GeneDavis

I'm about to begin a plan for a friend that is a single story above a full walkout basement level, a very simple arrangement with the main footprint just doubled down. Having done these before but long ago, I cannot remember (nor do I have the plans available) whether I did the walkout level as floor 1 or floor 0. Floor 0 will have more than half of its walls wood-framed, and its slab floor will have 4-foot frostwalls under at the full-exposure locations. So, should I built that lower level as the basement (level 0) or as level 1?

I take a section cut in a plan begun in 10 and it takes almost a minute to generate the render. What's up?

Is it out? I'm on a cellphone and cannot dig into it.

Or you can make the floor structure as two elements, one the part that will get the hollowcore planks, the other the 'crete topping. Make the hollowcore part with material "open no material," then import your properly sized planks from Sketchup and precision-place as required. Get as crazy as you want with this floor structure, including lagging the bottom of the planks and then sheetrocking over. Someone already did the hollowcore for us and I attached an image from the 3D Warehouse.

You're unhappy with just making the floor a concrete slab at total thickness of span product plus topping? CAD details will show what to do with ease.

How did you do that?

You're right, Chris. My error. Preference settings are program. Who knows what goes on with Rocky's preferences. But if his snapping was all off, how did he draw all those walls orthagonally? As for roof building, there are scads of good videos out there to show a new user the way. Here is one that is quite relevant to the problem the OP has with his plan, and it is from Chief, and only a year old.

I just reopened the Ashley Close plan the OP posted, and the snaps are not turned off. Here is a screenshot of his preference settings. Seems to me it would take some mouseclick gymnastics to draw roof planes as he did with baselines not orthagonal, or not snapped to his walls. Mr Shepheard, I'm sorry I offended you with my earlier post. Is your dyslexia such that you can only read forum posts, but not watch training videos?

I was in second year engineering school long long ago, and the core curriculum required all of us to take a course called "Numerical Methods." Each week we were posed a problem that required a solution requiring the computer. The machine, the only one on campus, took up half the first floor of the computer center building. It was a Univac 1107, and all program entry was via punched cards. The language we used was Algol, a variant of Cobol. We were not taught to code in the class, but expected to learn it via the manual available at the bookstore, page-format in size and one inch thick. You figured out what you wanted the computer to do, and then wrote a program to solve the problem and print the results. We punched our cards at keypunch machines and stacked our decks, then stood in line at the card reader to run our decks, then again in line at the printer, to get our results. You had to be pretty good to get a successful run the first time. Precise editing of the code was required, and good skills at the keypunch desks. The computer science grad students were in charge of the whole shebang, and they wrote the error messages, one of which came at you in all caps if you failed to get a run in six attempts. It read "Do not attempt to learn Algol by monte-carlo methods. Read your manual." We've got an OP here named Rocky intent on learning Chief by monte-carlo methods. It is entertaining, but the process is getting a little wearisome.

Tile the 3D view and floor plan. Just as is shown right from the beginning in this training video. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/5447/roof-basics.html?playlist=95 Have you watched this video? Have you watched all the training videos in the roof series?

None of his four pitches have their baselines parallel to walls. Mr Rocky needs some training. And some time with the videos. And a lot of practice.

Explain to us why you would draw a roof baseline not parallel to the wall on which the roof sits, in this plan. And further, how such a roof would be framed.

Take a moment to fill out your signature so it includes the Chief Architect software you are using, and a little about your system. Up on top right, click on your name, then > Settings > Signature, then type it all in. Those seen here are polyline solids, created in elevation view, then placed in plan view after doing some mirrored copies.

I don't see the problem, and the house looks pretty much like everything built in the last fifteen years in the part of far northwest Chicagoland with which I've some familiarity. Gables galore facing the street. That previous one was a roof seriously in need of a cricket, but not this one.

I'm not locked into 1/4" = 1'0" as scale for floorplans and elevations in layouts, and sometimes go smaller (3/16") or larger (3/8"). I know there are some AHJs that insist on plans being at 1/4", and if so, I make it so. But whatever scale, I like my text and dimensions at 3/32" height, and that means a setting of 4.5 for 1/4". I use Chief Blueprint.

We need to hear from Skip D the OP, who asked for a billiard table, not a pool table. Billiard tables have no pockets. One or more of those shown at the 3D Warehouse site are true billiards tables, but the great majority have pockets. I've a friend who has an expensive billiard table and plays. Its slate top has electric heating elements to regulate its temperature to a tournament-level standard. He has a smartphone app to turn it on from wherever he is so it is ready to play when he gets there.

To place exterior walls, I take my notes or whatever reference docs and draw the entire perimeter of the building, trying for a pretty close replication of the planview shape of everything. This is the first step, and it is not the one where we are trying to get the walls all dead on. Configuration is everything, dimensions come after. When it is complete and closed, I pop on auto exterior dimensions. My dimensioning is to the "building line," i.e., the exterior of the framing layer. From there I just move walls using the dimensions to make the moves. I try for whole inches (no fractions) on all the longer principal walls, and never want to go to a fraction less than 1/4" everywhere else. The preference is to have the smallest fraction at 1/2". Without seeing a video of what Rocky is fighting and not understanding, I've nothing else to offer.

That will entail a lot of work. While Chief produces a detail view of every single truss type for a job, that is as far as it goes. No such thing exists for rafters, beams, headers, studs, or any other framing members. You will need to take a back-cut section view of every member you want to detail, then do a CAD detail from view of that, edit as needed, and then dimension and annotate as needed. Even before you begin, your framing will need to be gone over with a fine toothed comb to ensure it is all correct and in accord with how you intend to build. You will be using point-to-point dimensioning a lot when detailing the rafters. A quick look is attached. I just popped in some dims on a live section.

You need a live tutor. That, or you do a video of what you want to do. In Chief, you don't dimension walls so much as you POSITION them.

For your example shown in the photo, I would model it in Sketchup with all the details wanted, and import the SU file as a symbol. This, because I use SU a lot and find it easy and fast, likely faster for me than doing a sequence of landings.

The OP is using Chief 7. P'line solid is the best solution.

I'm kinda late to the party, but is this roof structure the kind in which 2x4 purlins lay atop the trusses on 24 or 32-inch centers, and the ribbed roofing fastens to the purlins? Because if there are to be purlins, and the OP needs how-to advice on their modeling, let's have a new thread for that. Reading all through this makes me wonder if the OP has yet realized the basics of how Chief builds roofs and trusses, and further, how Chief's tools are most efficiently used to model a conventional pole barn.

For absolute realism I would model the whole awning in Sketchup and import as symbol. These are typically made as an arrangement of light fabricated steel framing, heavy rods as corbels, small rectangular plate escutcheons where rods meet walls, and corrugated steel "turkey shed" roofing. The roofing is applied directly to the steel framing. For a reasonable approximation in Chief, model a roof with 7/8" roofing material thickness, make the material corrugated steel, do the structure as one layer of material, and no framing or soffit. Model rod supports as 3/4 dia. psolids and rotate as required for placement. Do 4x6x1/2 plates as psolids for the rod wall mounts.

FYI no sig info displays when viewing on iPhone.

If it's a one-floor basement upfit, just do the all-floors material list, and use only those quantities listed for floor 0. I am presuming you are using a full version of Chief, that you build a main level (level 1) plan, then generate a foundation under it as level 0, and finish that level 0 with your spaces and finishes. I don't know how the other Chief versions (interiors, etc.) work.