Chris_Kelly

Yes, that can by done by opening a camera with the orthographic floor overview camera and switching to the 3d framing layer set. Then you can send that as an image and move up a floor, or send to layout as a live view and copy the camera to move it up for the next one. You will still see the floor below though.

Looks pretty cool! I want to know what the rendering cost is though.

I would probably create a pass-through window and put a cabinet in the wall. Probably get rid of the counter, kickspace, etc. Maybe get rid of the face frame too. Alternatively, you could just place a drawer front against the wall and say it's a drawer.

It's called "hatch, angle" under the "type" drop down.

Ok well here's how I'd do it. Make a second floor and draw those walls in. I'm not sure whether it would be better to use attic walls and the attic floor or just make it a second floor, but practically I don't think it matters. Draw in your new roof planes and adjust pitch accordingly. Then lock the pitch and start lowering the roof planes by adjusting one of the height dimensions. Use the breakline tool and pull the existing roof plane you have back so it doesn't intersect the new walls. Then do the same to the dormer sections there and create a new roof plane for each dormer. The whole thing is essentially drawn as a second floor with one big "open below" room and a lowered roof. Does that make sense?

Huh, that did fix it. Thank you very much Mark. I'm still a little confused though because if you open the kitchen camera it shows shadows coming from the laundry room. Then I move that camera into the laundry room and hit rebuild 3d, and the lights are no longer displayed. Is there a reason for this or is this just another thing that will be relegated to the category of "things I know how to fix but don't know why its a problem."

Well since you're not even sure where to start, your best bet is watching the free training videos on chief's site. You will learn more there than anyone could really teach via forum post. Here are a few you might find helpful: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/5447/roof-basics.html?playlist=95 https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/6124/gable-roof.html?playlist=95 https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/6131/automatic-dormer-tools.html?playlist=95 https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/1522/creating-a-decorative-dormer-manually.html?playlist=95 As for the vaulted ceiling, that is another rabbit hole depending on how complicated it is, but to start; once you have the roof over the room in question, open the room spec dialog and uncheck flat ceiling over room (in the structure tab). That will use the roof structure as the ceiling plane. There is also a ceiling plane tool you can use to make it more customizable. Good luck, and let us know if there is a more specific question you need help with. Generally speaking if you need info on a broad topic like roofs, the training videos are the place to start. If something specific about the roofs are giving you trouble, search for it in the very expansive help guide (F1). If you can't find what you're looking for in either of those places, someone on the forum has either asked it before or can answer it for you.

Hiya. So I'm having this issue on seemingly random plans for a little while and am finally getting annoyed to the point of posting a plan. If you open up the camera in the kitchen, the placed light sources are on and cast shadows. If you open the laundry one the same light sources that were just displaying and casting shadows are now off. Can't for the life of me figure out why. Someone please make my day and point out the obvious thing I'm missing here, or let me know where i can clarify the issue better. lighting issue.plan

They did answer you correctly. The solution to your problem is learning more about saved plan views. However, there are many nuances to setting them up correctly. If the default ones aren't already working for you then it's not something that can be explained via a forum post without a more specific question. Your best bet is watching some training videos on the subject. This forum is great for tips and tricks and being pointed toward resources to learn; not so much for hand holding and detailed training.

^what Eric said. But also there is a tool called object painter. I'm not sure if you can use it with hardware, but it can be used in most cases where you need to change the properties of multiple things. It's a godsend when changing cabinet moldings for example.

I would assume there's potential for things to get a little screwy when using updated templates originating several versions back, so is there much benefit to be had from creating a new template in the current version if that's the case? Or could there be any new features we're missing out on by using an old template (besides grayscale walls)?

Another vote here for psolids.

Well it is in respect to the fact that I essentially had to create a new cabinet rather than having the ability to edit the existing one like I wanted. Only issue with the way you guys did it is I'm trying to replicate an existing design, which happens to have a face frame. So I deleted the surfaces of the existing face frame, made a new one with psolids, and made it a new symbol. Thanks for the input though!

Thanks for the replies Steve & Mark. So basically we're stuck in work around territory instead of Chief just doing what I want, right?

Morning y'all, So I've got a pantry room in a kitchen I'm working on. I've got corner wall cabinets stacked on each other with utility cabinets on the flat wall sections. All cabinets are doorless. My issue is that the corer cabinets have a center stile on the face frame that I can't figure how to get rid of. The side stiles are adjustable, but I can't find controls for the center one. Anyone know what I'm missing here?

