TomBiggs

Michael, Thanks for your reply to my post. I gather that a lot of folks are dealing with the Demo, Existing, and New phased objects by simply just making a separate file for each, as you described. I did see the video tutorial " Coordinating Layers to Show Existing, Demo and New" on the Chief Architect site. That's probably the somewhat convoluted "correct" way to have everything all in the same file, where it's useful to be able to filter items by phase. I guess I will better familiarize myself with that approach.

I use both CA and Revit. I'm trying to find myself just using one program, and i wish CA was more like Revit in the renovation area. In Revit, walls are simply tagged as Demo, and then you just filter them on or off, in a Demo plan. For making a Demo plan, you show the New phase, and set the filter so only previous phase (existing) and walls to be demo'd are shown. You can make the existing light, and the demo walls dashed, or whatever. This is the only stumbling block for me using only CA. I like CA for all its decorative catalog and the interior elevations, but in the Demo plan department, it's a real pain having to do it through layer sets, and wall types. So comparatively complex. Does anyone have a template setup for this, that they would like to share with me?

Actually....I checked it.....0,0 is about -28', -40' for some reason. Is this going to cause the graphic effect?

0,0 is lower left corner of building. Stucco material set to 1-1/8". I checked video settings, acceleration, and left it set to be managed by application. I have a pretty beefy card. It's an AMD Radeon HD 7800, with 1 gig memory.

I'm getting a weird effect where the lower wall layers are showing below what should be a solid material of stucco. Anybody have any ideas of what can be causing this?

Hey, how to you treat terraces in CA. Is there a room type for roof decks that are above conditioned rooms?

OK, guys. Dshall, that is correct, you could put it on level 26, and yes, Drawzilla, you can. si se puede. I'm in a pretty good mood, since I discovered the "nuance" that now enables me to make my terrain work. Real simple: don't rotate it once you create it. That's all I can figure. The only thing I noticed was that when you have the box checked that keeps terrain out of the rooms, is that for the layers where the terrain is not placed, terrain still spills into the interior. Any ideas as to why? Assuming it's a minor bug, I can use the region or flatten tool and retain with walls like in the real world. OK, so I guess I'll keep going in CA. I honestly didn't want to have to go to Revit for all the reasons Revit folks try to ignore.

Note: I did try to put the terrain on the topmost level and terrain stays out of the interior floor areas for lower floors, but not out of a lower deck area that is above the garage on the lower level. I'll go ahead and admit defeat on this. I'll probably just do the drawings in Revit, and then just use CA maybe for just doing the kitchens and bathrooms.

Here is what I have concluded from my experience, and from talking with Tech Support, and searching the Web sources: The program is really not the best tool for houses on extreme slopes: Walls on the other levels if set to Terrain retaining, do not retain terrain (?!). I assume this is because they are not on the Site level. The exterior walls on other levels do not blank out the terrain as they do on the Site level. One last resort is probably to model the house without the terrain.

Hey, Thanks for the advice, Dshall. Frustrated a bit, I'm starting to miss Revit's simple site modelling, but I know once I figure CA out, I'll be stoked.

So I guess I'm working through this. Here's what seems to work. Chief only lets you mess with the site on the LOWEST floor only. I drew foundation walls, and then made them invisible , telling the program not to put terrain in this area. For retaining walls, I can't seem to add them on the upper floors, so I'll have to draw them while on the lowest floor only. Guys, if there is a better workaround on this I would appreciate some input. It seems the program wasn't intended for this steep site, because if it were, you would be able to modify the site from the level where the site interfaces with it. In this case I want to walk out onto the site on the top most level.

Can anyone tell me what the trick to dealing with terrain in the case of a steep site. The building steps up into the hillside, and at the top, fourth level, I want to have a flat area at the rear with a retaining wall at the back. Do I have to be in the lowest floor to model the site elements? I'm guessing that is the case since all the site tools are greyed out when I go to upper floors. One thing I just thought about is to have the upper floor as a reference floor when on the lowest floor where the site is linked. Seems kind of counter intuitive, but if that's how Chief wants it then so be it.

Type the address into Google. Click the link for what Zillow presents. Then see if Zillow has a county data source link. It brings you to the county's assessor office, where almost always you can find the parcel map.