GeneDavis

In my use of Chief for all the X's I can recall, the default separation controls how windows bumped together are separated. The Out Of Box (OOB) setting is 2". That separation has nothing to do with casing width or depth. Casing width comes into play only when bumping windows to a wall, and the window bump-stops when casings hit wall finish. What exactly is the problem? What will you be reporting to Chief as a suspected bug?

I'm more comfortable modeling furniture and lighting that have surface complexities, using my Sketchup Make 2017, which produces .skp format files that readily import into Chief. Your image of the chest did not make it clear to me what molding profiles are used in the "backsplash" surround, or in the bottom valance edging, which wraps the legs. But I could guess at it, and do the piece in fifteen minutes or less. The Thomas Moser counter stools shown in the pic attached have shaped legs that are angled, contoured leather seats, and seat rails that would be more work to do in Chief than in SU. The cube pendants with their curly power cords would be tough, also, unless you want linear cords, which would not look real to me. There is a joke around here that certain Chief experts could model a banana using cabinets, but I am not one of them.

So, Joe, you've already built a floor 0?

You can learn about multiple stretch planes when doing this. It'll be fun and instructive.

Doing a garage/barn with a bay at one end and having issues with two things. Walls specified as "inside battens and planking" generate a set of girts on inside surface where wanted, but a copy of those girts is inserted at center of main layer, inside the 2x6 framing. Easy way to see is to look around at the 3D framing overview. Also, I have a ceiling surface I want to eliminate. The lounge room and sauna rooms both have a surface above the ceiling framing I would like to lose. File attached. Barn garage one floor only.plan

A garage with a barn look is to have two garage bays one end, and at the other, two rooms, one a sauna with 90 inch ceiling, the other a lounge with a taller ceiling. One common roof over all, the structure to have balloon framing all exterior walls. I was OK with my progress doing it all one floor, no floor 2, and I was concentrating on getting the structure and framing all done. I then "backed into" doing the sauna and lounge spaces, and cannot find a clean way to do the floor finish, the ceilings, the hole in ceiling in the lounge, and the inside framing for all this. Here is the plan in the stage I was before going to work on the two rooms. (Barh garage one floor) Note the tall window bank at each gable. That will cause problems for me in the next iteration. Barn garage.plan Barn garage one floor only.zip

Take a look at the sample plans on CA's website. You'll see examples of what you enumerated.

For an expensively-detailed garage/barn, siding is vertical WRC with knots, nickle-gap, and needs nailing on 16" centers. I want to let in the 1x2 horizontal girts and then sheath over the flush framing, then do cedar-breather over zipwall then the siding. Is this possible? Clashing wall framing layers? Pic shows the general arrangement, for which I placed the girts against (not into) the framing.

OK thanks all, and I found the molding over at the zero location, but it seems a bug and I'll file a ticket.

@robdyckTry adding a CAD circle to the library. I used the CAD tool circle-about-center, drew one, and there is no add-to-library icon. I can fake it with a polygon but it must be something about needing one straight side.

OK Robert @robdyck for someone like me wanting to use a 3D molding to do a cable railing and then the larger but also circular wood handrail at top, tell me how to make a molding from a circle drawn in Chief CAD.

I need to make the cable railing and the top rail manually for this staircase to get the arrangement I want, and cannot seem to model either the 1/8" dia cables or the top handrail. I do an elevation view, use CAD to draw the line I want (have no idea where in the y axis it might be drawing, then term it a molding line, do the molding selection, and get nothing. Tried the all-off layerset with only moldings turned on and see nothing. What is the trick? This all seems different from previous releases.

Roof beams when "drawn" model immediately below the structure envelope of the roof. Note how it works. You draw it by clicking an origin point and drag and release. A roof beam is a drop beam, in structural parlance. It is placed under the rafters envelope with the rafters bearing immediately on it. Roof beams are commonly placed horizontally under the ridge of joining roofs, and the rafters top ends lap or butt with no ridge member between, the rafters bearing on the dropped beam. Their when-drawn size is controlled in the framing defaults for roof members, and the size (4x12, etc.) can be edited after a member is placed. A member's location can be edited with x y and z movement, and angle movements. I have never understood the angle part. Eric shows the member exiting the plane's envelope into space. It was drawn that way. It got its slope attitude from the origin point and the drag direction and limit. Describe for us what this beam is to do.

Use camera "perspective framing overview" and ensure the layer on which your beam sits is turned on.

The ceiling is on. The roof hole tool, used independently of the auto floating dormer tool, cuts a hole through the roof and the ceiling below. The OP did not say what kind of dormer was wanted. I presumed skylight-type and did that.

Can anyone tell us what closing and then reopening a file does to erase deck framing? I lose deck framing even not closing a file, and never know why. Decks are weird. You lose framing but not the deck planking. Lose a floor inside, and you're looking at the basement. The floor finish is gone, too. But whatever action wipes deck framing, leaves the planking alone.

I don't have a second floor. Auto floating puts the dormer walls on A (attic) level. Perfect for skylight-type dormers or false dormers, which seems to be what's needed here.

It took me a manual ceiling plane and solids for the sidewalls to make it acceptable.

17 seconds to place hole in roof and spec it. Did not adjust size to meet dormer walls.

22 seconds to a gabled roof. Why haven't you done this?

X16, house 30' wide x 24' deep, 5-pitch hipped roof, auto floating dormer, 5-pitch gable roof, 36" high wall, 24x24 window.

Try doing an auto dormer then exploding and editing.

@winterddRob, where did you find "retain framing?"

And lock the layers. Searched help for "retain framing" and got nothing. But when a deck room is selected, there is a box that can be checked that says "Keep deck framing after deck room is deleted."

I failed when I tried doing the ground level step/slab as a landing. Then I went down the rabbit hole of drawing a separate simple square building adjacent, no roof no ceiling so I could see it with an overhead camera, did a landing at the right height to generate a 7 tread stair run, matched all the specs for newels etc., then made a symbol of the stair run. You can place a symbol anywhere you want. In doing so, I could not figure out how to match the stair run in every spec aspect, so thought, why not raise the terrain (it is what determines step bottom when springing off grade, right?), raise the grade/terrain one 7-7/16" riser amount and take a tread off the 8 tread run to get what I needed, then make a symbol of that. In fooling around with the stairs and the grade, I realized you can control the rise with your own input when locking the top, so I did that instead, and ended up successful. The bottom of the 7 tread run sits exactly one riser height off the terrain, and the slab (not a landing) is correctly placed for height and position to make the bottom step and double as bearing for the stringer set and the newels. This little exterior staircase exercise has taught me some stuff I didn't know about Chief stairs. You CAN float a stair section in mid-air if you want. Once you turn off automatic heights, you gain control of the rise and vertical position of the run. I need to play around some more with the stair tools as regards positioning of the railings and newels, to see how various types of deck railings can be done. Thanks to both of you for contributing.