jtcapa1

That was my next question, as I did not see CA in the list of vendors. Now it might be worth going.

Very clever. Thanks Adam. I had been using landings to do the same thing, now there is another way.

I'm just curious how many Chief users are going to this show?

Well that explains why the CA program has been getting really good with Kitchen and bath items. And why people like Rene Rabbit will use Cabinets to make everything under the sun. :-)

I'm constantly having that same problem of recall. I think our brains are just full. But this is a great plug for the SSA membership I pay for every year. I will make at least 4 calls each week to CA support to help me remember what I've forgotten. Makes it well worth the price as it keeps me from wasting an hour or more of my time trying to find the answer.

Adam, You should check out Rene' Rabbit's youtube video's on that subject of AO and lighting. It is not very intuitive unless you've cut your teeth on that stuff. He's been able to make his PB'rs sing before he exports them to Twin Motion. You'll find it very helpful.

One big reason I love reading these questions and answers, I've been dogged by those damn sloped recessed lights for years, and I never knew there was a way to turn off that follow the roof slope feature!!! As usual, I don't want to know how long that has been in CA. But big thank you for your explanation DB. Too often in these porch situations, if it is not a defined room, those darn lights wanted to follow the roof. Now I know why! This picture also shows off Rene's creative use of cabinets for casement windows.. If I was Rene, I'm sure I would find a way to put a light in a cabinet and insert it above the porch. :-)

Great response Jacob. Love the fact CA people read and respond to so many questions without being condescending. I think the two door mulled solution works best. But you might want to add that option to the suggestion pile for future updates?

I'm doing more and more modern designs based on the same design aesthetic overall, and CA is very easy to work with. The main challenges come from getting a beautiful 3d model converted down into 2d working drawings. That is hard in any country. But with all the newer setup tools, templates, styles and such, if your smart, take the time to first set up your version of CA for how you like to draft and design, then tweak it for your form of building plan oversight, it will be simple and easy.

We have asked that CA consider adding the option of making the inches side of the label a superscript, so that inches are smaller than the feet. That is the way us old timers used to draft those labels.

Beautiful. Well done Justin. The design looks like a great example of the current modern style. Makes it easier to work from home if your home looks like work. :-) Can we just ask CA to put pivot doors in X15?

I was drawing a pretty simple custom rail using the current toolset, but when I drew a section cut of the railing I kept noticing that the balusters were sunk into the raised bottom rail. Any idea why that happened? I was trying to insert a custom baluster that had a small decorative cap and base, but the base was always hidden inside the bottom rail.

Thank you Yusuf. That feature request has been around so long, I suspect CA will get it in one of the next updates. Meanwhile that is a great work-around.

I know we can force a deck railing outside the deck rim and mount it to the rim or fascia, extending it down below the level of the deck but how can this be done with stairs?

I agree this was brutal, but it did allow me to create a symbol with 4 different objects which can be painted 4 different ways. Yes. It can be done in one step if you first create a symbol, but the railing is then a polyline. It can be done with more work using CA railing and a molding polyline. But the ASK for CA is to give us more controls in the railing dialogs to make this possible to do as shown.

This is odd, but I cannot find an easy fix to this issue. The old cheapo deck railing on the outside of the rim using basic 2x2 pickets. This means we use a 2X4 or 2X6 top rail and a 2X4 or 1x4 vertical inside top rail piece. So since CA does not allow any offsetting of the middle rail to create this vertical piece I had to draw a custom top rail, as shown in the picture. Unfortunately, the balusters will only go up to the bottom of this custom shape, leaving a gap. I know there are many ways to get this to work, maybe with a 3d molding top rail over the same railing with no top rail, but you guys might have a better suggestion? This is how I want it to look without having to monkey around with all the various settings and work-arounds. Just getting those balusters tight to the rim joists was a real pain of incremental dragging.

There are many threads here that brush through this process in Photoshop, but not in much detail. Can anybody provide a more step by step process? I think I puzzled it out myself by using the tool "Filter" and "3d", But the first time I tried it told me to turn on my graphics processor, which I guess was off by default. It took me a while to find that setting in PS. I'm just not clear on the various option settings for "Generate Bump Map". So I just used the default setting and got reasonable results. I was trying to get a better looking Board & Batten siding than those I could find in CA, so I took a decent image off Google and generated a much better result in Standard View. PBR tends to show a bright line where the shadows are. I'm looking for feedback.

During the supply chain delays, I had one contractor request I provide the truss layout and show the revised shape so he could build them by hand. The local truss shops were so far behind it did not make sense to wait on a small remodel.

Great way to solve the problem!! Thanks so much for finding that Glenn

I always seem to bump up against CA's limited plan fill patterns, and CA says there is no way to make a custom fill pattern in plan view, even though we can make a custom fill pattern in vector view using the texture file. It would be nice to export that pattern into the pattern library and use it in plan view also. Or even import new patterns from other sources. Anybody have a workaround for this?

My two structural engineers are overloaded also. For now. I suspect that the coming downturn will change all of that for everyone.

Thanks Eric. Those are great video's on how to work around these column, newel problems. That will save me so much time on future projects until CA listens to what you've asked for!

I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered already, or if I'm missing something obvious, But does CA allow us to adjust the newels and post to beam spacing so that I can have wider spacing on the posts and tighter spacing on the newels??

I followed Rene's tutorial on making a symbol. It took me half a day, but I finally got a good symbol that gives me decent results. The frame cuts the wall nicely and has stretch planes that work well with 2x6 walls. Now that it is done, I can insert much faster than the above work-arounds.

Okay. But making a spherical backdrop should be easy, when we are at the clients home most cell phones will do panorama shots. Any idea what settings will work best? DH7777 is correct about the limits of what CA offers, but every 3d image I've seen Rene create has very nice spherical backdrops. It cannot be too hard to make the right edits in PS if we know what the rules are.