tchomes

Do any of you know how to change the default room fill pattern? We typically use the fill to designate wood, tile or "No Fill" for carpet. However, we use a line weight of 3. I fill all of our tile showers with a 4" cross hatch. Since I come back at the end and show the other floor types, I would like to set the default "Cross Hatch" pattern at 4" and the line weight at 3 to save a few clicks when drawing showers in. I would then want to set the default back to none for the preliminaries, but when I get to a shower, I could just pick "Cross Hatch" and the other settings would already be set. Ideally for future releases, it would be nice if we could change the room fill defaults with each "Room" default. Since I have shower as a "Room", I could then change it to always show the room fill I set as the default. Just trying to work smarter and fewer "clicks". Hopefully you all know where I can set the default room fill line weight at a minimum. Thank you in advance.

Thank you for the quick reply. I was using CTRL+ after I had selected the viewport. Key STEP, use the CTRL+ before clicking on the viewport. Thanks again, I will get back to work now.

I just logged in to Chief Talk for the very same issue. However, CTRL+ did nothing for me. I held the CTRL+ key and clicked on a corner of the view and it still just moved the perimeter, did not stretch or resize the image. I called Chief Tech Support and there suggestion was to use the ruler to rescale the view. You can uncheck "No Scale" and pick a scale that works for your drawing. I did that as the work around for the ISO view on the front page of the dwg, but hopefully there is another fix for this. Forgot to mention that I am using Windows Version. Not sure if it matters on Mac or Windows. Thank you.

I am looking to purchase a third license for a new contract employee. Just checking to see if there was anyone who wanted to sell their X8 or X9 license. I would need to be able to add SSA to it. This may not be the correct forum to pose this question, and if not, then the mods can delete this thread. Thank you, Roy

I opened a plan in X9 this morning that I completed in X8 back in January. To my suprise, the attic walls for the dormers are sticking above the roof and the windows in that area are messed up. I have noticed this happening before with older plans that we use to modify. I decided to take some time this morning and look through the forums and try to determine what is going on between X8 & X9. We have so many more issues with X9 and attic walls and auto dormers. Something apparently changed... See photos below of what is appearing when I open the file in X9. I can open in X8 and it appears correct. I assume some simple setting that I need to fix when opening these older plans. I appreciate the help so I can quit scratching my head and placing blame somewhere else

We set up our template with the various doors styles and windows we use in plans. We were hoping we could just select the door/window and click set as default to change the doors and windows to match. Doors Panels seem to work, but the lite pattern in windows does not. The casing defaults don't copy with either. Do you all know of another way to do this? We typically have a Header Buildup for the lintel when working on Craftsman homes, both for the door and the windows. This would be a nice feature if the window lites had defaults. Thanks, Roy

Sorry for the trouble between X7 & X9. The same steps work for X7 as well. One thing for sure, if you need some help, there is always someone on Chief Talk that will try. Good luck.

With practice, you will get the hang of it and be able to draw the below in no time.

Here is the revised plan that I saved. I checked the open in Home Designer box, so hopefully it will open in the version you are using. If not, I can modify it in X8, but I don't currently have X7 loaded. Dawson Porch Roof Troubled.plan

I modified it in X9. What are you currently running?

Cut the existing roof plane at the intersection of your new roof plane using the cut polyline tool or by pressing the number 3 (shortcut). Then drag the corner down a ways and join the two together.

Like the below?

Look at the OCE Plotwave 350. Superior product to all others out there. Uses less energy and you will have way less downtime. They are built in Germany and are the preferred large format printers for most production printing shops as well as large firms. I believe they go for around $11,500 installed, without a scanner. I worked in a fortune 100 company doing engineering work for 8 years and we abused our OCE printers, but they kept cranking out prints. You should be able to find a local rep that can show one to you. Superior to KIP and Canon.

See the snapshots below for the order of operations

See attached picture. Is this what you were after?

