GeneDavis

Perry, can we presume you scale your other text to the 4" for 1/4"? You have me thinking of redoing my text sizes, which are presently scaled from 4-1/2" and not 4". For others reading, I'll do the math for you. My text for 1/4" = 1'0" is 0.094" high, and Perry's is 0.083". I'll do some layout work using the P method and see how I like it.

If you are going for 3D realism, which I guess you are, try using an array of material regions all 8x10, each with your image as texture. Do a whole array of them on the floor, spaced as they will be, sitting just proud of the floor surface it cuts, the floor surface being your grout surface. You won't spend as much time as the tile setter, but almost, 'cause you will need to figure out what to do for the inevitable edge cuts. Your photo shows light reflecting in an area. If you are being paid by the hour to do a totally photorealistic render, you might want to consider photographing a dozen of the tiles in a studio setting, so as to get totally flat lighting on them, and use all twelve to create that many different textures, so you can try to randomize. Just like what the tile setter will do. I hang out at the Sketchucation website to see in the Gallery section what some of the pros are able to get with render realism. Here is a thread where a guy put a week into a kitchen render that has photorealism going on in the floor tile part. http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=59221&p=538811&hilit=tile+floor#p538811

Chief's door tools have improved, but still lack detail and options when it comes to the sill/threshold. Same for windows, BTW. You'll probably be happiest with the look by setting the elevation base as from finished floor, and then using a bottom offset of 3/4". It looks more like actual build condition then. No, you can't get a sloped threshold. You cannot get an anodized aluminum threshold. You cannot get an adjustable-height oak piece under the door. You cannot get a door sweep gasket. You cannot get weatherstripping in the jambs. The Rolling Stones said it best. You can't always get what you want. But you get what you need. Amazingly, fine homes are getting built everywhere using Chief-drawn construction documents.

Close file, zip, and attach. Or save to Dropbox and give us the DB link.

You've tried to "draw" one? Manually? There is no auto-frame function that does trusses, roof or floor.

It's everything that's long. Subfascia, rims, mudsills, ridgeboards, maybe more. Much easier to think it all through, identify it, and recompute it to the number of sixteen foot lengths required. The material list is just a rough guide. Export it to a spreadsheet and get busy editing. And when you are all done with that, be sure to include enough 2x4 lengths for all the wall bracing the crew is going to need, plus the truss bracing, all the miscellaneous blocking, temporary scaffolding, and more, that goes into a framing job.

After seeing what happens when you pull the roof edges away from the walls, edit them back exactly to the outermost surface, which is the outside face of your siding layer. Not how you build a roof for real, but it is what you need to do in Chief with roofs abutting walls.

I've been fiddling and not getting anything that looks real when raytracing. A simple fixed shower panel in a standard little 5x8 bath. Tried tempered, tried plain glass. Tempered gives me the ability to modify transparency, reflectivity, etc. Anybody want to share their material and settings so the render looks real?

Too complicated to do the to-code thing with Chief stairs only. I'd draw the three kites as landings, and then spring up from there.

You can make a symbol of the numbers readily, using Sketchup's 3D characters, then import as an electrical symbol into Chief. I used a point light spaced out maybe 8 inches away and dialed it way down in intensity to do this raytrace.

I tried and failed and moved on, but here was the goal. A simple 8-foot deep foundation with a 4" slab floor sitting atop the 16" wide x 8" deep footings. A plain studwall right down the center, sitting on the slab, the slab thickened under the wall, 4" more thickness, 16" wide. Chief X8 kept trying to convert my footing-slab arrangement to a monopour thing. I could get a footing UNDER the slab where the wall went, but I could not thicken the slab and leave it otherwise unaffected, that is, being a separate pour from footings, and sitting atop them.

Doodled this up in Sketchup and uploaded to the 3D Warehouse. It is modeled to scale after the Duravent model 46DVA, which is sold in aluminum, copper, and stainess steel. Search for "termination cap sconce" and you'll see it. Enjoy!

Chief has the OOB margins set for 1" all around, and this works OK for me for 1/4" scale. I've proportionalized the margins for the larger detailing scales of 1/2", 3/4", 1", 1-1/2", and 3". I go for all anno text height at 3/32" on layout. Titles are bigger. I use the text box corners for aligning text when doing detailing and annotation, and this seems to be OK spacing. What works for you?

I cut the door schedule and the window schedule from the first floor plan view and then pasted them into a CAD detail window. No jumps since. This plan has problems. They may be the result of me using material regions to do gable-end board and batten detailing. It is the only part of the modeling that did not go well, and I suspect it has something to do with the schedule blowouts. A couple of times when trying to cut a material region, I would do the polygon, then do the conversion to an MR, spec the layers, and the MR would not appear at all. I would look and lo and behold, I would have an object 12,000 inches to the east in outer space, and it would be the MR.

Yeah, I've got user input in comments, the rightmost field. What's that comment field for, if not the user to write something in? Can't recall doing a CR at the end of any, but I'll go and re-do. Thanks, Mark. I'll report to service in Idaho, too.

Good idea, Perry. I'll try that. I started a ticket with support and sent them the file.

I have a window schedule and a door schedule in my plan, and Chief is blowing the right end out to infinity. Not when first generated, but later when I work with the plan. I did schedule-to-text and that is what I am putting on my layout, but in order to keep the unit numbers (which are only there when schedules are generated) I have to keep the live schedules. Even those got their right margins extended, but not to the moon as the live schedules. The pic attached shows how this looks. The little bit of plan seen is floorplan surrounded by a terrain of about 120 x 120 feet.

How can one easily toggle in and out of this? I want it off when zooming way close.

There's a Chief training video showing how to drop the floorframe into the foundation, and even though it is from a few versions ago, it is worth watching. The ledge detail is not covered, though, but that is just the pony-wall thing. I've seen builds done with the detail done, no ledge, and the joists hung with top-mount hangers. A guy we know who does the designs always raises the foundation where the front entry is located, so you don't have to step up to enter the house. It's a feature I like.

Won't work for me, Kevin. See the attached. Chief only exports in a spreadsheet format with extension as shown, and Docs won't import that type.

I don't have Excel but use Sheets a lot.

Right, Scott. Today we have a layer called main layer only, and maybe we need another called pony wall switch. This is a common need for any plan with a split foundation, one part crawlspace, part full depth. I'll do a suggestion when back next week.

Need to do this. I did a foundation wall as a pony, upper framed, lower concrete. Want the lower showing for foundation plan, but the upper for the framing plan. Can't try anything 'cause I'm traveling, sitting at gate 32 waiting out a delay.

Those who draw roofs like this should be required to work in the framing crew when they are framed and sheathed. And then with the roofers for all that extra valley and hip work.

I've live window and door schedules in a plan, and without my input, they balloon way out on their right ends. They have been expanding so far out it is ridiculous. I delete and regenerate and still get the behavior. What's up?