DavidJPotter

For years I have had multiple hard drives. Currently I have my "Plans Directory" on Drive "E". Chief remains on drive "C" along with Windows 10. I have a drive for Windows XP which contains Chief 7,9.5, 10 and some older versions of Home Designer intended to run in XP x32. I also have a hard drive where I archive things I might want to use later. My Drive "C" is an SSD my other hard drives are analog drives. DJP

The Hotkey feature is explained in your Reference Manual pages 138-140, have at it. DJP

All competence comes from "study - practice - failure - restudy and then getting it right". There is no list of presets that works on every possible ray traced view, you discover them for each view by running a quick ray trace, adjust properties and then try again until you get the overall look you want. There is no other workable way. Typically these days my Ray Traces take about 30 minutes to do (20 minutes for set up runs and 10 minutes for final runs to a product). It is often a matter of "acceptable quality" which you are the judge of. I started Ray Tracing back in earlier versions when Pov Ray was used (Pov Ray is a free Persistance of Vision rendering program that Chief Users until they developed their own render engine). Pov Ray worked but it was hard to use and required more self study in order to get a decent looking render. DJP

The thing about Ray Tracing is patience and perseverance as well as lots of try's until you get the settings for lights and materials just the way you want it. The most realistic grass I have seen was done by those willing to create their own grass texture and apply it to thier views DJP

Do what manually exactly. DJP

John, until you post a picture of your house's windows everyone is just guessing at what to do. DJP

First thoroughly study the Materials List section of the Reference Manual. Settings that directly contribute to the ML come from Roof Plane defaults, room dialog box settings and tabs, and the dialog box settings for individual materials and how they are assigned to walls and roof planes via defaults. There is too much to know to communicate it in detail here (my fingers would get sore). Adopt a habit of really looking hard at each Default Setting and roof, wall and other dialog box settings and input boxes, there lies your salvation. DJP

This something you do by controlling the "Z" axis height of roof planes making sure that they are first properly set up in ones "Structure" tab. You just control the software or not based upon your skill and persistence to have what you want. You can also add or subtract 2D overlays to make it look the way you want for a detail. Often in drafting and 3D modeling you are going for an appearance and NOT perfection, just a clear, graphic communication via your plan and its views. DJP

It is almost always a "setting" that is denying your desired result, check your settings in the stair dialog and find the one that is not working for you, there is NO other answer than settings. DJP PS: I AM SORRY I MISSED THE POINT THE FIRST TIME. IT APPEARS ON SECOND LOOK THAT YOU HAVE YOUR ELEVATION CAMERA VIEWPOINT TOO CLOSE OR PAST WHERE IT SHOULD BE. BACK IT UP A FEW FEET AND SEE IF THAT DOES NOT SOLVE YOUR CURRENT PROBLEM. DJP

Having a huge amount of content, including core, bonus and a lot of user content that I have collected over the years since I started using Chief (1995) does slow down a Library Browser "Search" but that has never caused a crash or other negative side effects. I would first look at my PC hardware and its proper maintenance or lack thereof as a weak point before I started blaming Chief. DJP

The way I share with Engineers who use AutoCAD is 1.Find out which version of AutoCAD they use 2.Open my layout, 3. Double click on the views I want to share 4. Export from an Edit Plan view window so the reciepient does not have to rescale the views (if you export directly from a layout page the native scaling of 1' = 1' is then lost and creates unnecessary trouble for the Engineer 5. I also send a PDF of my layout for reference Never had a problem following the above steps. DJP

I worked on your remodel plan showing how I would approach the job based on what I can see: https://youtu.be/z4vKNYyBMFg DJP

Make that Attic wall a Pony wall so you can then have an interior wall inside and a siding wall facing outside. DJP

Most of the above responses are just people's opinions (worthless), talk to Vince Kunasek as he has been selling plans for years, his advice would be more useful to you than others opinions and biases. It is to be expected that others would tend to discourage you from doing what you want to do by placing barriers and questions in your way. Just talk to Vince and do what you want to do. DJP

Stairwells and Stair objects are separate constructs, the stair object being moved will not automatically effect the stairwell or visa versa. you might consider moving the stair object and then manually adjusting the stairwell to match the new stair location. DJP

DJP

It is kinda frustrating to me about some of the questions asked on Chief Talk. Chief Talk is mostly other people's opinions and guesses which can be useful if the question is clearly stated in the first place Anyone who has an "SSA" account is already paying for Tech Support, why waste your time making others guess what is wrong when you can call Tech Support and usually get data from "the horse's mouth"? DJP

See if Tech Support can make some useful suggestions. DJP

The "Z" axis height of roof planes is equally as important as the roof plan done in 2D. To really repair this roof system thoroughly, I would have to have the elevations pages which you did not provide. The Join Roofs tool will not change any roof pitches only the joining geometry. 2D draftspersons are not infallible and once in a while make mistakes but in your case I think the Z axis settings of some of your roof planes is throwing off slightly they way the look in plan view (Fascia top height, baseline height, pitch are equally important relative to roof design, not just 2D) DJP

No, but call Tech Support to see if they can help. DJP

The last time I had a problem with Chief crashing was in Version 8 and that was caused by a bad mouse driver, once fixed, no more crashes. Call Tech Support to see if they can help you. DJP

Contact Vince Kunasek, vince@vincekunasekdesign.com, 9629 Redick Ave., Omaha, NE 68122 Phone. 402-315-9996 He sells plans. DJP

Home Designer Architectural imports .dxf files only. Your Architect can export from AutoCAD .dwg which you cannot use or in .dxf format which you can import and sketch over with 3D tools in Architectural. That is what you should do: ask your Architect for .dxf files which you can use. DJP

It is usually done like your posted detail in 2D CAD rather than 3D. It can be done in 3D but why would one do that when it is easier to do wholly in 2D? In terms of 3D you just manually edit the framing and I suppose you could create a poly-line solid for the stem walls and footing. I consider doing that a waste of my time when the usual convention is purely 2D. DJP

Interiors does not do terrain or landscaping but you can draw a custom slab or series of slaps to emulate terrain or upgrade to Premier which does have these abilities natively. I suppose you could download a free version of Sketch Up and create a terrain plane construct to import into Interiors but I would do that only if I am very enterprising indeed! DJP