If you are just wanting the two lowest planes to be at the same height, open the original roof plane and copy the "Fascia Top Height" height. In the plan view, make sure you align the new roof plane edge to the other edge. Then open that Roof Plan box and lock the roof pitch and paste in your "Fascia Top Height" from your other plane. They should then be at the same height.

Thanks Ryan. I tried to do a search before posting the topic, but didn't find it discussed. I'm glad you all are looking into it. Until then, I will leave shadows off on my elevation views. Again, thanks for your hard work on X9. Lots of other areas that were vastly improved.

I need some help with settings... In X8, I started using shadows for exterior elevations. I am just completing some drawings in X9 Beta and noticed that the materials are now shadowed, making the elevations look cloudy instead of crisp. Is there a way to turn this off? I have attached an X8 front elevation that has shadows turned on and you can see the building creates shadows, but the individual stones and brick do not. In X9, I've attached two pictures, one with shadows and one without. If you look closely with the one with shadows, you will see each stone has a shadow. To me, this is too busy and hides the crispness of the elevation view. I should note, these are all done with the elevation camera in Vector view. Thank you for your assistance. Roy Tracy's Custom Home Design Farmersville, TX

I learned this morning that for text, dimensions and polylines to show up in the Camera Elevation views, you need to have the following checked: Go into your Preferences and turn on the Software Rendered Overlays which can be found on the Render Panel. I found this out as one of my employees had an issue with his graphics card running X9 and was told to uncheck all the lower boxes in the bottom of the Render Panel to increase performance. I personally like for my software to run efficiently as well, so I went in and unchecked the "Software Rendered Overlays" box as well. That apparently makes it "really" difficult to work in Elevation views as you can type and edit items, but you can't see them until you export to Layout view. To Chief Architect's credit, they were very quick to respond to the issue and let me know how to fix it. I am posting this to help anyone else that may have unchecked that box and had issues. Thank you, Roy

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your opinion and that sounds fair.

Until now, I've only done one-off custom homes and variations for individuals and builders. I have a standard fee I use for those jobs. I was recently contacted about doing 10 new plans for a 350 home planned neighborhood. I need some advice on pricing strategy. I presume I charge full rate for the initial 10 designs and then their would be a royalty/re-use fee for each time they build an additional home. What do you all charge for the re-use? Is it a percentage of the original price or a set amount? I don't want to price myself out of the job, but also don't want to give them away for free either. These homes are in the 1,700-2,000 sqft starter homes, single story. Build price in the $150k's I appreciate your guidance. Thank you, Roy

I own a small residential design firm, Tracy's Custom Homes, in the NW part of the DFW metroplex, about 20 mins east of McKinney, TX. We are looking to expand and I am looking to hire someone for an entry level position. I would prefer the candidate live within commuting distance to Farmersville, TX. Once things progress, the opportunity exist for the individual to work a couple of days from home. Chief Architect experience preferred, but not required. Passion for Home Design is required. Primary functions will include laying out walls, doors, cabinets per sketches based on existing templates and completing finalized drafting for interior dimensions, elevation notes and rough-in plans. Again, prior knowledge of Chief not required, but individual needs to be able to learn new software. If someone is looking for part time work, I would be interested as well. I would need the individual to be able to work out of my office at least two days a week, or half days. Thank you and you can contact me via email at roy.homfeld@tracycustomhomes.com if interested.

I just got back on here to see the responses and am amazed at everything I read and watched. Huge shoutout to everyone who contributed on this thread. I am all about efficiency and with my current workload, I'm trying to minimize the repetitive steps, like opening and copying the information from a window. That is what I currently do. I'll do some more reading on the Ruby tool. Thank you! Roy

Thanks for the tip... I haven't quite got the hang of the live views yet. Yours looks awesome though.

Thanks Joe for your reply. Sounds like there is a way to do it. Now I just have to figure it out. Is there a manual on how to write macros? I've written macros in Excel, but not sure what language Chief uses. Roy