Christina_Girerd

I just tried turning the supposedly correct looking polyline solid 45 degrees, and now that is messed up in the same way. So it seems the problem occurs when I turn the slab OR the polyline solid any non- right angle.

Why does a slab material have the top face 45 degrees off from the sides? I was applying a running bond block material and was surprised that it looks incorrect. Then I noticed that when I opened the Define Material dbx, the preview showed correctly. I then tried applying it to a polyline solid and it showed correctly. Is there any reason the slab should show the material differently or is this a bug? The last image shows the slab on the left and the polyline solid on the right.

That worked great - thanks! I should have thought of that. Still weird though why the one elevation "works" without having to do that.

I'm trying to do a quick siding estimate and am overlaying polyline solids with a transparent angle hatch fill pattern over the elevations to get the area. However, when the elevations refreshed in the Layout, only the first elevation page correctly showed the polyline solid area with background transparency through the fill pattern. The other elevations have the background fill pattern showing as solid, even though as you can see in the dbx it is set to be 100% transparent. I tried copying the polyline solid with the transparency to the other elevations as a test, but it still shows solid. I tried sending the other elevations to the layout page that showed correctly to see if the page was an issue, etc. Any thoughts why it works in one case but not the others? I attached one that shows it working correctly and one that shows the problem. My work-around will be to draw the polyline solid with transparent fill directly on the elevation in Layout as that will get me the look I need, though I obviously still need to have the polylines drawn over the elevations in the plan to calculate the area.

I haven't really worked with parapet walls before, and was following a Chief tutorial video that had me basically make really tall third floor walls, and then do a drop down roof inside, then create a ceiling... It was a bit confusing when I tried to get a decent roof plan. Then I realized there was a roof access stair, so I ended up creating a fourth floor to show those walls. It's pretty confusing, but I at least got the plans to show what I needed in the layout and the 3D view looks right. If I did this type of thing more often, I'd take more time to figure it out, but it's all pro-bono. So I'm fine with work-arounds in this case. Thanks for the suggestions. And to Eric's question - didn't use material regions, as I needed an inset to show shadowing which is why I used wall niches.

The wall niche tool worked great for the exterior ornamentation of a vintage building I'm modeling, but then I discovered that the niches are adding confusion to the plan view since they draw within the window. I tried turning off the wall niche layer, but that only removes a single line on the exterior. It still leaves the actual wall niche void. I realize that makes sense, as it is the same thing if you turn off the window layers, you still have the voids where the window would have been. However, I don't want the wall niches to show on the plan view. I feel like I need the equivalent of the 3D cross section slider to have the floor plan only show from the windows down, but I don't think there is such a thing for the plan only view. Any suggestions?

At least we have enough sun today in my area (Mountain View - an hour south of San Francisco) that the porch lights aren't coming on in the middle of the day, but smoke is still too bad to be outside and fine gray ash is all over everything. While one of your tropical depressions full of rain would be welcomed to wash away the smoke, people are now getting worried that when we finally do get rain, the mud slides will cause even more damage.

Thanks. And yes, I'll put something in a bug report about the capping problem.

The angled section goes to a point and is not flat - that is just the odd way the wall cap applied itself. First pic shows the wall profile. Second shows the 1/4" cap, different material. Third shows 1/4" cap in same material. Last shows no cap, and wall framing changed.

Yes - that is faster than messing with materials in the wall type dbx since Chief annoyingly won't let me change materials with the eyedropper for wall "insides." Here's what a got with the standard "Cap 01" wall cap at the default 3/4" thickness. I left the cap in the other material just to show how it applied.

This is interesting - I just noticed that the top edge shows the stucco on the angled parts of the wall, but the wood for the straight parts. I'm planning to just change the wood texture to be stucco but was surprised to see this.

Thankfully I didn't have to do any measuring. The client had already used a firm that specializes in as-builts by the time they connected with me, but that firm only did plans and elevations. I'm doing the 3D so they can produce some images for a donor campaign as they are a non-profit homeless shelter and related services. Been in that building since about 1950. They've done a few remodels over that time, but ready for another. Before that it was a chemical company. I haven't really started doing the inside yet - meeting with the client tomorrow to figure that part out.

