GeneDavis

Show us a screencap of the situation when you select both windows. The "block" symbol is what you use to mull, and it is there whether or not you can mull the windows. Here is what I get.

See pic.

Do you want them mulled with that large space between? I know they will mull if stacked close, but you are beyond the mull join distance.

Does the material list area work for you?

If commercial work that is not wood-framed is your principal focus, then Chief Architect, which has strong wood-framed structural tools and which best addresses single-family residential work, is not for you.

And so my client, the builder, can share it with his client. I sent it to the builder via Google Drive, but are there alternatives? These walkarounds are huge files.

I don't see sloping walls. I see a perspective view.

Yep, that's it DzE. Thanks! And Eric, thanks for the nice example.

A successful guy in my locale always does this, using hand-drawns for all conceptual work. I know he doesn't do CAD. He has always employed a "draftsman," and I am pretty sure the work gets done using ACAD. My guess is that this one, shown below, got done by doing the asbuilt measure, likely by the draftsman with maybe his boss the archy taking photos and writing notes, then the draftsman produces an ACAD layout, and the boss traces it by hand on a light table.

So what is the technique, Eric? I believe that is precisely what Jen needs. That, plus a good hand-drawn font for some skimpy notations. We want to be able to .pdf it. I am hoping it is something quick and easy.

The plant is "half" 3d. The leaves are 3d, but the flowers are images, and the images are rectangular, specified as always facing the camera. The rectangles are treated as opaque surfaces when Chief renders the shadows. Dig into the SU model, going component withing group within group, until you get to where you can select the flower images. When you do the select, you can clearly see the rectangle. I attached a screencap. Think about the effort it would take in SU to model the flowers in 3D, and you'll understand why the modeler chose to use images. The SU model is very cool, but won't work in Chief for rendering. Show us how it looks in standard render view, and in vector, and in PBR. Edit: I attached a render of an image no Hill Country interior should be without.

That was it, Joey. I apparently had too much overhang in CAD. Thanks!

Something is not working. I drew the CAD lines, blocked the whole set, but the window won't generate the custom muntin arrangement. File attached. Ted Volz.plan

Is there a way to recover this if it has been deleted?

Just redraw it with lower floor first as Floor 1. The crawlspace under it is Floor 0. Other might say your Floor 1 is done on slab with frostwalls, but you must need to do what you do because of soil conditions. Houses along the front range in Colorado, Ft Collins to Colorado Springs, suffer bentonite clays in soils that require an approach like yours. They call the bottom floor, if framed, a "structural" floor. Typically (in better construction) the foundation walls are supported on piers that go to bedrock.

That was interesting, Michael. And it made me come around to the thought I had when confronted with this task. What if we could select a ceiling plane, use a (new) command to view it orthographically from below (i.e., "looking up at it") and then use material regions to create a flat board "coffered look" array of elements. Here is my room, ceiling doodled with the look I want. I used soffits for the "boards" that run up from wall to ridge, and p'line solids for the boards running parallel to ridge. If doing it again, I will use the solids throughout. It is easier because all the basic CAD work is done in one section view, then it is plan view and some editing, replication, mirroring, and DONE!

You need to analyze carefully to compare: The time spent to make an accurate model, with the clock started where you typically stop and call a project finished enough for permitting and construction. The time spent to do a detailed and accurate material takeoff, from those construction documents. The editing I do to "finish" a model in order to produce a usable material list always begins with editing every single elevation of exterior wall framing. The structural plans for floors and roofs are part of the con docs, and for my projects, have been edited to portray the build, so the material list for those elements is already accurate. If you are building with trusses, your material lists, no matter how accurate your model, will not have all the bracing elements, so you'll need to do something about that. The workaround I use is to draw a 2x4x16' once into a roofing plan, copy/replicate it by the number you think the truss system will need (including temporary bracing) and put these on a layer that is then turned off. I do the same for wall bracing materials. Once you have done a couple of models this way, it goes quickly.

A room addition moves the living space to its larger environs, and the client wants the same flat-board molding panel scheme done to the 5:12 ceilings, as is elsewhere in the as-built house. How is this efficiently done?

Thanks to all. I lowered the sun intensity to 1500 and also changed the sun angle. The job is sited for lat and lon and time, so I set the sun for May 1 at 10 a.m. Anybody have a tasteful 3D female, nude, to use in shower renders? I used to have one, but lost her. The 3D Warehouse only has models clothed in gym wear or swimsuits. And no, I've tried, you cannot remove the clothing.

The cabinet with the dark door (dark both frames and panels) has the same material specs as the others in the row, including one that is a copy of the one with the render error. What in PBR is causing this? The rainbow "adjust material" tool picks up both frame and panel, when selected, as Knotty Alder, which is what you see elsewhere on all the cabinets.

That worked for both base and wall adjacent a tall. I cannot seem to succeed doing a filler between the wallcab and the fridge box, which is built with a tall partition each side and an 18" deep wallcab on top, the wallcab moved out to the face of the 25" deep partitions. https://www.dropbox.com/s/653dfr744uu7dii/Fawn Ridge Downsized.plan?dl=0

Shouldn't I be getting one here? The space is 1.5"

We can do it for walls by putting them on a layer and unchecking the M. Chief looks at the wall as an assembly of layers, and when then running the material list, does not include the materials for siding, sheathing, drywall, or insulation. But we've no similar way to do this for roof planes. How do you make it such that a roof plane's materials are not tallied in the material list? One can put the roof's polyline (what you get when selecting a roof plane) on a layer and specify that layer without the M checked, but that does not do it as it works for walls.

This is helpful, Glenn. I will edit my model so as to try this out. How do room finishes and structure come into play in this? My model, attached here, has a simple house part, which is entirely as-built, and a room addition which is to build atop existing deck framing, plus an all-new screened porch under roof, to replace the as-built smaller one there now. It is all (the new room and porch) at level 1, and I have not built a level 0 (which there is, as this is a walkout lower hillside house) because the log columns are all to be re-used in the new. My purpose in all this is not so much to produce any construction docs, but to do a framing workout and produce a material list. One of the mysteries is the deck under the porch roof. It is built, planking and framing, and appears on level 1, but will only come through in materials when the all-project list is generated, and then the deck planking and framing is listed as on level 2. What is that about? McMillen Whitney.plan

How is the best way to get the material list to capture only the new work part of a job? I have modeled enough of the house to do the porch and room addition, and have a mix of as-built floors, roof planes, walls, decks, etc. on the plan. I see the "exclude from schedule" checkbox, but I don't think that is going to do it.