GeneDavis

Just crashed again. Attached is the message I got.

See my system specs in the sig line. I have tried installing other drivers, and all cause the fail which locks Chief and displays the message ending in "device will be removed." Which driver is working for you?

Not helpful, Rob. I'm not a downvoter, but . . .

Chief is pretty short with tutorials on raytrace videos. Kind of amazing. But they do say that for exteriors, physically based is not what to do. CPU raytrace is what they say to use.

Client wants to see exterior colors and I've done all her versions of combos of siding and trim. What is best for rendering true colors? I have the sun set for location and time zone and the north arrow is true. Raytrace? Physically based? And should sunlight lux remain at the OOB 100,000? If not then what?

And here it is with solids doing the soffit face, the sided segment, and the trim board along bottom of siding.

Thanks, Joey. I had that one checked, which gave me the big box underneath. The monster pork-chop return. Your post got me looking at it again, and I tried a different option. See the pic. That one gives me the raked fascia I want, and now I can do solids to do the under-roof and the sided and trimmed end. I might be able to frame it with Chief in 3D, but if not, can do CAD details to finish the work for this part of the project.

I extended a roof edge down over an entry, and did the boxed eave option plus default to overhang and input enough so it reaches back to the house wall, giving me the low-over-entry Frank Lloyd Wright thing I wanted, and now I want to do the eave end differently from what Chief does. Any suggestions? See the pic. I want a 1x8 fascia under the 5-pitch roof running from upper fascia to that at the canopy edge, a 1x4 piece of base running horizontally from the low eave back to the house face, and in the triangle, lapped siding to match the wall at house. What Chief gives is one big 1x thickness pork chop soffit box end, and it stops at the upper roof edge.

I'm looking for the single fan or double fan outdoor unit, and maybe for later use, ceiling cassettes and one-way ceiling cassettes. A floor unit, goes on the wall, but on floor like a radiator, would be good, too. I'll check the Warehouse. Thanks.

The kind with the compressor and fan. Chief only has a compressor unit.

Thanks, Jacob. I was unaware it was done for doors.

Patio door products from the recognized brand-name maker such as Pella, Andersen, Marvin, and more, are tricky when modeling in Chief, because of the way Chief handles sizing. This, for both sliders and hinged patio doors. The 60610 slider in Andersen's 400 series is 71 1/4" wide x 82 3/8" high, and that is the frame size. I specify the jambs for these clad units at 3/4 thick x 8 wide, with a -2" inset, to get the exterior projection the clad frames have, a look I want in 3D views from outside. Specify a slider in Chief at that size and Chief models the unit with the door panels at that size, and for height, places the top of door panel at your specified 82 3/8", with a 1/16" margin atop, then the frame. So in 3D, you get a door unit that, floor to frame top, is 82 3/8 + 1/16 + 3/4 = 83 3/16" high. One can check this out by taking a section view, but you are getting only a vertical section. We cannot see in Chief what the actual build is in 2D plan view because of the simplified way Chief draws a door. You have to keep this all in mind when framing, carefully making allowances height- and width-wise in order to get rough openings sized for real-world building. It is of no concern to you if you aren't doing wall framing or if generating framing, aren't doing dimensioned wall framing in con docs. But where this starts to suck, is when you are wanting transom windows mulled to these patio doors, and windows with transoms adjacent on elevations, and you want horizontal alignment. You also want the transom window widths to match that of the patio door, so all looks good when mulling. I do the workaround by downsizing the patio door in height and width. See here, a 24 high transom atop a window, and adjacent, a 24 high transom a door. Both transoms have their bottoms at 82 3/8 inches, which matches the height of the 60610 door unit. You can see heights all matching. Units, casings. The window unit is mulled, the door and xsom, not yet. The transom is specified at its real-world height and width. 71 1/4" width to match door below. But because of the way Chief does door sizing, the door shown is specified at 69.75" w. x 80.875" h., with frame spec'd at 3/4 x 8 with a -2" inset, just like all the windows in the picture. Before trying to mull door to window, things look good. Look what happens next when I mull. Since window units size by frame and door units size by frame opening (or panel sizes with zero clearance), Chief gets confused when doing a mull, and adds an unwanted margin around the window unit, but not the door unit. That nice matchup on width and height seen in the unmulled view is gone. But there is a workaround, and it uses the (in which release was this new?) frame positioning option for windows, which sizes windows by frame if checked one way, and by frame opening if checked the other way. It is buried in the frame panel, and my OOB default has the window frame checked for "has frame." When you change the option within that to "window size excludes frame." a funny way to say you are sizing by frame opening, you can make this all work. See this pic. All is good! But to get there I had to downsize the door and the window above it. All looks exactly right in elevation, and by fiddling with the framing specs (r.o. clearances) in the unit before generating framing, it'll frame right, but the schedule will need some work to make things understandable for the window quote to be done by the suppliers. If I use the size in the schedule it will be wrong. So, how do you handle these?

