.  At best, you plan for that lifecycle based on experience and industry norms.  At worst, your needs are on the bleeding edge and the lifecycle is measured in weeks.

Most CAD and ArcVis technical requirements are safe at 36 months.  Do people get more?  Sure.  Some folks also get way less.  But the concept of technical "future-proof" is something that went out the door in the 70s.  

4 hours ago, limitless8 said:

system that's future-proof

hahahahahahahahahahahaha.  Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to laugh out loud.

CA may need to start publishing checksums with their downloads.

Have you tried turning the computer off and on again?

Draw four walls defining a room--a floor is created.  And seriously, avail yourself of the myriad training materials from Chief Architect.

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/68/floor-plan-basics.html?playlist=138

Great stuff, Rene!

I'm with Mark, find something on Xotic that fits your budget.  If using CA/SketchUp/Lumion is your profession, then use professional tools.

What's your budget?

3 hours ago, ShaneK said:

Solids, polylines and various materials will get you started.

What?  Are you slightly masochistic or do you like to "draw" your plans? 

Panel railing walls--post to ceiling--and roof planes specified correctly is how I do it. (And the occasional Molding Polyline)

Cooling pad is a must for laptop RT.  I use this on an older GT75SX...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZUXXWO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Gee Joe, post the plan.  

I'm with DJP on this.  Get them into position then explode.

My big issue with dormers is the adjacent roof framing is ALWAYS too tight to the interior dormer wall surface by about 1/2 an inch, so bleedthrough in 3D is ALWAYS present.  The fix is WMR or polysolids.  Tedious fixes, to say the least.

Have you tried to restore the system from a Restore Point?  Your IT guy can tell you if one is available.

I created my faux rafters on a 2.25:12 displayed only the elements I wanted to see in Perspective Overview, created a symbol, Redrew the roof planes @5:12, pasted the symbol into position.

https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00492/building-a-clerestory-roof.html

For future reference, the Home Designer product line has a user forum at...  https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com

Ok Limitless, I re-crunched (brought it down under 2MB) and saved in SU 2015.  It should import in X7, X8, or X9 just fine.

Leather_Sofa_CL03__3darch 03.skp

Here you go Limitless, it's still a bit of a beast for CA, but I started to lose geometry going any smaller using MooTools Polygon Cruncher.  I converted to skp out of MooTools, then ran CleanUp in SketchUp 2017.  I did not set texture UVs, so only single color textures will look good.

Leather_Sofa_CL03__3darch.skp

I modeled this onion roof in a separate plan, then copy and paste and point-to-point move into place.  And, it auto framed about 80% correctly.

Rob, it really depends on the intended audience and what I'm trying to "sell".  If it's a <$500 tract home, then I'm not spending much time on the pretty pictures other than some fairly standard camera views.  However, if it's a $65k interior design/decoration for a single room of that same tract home, and I'm trying to sell beyond four walls, then that level of detail will be much greater.

It's truly an issue of know your audience.  Know what they expect from your design and know that you are willing to perform to those expectations for what you're getting paid.

Sorry Mark, I do not have a link, but I may have the video Scott did of my GTM session that turned into a "Let's play with layer blends" 3-hour mess.  (And I had my third major heart attack two days after--don't know that I want to roll the dice on hosting another GTM session)

On 2/21/2017 at 11:57 AM, Francois said:

Do you do this for all your customers?

Just the ones I'm trying to get to "Yes!"

On 2/22/2017 at 2:33 PM, SusanC said:

Can you tell us what technique you used?

SusanC, I started a new thread to describe the technique.  

I didn't want to get off topic on Mark's thread, so here is the quick and dirty of the technique I used to produce the attached image...

Get your camera in position and save it.  Ray trace to suit your needs for clarity, save as a *.tif image (tif is lossless and allows layers in Photoshop).  Render and export a Line Drawing set as Extend 15, Squiggle 30, Amplitude 50 (play with the line setting so it looks "nervous" but not too nervous) using the same camera from ray trace.

Export Line with white background intact.

Open RT and LINE in Photoshop; I use PS CC 2017.  In the RT, unlock and duplicate the main layer>set blend as Multiply 100/100 on the duplicate layer.  Drag Line image into the RT image; align.  Set blend as Overlay 100/45.  Using the Magic Eraser Tool on the LINE Layer, ALT-Select the background color, then randomly erase areas of the LINE image to achieve marker-like strokes and "blocks" of white.

So simple, even I can do it.

Mark, that's just the base price.  Once you build it out, it's a $7000 laptop

Ben, luckily I don't need to do all the file fixing.  The original designer is doing that and then handing off to me to create something similar for a new client.  I ditched all my pl files a couple years ago as they were all exclusive.

So that's where that bread box went.