I pulled in an elevation image, sized it, then put it behind the building elevation and used the "break" tool to shape the top of the wall. Worked well. The wall niche tool worked well for the insets.

Thank you both. I'm doing a quick review of Chief's flat roof & parapet how-to videos also.

Any suggestions for the best way to make this shaped parapet wall? I figure I can do it with polyline solids if necessary, but wondering if there is something better. Thanks.

Oops! I did a church roof once with multiple curved segments and angles pointing up to a spire, and yes, it can be interesting what comes out at times during the process. Good luck!

Apparently there are quite a few things that I can't include to get the Rotate to show. Cameras, and also Roof Ridge Caps, Electrical, and after that I figured why bother...

The Edit Area/Transform didn't work for me in the actual plan - as I showed above, the rotate option was greyed out. That was my first idea on how to deal with it.

Thanks for all the tips. After trying the various options, I will create the ADU in a separate plan. Before I posted in here, I tried the Transform/Replicate option, thinking I'd try to select everything and then rotate, but I did not get a Rotate option. (see attached) I turned all the layers on, made sure nothing was locked, but something blocked it. It worked fine on a test plan with hardly anything in it. Then I tried the Rotate Plan View option, which seemed so easy at first, but then I found out it is really only visual and even the selection rectangles drawn are still on the original angles. That would be super frustrating. Definitely will make a suggestion about this, to add to whatever some of you might have already suggested. Johnny's video post sure looks nice and easy! Can't imagine trying to create that multi-angled building in Chief right now. Kind of fun to see that software since that was what I used before I jumped ship to Chief years ago because of Chief's easier ray tracing.

I have a triangle shaped lot which was set so that the original house that I remodeled 10 years ago has walls at 0 and 90 degrees. Now the client wants an ADU along the angled back fence, and the ADU walls will be at odd angles like -27 and 63 degrees. I added the angles I need for the ADU into the Default Settings / Plan tab, but I'd rather temporarily rotate the whole plan while I'm designing the ADU. What's the best way to do that? I tried searching with terms like "rotate plan" etc, but couldn't seem to pull up anything in help, Chieftalk or training videos. I know I've seen something about it in the past, but maybe I'm not using the right search terms. Thanks.

Good tip - thanks Glenn.

I put in the report and mentioned the comments. When I drag the boxes down, I don't get anything else colored. I also tried this in a generic blank layout (one of Chiefs), putting a text box on one page and another lower down on a second page, but at least in that very quick test, could not get it to reproduce.

Interesting clip Eric, thanks. How do you get those "ghost items" to be colored and show like that? Are those items from other pages that Michael was referring to? After Michael's comment, I deleted all the other pages, and then the movement worked just fine. Thanks. I'll put in a bug report.

Here it is... So the text that I circled above, will go down about 4 "down arrow clicks" now, but then stops. At least when I just tried it. 2020 07 Sample Existing.layout

I have noticed this for a long time, but usually been too busy to ask about it. Anyone know why the movement of an object, such as a text box, using the "select" then tap the "down arrow" on the keyboard method would not work when they are no obvious items in its path? For months, I have noticed this issue, particularly in my Layout file when I'm adjusting text boxes. In the example below, I did a wide selection of the area to show that there are no other objects immediately below the text items circled in red. I can select and use the up arrow and both those text boxes move. Yet not for the down arrow in this instance. I like to use the keyboard arrows for small movements because it is precise and quicker than opening the Transform dbx to move it a specific amount. Another "oddity" is that I can move the left text box (Bldg Coverage) with the left arrow key, but then I can't move it back with the right. As if it hit some invisible buffer, though I'm just moving it back to where it was. I don't know if this is an issue with the latest release, but I don't remember having so many issues with the arrow keys in the past. Is there any key I can press while using the arrow keys that while override whatever Chief thinks the object is bumping against? I tried Ctrl, Alt, and a few others but didn't find anything. Or suggestions about why the arrow keys are behaving as if blocked?