See-thru house, but opaque solids. I want to show HVAC schemes.

This, if PBR or raytrace. Windows locks it up if the PBR or raytrace view is up for a few minutes. I combat this by exporting pics quickly. Should I be contacting tech support? I have Windows 10.

You should think this all through and do a request in the suggestion section for the change or changes needed to achieve this. Sounds sort of like a no-zoom print preview, which for my laptop screen would give me about a quarter of a 24 x 36 page. But maybe there is more that you need.

Give us screen shots of exterior and interior elevations from an AU plan that exhibits this opening indicator scheme.

As long as a GC is OK with this and is willing to explain to subs, I like it. Any of us used to working with truss manufacturers are already up to speed. I'll go make a suggestion.

Thanks, Doug! I missed that. Actually, I saw it and did not know its effect on this aspect of a build. The Chiefer that drew the plan asked about this weeks back and could not get the floor to generate as a deck, but got no answer because he did not post a plan. I got it to work by deleting the railing walls and re-drawing them with the deck railing wall tool, which auto-creates a deck room, and with X15 OOB settings, auto-frames the deck. What sequence of wrong moves do you think it takes to draw it as you saw in the plan, and have that box checked?

Here. https://1drv.ms/f/s!ArvhHoTabnLDoErLa0aVCFBD_SrI?e=KlWmF9

As I said, it is already posted in that other thread. Download it from there.

There is a recent thread here about siding finish, and I made a comment after downloading the OP's plan and examining it for the materials issue. That thread's title begins with "Exterior Cladding . . " The plan has a deck with roof over that is failing to show the deck floor structure. See the pic. The room is defined as a deck, the room selects, all three deck walls do room definition, and if I use the deck railing tool to draw a small deck on the adjacent wall, the deck generates with its auto-modeled framing and planking. What should I be looking for to get this deck's missing floor? The plan file can be downloaded from a post attachment in the other thread.

I have your plan open in X15. Looks as if you created no new wall types for any of your desired exterior finish variants. You used the paint tool, which is bad practice. Very bad practice. You ended up down the rabbit hole. In your plan, create a new exterior wall type for each separate desired wall finish. One for lap siding, one for stone cladding, one for the board and batten, and if more, one for each. If you have garage walls framed with 2x4, you'll need a wall def for each desired clad type. Now go into your plan materials and purge all unused materials, then go through the list and examine how each is defined. You have created materials that have differing textures but have the same name. Finally, go to your model in 3D overview, select exterior walls, and change their wall types to one of the new wall types you created.

I'll offer a solution only when the OP clarifies the issue, and tells us what software he is using.

You can frame it manually but the rafters are going to be plumb, which may not be what you want. I find no way to rotate them to have sections perpendicular to the roof plane.

I want framing nails, too! And why not roofing nails, drywall screws, joint tape, and mud!