johnny

Just curious, why are you selling?

Very nice Rich - well done. I'd love to know how you captured that hue....it looks great. Any chance you would share your method?

Exactly. Its almost a cost of marketing in some ways. I'll say again you can't do that for everyone or you will get burned, but clients you know are bona-fide.

For new clients I typically take a retainer to start, but for clients i've done a lot of work for they can call me up and ask me to do something like this so they can get the process started. Its not "free" but I feel my being easy to get going in a project helps me land a lot of work. I try to make myself almost an extension of their back-office. Concept work, and that process, is very important to me.

Thank you very much!

That was an oldie but goodie.... I think they still sell that program, and it was actually fairly popular with architects....good 2d, and I guess they got better 3D but I had moved on to Vectorworks (MiniCad). Honestly, if I was to ask CA to incorporate any program's 2d that app would be at the top of my list. Vectorworks has some very sophisticated image and texture mapping now, but Powercadd was just so nice.

This is just preliminary, but I was able to use CA for a light commercial project. This image secured me the contract and I got approval to move forward....

OK - i did what you said and the connect was fixed but I still dont have a room....odd.

Thank you! I ended up just placing polys which was fast, but I will go back and fix.

For some reason on a project I can't get connected walls to make a room. I opened up a new plan and took the same 2 wall types and was able to make rooms in the same manner I am trying for my "problem file", so I am stumped. I can see there is an odd connection at one of the intersections, but not sure why. Below are the screen and I included the file of course. CONCEPT3.plan

VW had the same option and its a checkbox per member or class setting. VW even had a joist hanger option where it showed the hanger hardware. Its just not a lot of people bother to create 3D for framing materials so use a line instead just in 2D....which I did a lot.

Nice - thank you larry that was driving me nuts.

Tough but good question. Id say 30%ish for me.

I just tested it and yes, Perry is right (not that I doubted him but just wanted to try). Perhaps if you have this default set before you model your data it would be correct...? Although, even though i used to draw single lines in my 2d drawings, I prefer the full shape in 3D modeling since I can then see the edges of the beams and framing members to make sure it fully works.

I agree that only a few % of the users of CA are on the forums, but the reputation CA has among architects isn't good, but I think that has more to do with them confusing the DIY products and the Premiere version. Unlike Revit, which we don't call "Autodesk", has solid branding of a pro-product. The name "Chief Architect" is on all the DIY produces, and we don't typically use the term "Premier" to identify CA. It largely depends on the location I suppose you work, but I can tell you where I am "builders" don't design/draw homes like they did even 10 years ago. Everything is getting so complicated most builders are seeking professionals to handle their work. The architects I talk shop with typically use Revit and Sketchup.

Just thinking, if I had to name (3) three things that would change my experience overnight with CA, it would be: 1. Better basic 3d modeling tools - like Sketchup has, including groupings/component methods. 2. Option to make connections manually and turn off automation (again, just option to do that - nothing would change for current use). 3. Terrain and Street/Road improvements. Terrain is very complex and I feel hard to control, while the current road/driveway tools doesn't create real (code based) transitions. Wishlist visual items would be: 1. Profile lines. 2. Poche fills for wall/object sections 3. Shadows in any view.

Sorry Scott - I really didn't mean to blow you off but I had something huge come up at the last min. I promise if you come this way again I wont bail. I'd love to come to the UGM but i'm swamped right now, and driving through eastern Washington right now with the fires going on could be an issue. Hw 20 (which I would take) is actually closed (last i heard), so I would end up having to traveling around-about meaning 2-3x the time. On the modeling challenge, I have no question a competent CA user could give anyone a run for their money in any app....although, it is entirely possible they could run into a major sticking point and lose that competition, as I know you've had problems as well with certain things. Though the other apps may have issues and nuances, I dont believe they are anywhere near the level of issues CA has. That said, 50% of my issues would near go away if CA would implement my suggestion on having the manual connections as an option. It more often than not the automation that gets me stuck.

Its true VW and Archicad have a lot of features, but if you don't want to use "a feature" to complete a project you have powerful (but basic) 3D shape modeling tools as a standby. I may only use 30-50% of Vectorworks, but I can do anything I want with that % since I can approach the same challenge from different directions. CA seems to be a 1-trick pony in that if you dont do it the way they want, it aint getting done. Obviously I dont mean everything is like that, but many things are. For me, if CA had solid basic modeling tools I would feel more confident in my ability to get things done on time. I believe this would help new professionals using CA as well - since many of the 3D apps use similar features and processes now to create/model shapes. Not to mention, the initial concept phase would be much more useful. I too have not done large commercial projects beyond some interior design for a certain office space or floor of a large building. I'm not after CA to provide anything of the sort, so we are in agreement there. Please keep in mind you guys are CA guru's and represent a very small % of the users in regards abilities - your perspectives may not be the same as a more common user. You guys have a perfected work-flow that you've been repeating and users like me are still trying to find a workflow to duplicate and perfect. If one of you guys took at start to finish video tutorial on a project with all your processes that would be huge (but I realize not practical in terms of effort).

Thanks guys - I dont understand that since I never myself changed any of that....but thank you!

I dont find CA so far to be any time-saver...in fact, its been the opposite. There are so many things it does elegantly and quickly that I believe if I can start to better understand the app I might be able to make it work. So far, if I had to spend the time I do now on projects I couldn't keep using CA. Some might say its my failing, and not CA's - but I have to disagree based upon what I see on the threads and tutorials by Chief Experts. Dan B. gets stuck often. That doesn't happen in other apps....I find I rarely, if ever, get stuck like I do in CA. As to this thread - I dont fully understand why CA doesn't have basic 3D toolsets like most apps have now. In another thread I saw a Dev mention it was coming, or a focus of CA to improve - something along those lines. If CA had SU tools inside of it that would be all that is necessary for this app to meet all sorts of needs.

I have no idea how this happened, but I was placing some block walls (its existing in remodel) and my terrain lines disappeared. I have terrain, and all my terrain layers on, but no terrain lines except up in the front of the home. Bizarre - and i've just spent the last hour trying to figure this out. Honestly, I am struggling mightily and im trying to give in to the CA logic a bit - but am failing. At this point I am asking so many questions I feel I should be paying you guys my fees to design this stuff. ashok_mallya_residence_b.plan

edit post - found the issue.... If anyone looked at my previous non-edited post, the issue was I had a line on the (wall) angle which I used as a guide, and the dimension I ran used that line and not the wall.

Thank Sir - found it. Although, I have to say there are a lot of input options for text that seem to be overlapping.

Thanks, but I dont see any "rich text defaults" in the menu. I even checked defaults window, could you please point me to that location? Also, so you know if you click on "layer" the rich text is on, it takes you to the "default text style" shown above.

OK, so I set all my default text styles to "Arial" font (as need in the screen shot below), but for some reason when I go to make a "rich text" input the "Chief Blueprint" font is showing. I double-click through the process to see that, yes I have Arial set as default. This stumps me.