johnny

...or even take the inability to reuse complex elements from one design to another. Say I go model a timber-frame porch or stair-case and want to copy/paste in another design - not possible with Chief since we cannot block walls and other elements which are critical to the definition process of a "space".

I agree....and what I saw in the new 3D shape modeling and even the new section tool in x13 fits this bill exactly to your point. I watch a few different webinars from software companies and I'm always amazed in the Chief webinars how fast the questions devolve into "why doesn't chief do this" sort of questions. Kinda like the issue related to truss heels I think you brought up - and then furthered into why or how Chief thought it best not to measure a heal the way every other truss company does. This tends to happen when there isn't a solid resource the developers can use to ask builders, designers, or architects how something should work....instead they do it and hope its right.

Yes, it was on the framing demo - but the part i am talking about isn't adding a framing layer - that is cool, I agree...but one could argue it didn't make a lot of sense that wasn't possible before being the fundamental parametric way Chief operates would have made this a simple addition. Part of me is wondering if we can use this new layer to build cold/warm roof conditions or if its just setup to do purlins or skip-sheathing.

I can't blame Chief for moving forward supporting a tech that will become common in the future - even if its not today. Real time ray tracing is the future. Personally, I thought the demo they showed was overall pretty good as it related to the future of available rendering techniques. Now that some here have pointed out issues with the renderings, I hope Chief does correct it. That said, i'm disappointed thus far from what I see in other x13 update areas. Its like the added check boxes on the roof layer/surface to add air gap etc when we always had the ability just to add an air gap layer. Who is this designed for???...the non-professional? There are many other issues i have, but this just highlights a particularly odd addition. However you look at it, Chief is spending FAR more time on things that will sell new copies of their software to users that fit a target client which is not representative of my company, or many on this forum. They seem to be developing in order to make big splashes in sales booths or youtube videos wherein a few clicks blows the audience away and they open their wallets to buy a copy or two imagining they will ride off into sunset and save thousands by not needing a design professional any longer. The design professional needs better stair modeling tools, or generic solid modeling etc...not faster watercoloring renderings (again, as a for instance). My company has started a process of examining alternatives to Chief - and we're exploring ArchiCad in depth right now. We may have 14 copes of X12-X13 to sell...who knows.

Interesting - thank you very much. I guess in my mind I was mulling to get the casing to work, so I wasn't imagining this to be a mullion - but obviously by the operation that is exactly how Chief views it. This was very helpful.

I'd say not offset from the outside casing...but i know there is typically a small offset chief shows (which i'm not sure of the logic there), but what I have now is nearly void of material thickness in-between the upper and lower window. On your blue example to the right it does appear less drastic than the left...but when I mull the top and bottom window in the same file i get the same error. Are you doing anything to get a different result?

Every so often windows refuse to mull together correctly. Here is a recent example on a current project. Does anyone know what setting might cause this? Here is the sectioned area with the windows and some pictures. Thanks for any help.mull_issue.plan mull_issue.zip

That's a pretty cool tip! You actually got my mind wondering about secondary ideas too.

You can create shapes like that fairly easy with boolean operations on solids - however, accurately controlling and adjusting those shapes is far more effort in my opinion than its worth. I hope X13 (which Chief said would be greatly improved in this area) will bring some needed relief for accurate shape modeling. (i suppose unless Eric did it some other magical way)

If this is just for fun the I suppose getting Chief to do back-flips can be entertaining enough. If this is going to be a real pool built from your plans I'd recommend using another app. There are free apps like Blender worth learning and then you can just export the model file into Chief as a symbol object to finish your back yard planning.

Lumion right now has far better lighting and visuals than Twinmotion, but its also far more expensive. I do feel in the future Twinmotion will be FAR better than Lumion but I dont know how long that will take. The hands-down best rendering for architecture is going to VRay - but the path from Chief to VRay isn't as smooth as Lumion or Twinmotion.

Thats interesting - its not like Chief has some specific Wacom driver so you're system should be relying on the default Wacom driver that makes the apps think its just a mouse. I use Wacom on my PC without issues.

Does anyone know a trick to accurately moving/reflecting items in a block based upon line or point feedback of a sub-block item? Having to unblock and perform those tasks on each item is beyond troublesome.

My bet is that you're pushing nearly 5k (retina) to those monitors - which is going to require a better graphics card or external booster you can get for the Mac. I found that even on my laptop I got far better performance in 3D views with more like a 2-3k resolution. Its presented in the Mac OS under scaling.

I think you're right if you're just going to model the entire structure and then rotate it at the end - but if you're building the structure in place on an angle Chief handles this poorly in my opinion.

I was thinking it might be worth $55 to rent Revit Light for a month to get all the moen fixtures exported. While i am at it I might also grab all the Heat-n-glow products that are also in Revit format. If I was Chief, I might think about doing something similar to grab all the libraries I could of suppliers that offer their symbols in Revit - but could easily export them into a Chief acceptable format.

What would be great is if Chief could give us something like this:

I run into this issue often - and in Chief its super tough to make work in a "live" view at certain angles. What i've done is have a separate file for the element to be on angle, but keep it in that file as a "normal" 0,90,180 degree axis for modeling and working on the design - but then make a symbol of the entire structure to show the client a realistic view of the entire project. Rotating a symbol object is far more easy to control.

Its frustrating that Moen's fixture library is only available in Revit. I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to open anything in Revit to then export to a 3DS (or other) file format that can be used with Chief?

Since you brought it up... even though this was incredibly easy to do in Chief, its not intuitive. I wouldn't have considered the idea that I should use ceiling plane framing to then falsify into the beamed members unless Eric and you suggested it. Therefore, i wouldn't have known to search this issue out in a way that made logical, successive, steps forward. In retrospect I see the logic, and next time I run into this I have a good answer. One of my first options was of course to use the tools that are titled correctly for the modeling I want to perform - ceiling beams. If you ask me, I think ceiling beams should be able to follow a ceiling plane - and have their angles controlled by user input. As is fairly typical for Chief - there are ways to accomplish things but they are too often not direct nor intuitive. (i.e. the best column tool i have is using a cabinet or countertop...the list goes on and on) The Chief guru's on the forum are invaluable to this program - you and Eric stand out for helping people get past things like this and I thank you both.

Here is how it turned out.

Wow....that was CRAZY simple and now even all my textures work perfectly. It even cuts all the beams at the right angle...that was exactly what i needed. Thank you for that suggestion.

Thanks everyone for the ideas - working on it now. What i meant by #3 is when I place the PS in position, and then get my camera in place it doesn't offer me the ability to rotate at an angle like that. At least its not working the way I am trying. I'd love to know if you can get that to work, since it was actually one of the first things i tried.

I'm trying to model an interior beam along a valley based not on the roof plane pitch, but rather than ceiling plan intersection. This has been a struggle even for some very good Chief minded drafters I have. Attached is a picture to illustrate the effect I am looking for, and a pic of my model condition. Does anyone have any recommends? What I have tried so far is: 1. Roof Beam - but it uses the roof pitch not my ceiling plane. 2. Rafter - same problem. 3. Polysolid - can't get to an angled view to make work. 4. Solid - seemingly uncontrol-able at an angle. Starts to twist as it rotates.