I've had a bit of success and a lot of frustration with sketchfab. Most of my issues were with textures not importing into sketchfab and the whole model being white. But in order to shrink the file size I believe your best bet is to go in and either delete or switch to a non displayed layer as many symbols with high face counts as you can. Open the symbol (not object) for different pieces of furniture or fixtures or whatever looks like a complex symbol. Get rid of the highest number of faces possible or see if you can replace it with a simpler symbol. Then try the export again and keep your fingers crossed. Good luck!

^What Eric said. But to add to that, I've had trouble with this in the past, particularly with attic walls iirc. What worked in my case was to use the delete surfaces tool and send to layout as an image. If you send it as a view then the surfaces will reappear when the layout box is updated. Alternatively since this appears to just be for framing members and if you don't care about colors, you could create a cad detail from view after you delete the appropriate surfaces.

I'm by no means a pbr expert, but I know a bit more than your average bear. One of the aspects that make pbr so realistic in chief are the different maps you can apply to a texture that give it more realistic shadows or depth or shininess, etc. It looks like HD doesn't have the option to include those maps, like the normal, bump, ambient occlusion maps, etc. So that's going to limit you a bit. But another big part of getting a realistic rendering is lighting. In chief (and I'll assume HD) you can add extra light sources to a light fixture to get different effects with shadows and "hot spots" in the light a fixture is casting. This can go a long way towards having a more natural look. Another option is to download a (currently free till Nov.) rendering program called Twinmotion. You can import your model into it and use their textures and lighting to potentially get a better look. I played around with it a bit and it may or may not be worth your time long term, but its free so it's worth trying out. So I guess my only helpful advise regarding HD is to experiment with additional lighting sources with different settings. Get a baseline, take a picture. Make a change, take a picture. Flip back and forth between pictures and pick the better looking one then try to improve it further.

Hey there, So I've got this drawing that was done. I had to go back in yesterday and adjust the opening size for a spiral staircase. This involved moving the framing members, then the railings. Everything went fine until I moved the rails a couple inches out, which then disappeared. The wall is still there, but the rail is gone in 2d and 3d. If I move the rails back in towards the corner of the building a couple inches they reappear, which is confusing. I couldn't find any settings that were changing when they got moved so I'm baffled. So who is going to make my day and tell me what I missed? Thanks in advance. (done in x11 btw) rail issue.zip

Hey everyone, happy Friday! So I've been working on optimizing my templates lately and have run into a little snag. I like to put a few dashes or asterisks after the names of layers I use frequently such as floor joists or wall framing. It saves a few seconds trying to search through all the framing layer names. So I made this change in my template thinking it would be the last time I had to make it, but when I built the framing on a new file, Chief created a new layer with the old name without the dashes. So I figured I would have to change the layer name in the framing defaults. However when I opened those up I couldn't find an area where I could do this. So is there a tab I missed or am I SOL and have to do it manually for each job? Or is there a different work around I haven't thought of yet?

Just spit balling here but could you export the file as DWG or DXF or something and import it in x10? I know that wouldn't work for everything, but it should work in some circumstances, right?

This isn't exactly what you're looking for but if you get it all set up to your liking once, you can hold Ctrl to group select it and make it a CAD block which you can then save to your library. If you need to unblock it and adjust any of the text it may get messed up again though. That's how I'd do it.

Son of a gun, that did it! Thanks rlackore! But that still leaves the question of why, when I open the file up via the layout and open a camera, it still displays properly even when the "Rooms" layer turned off? I just checked and that is indeed the case. EDIT: Also, when I turn off the rooms layer in other plans this issue does not happen. Is there some other setting that is associated with that layer that will affect the way these surfaces display?

Hey all. I've got quite the mystery on my hands and can't wait to get some ideas on it. So I've got this file I'm almost done with. I open it up one day last week and add a 3d box to the kitchen ceiling as a drop beam. Then I save and close the file to work on something else. Up until this point I have had no issues with this file. I open it back up in the afternoon, open a camera in the kitchen to look at the new beam, and the floor and ceiling surfaces are not displayed, just the underlayment part of the floor platform. Obviously the first thing I check is the the floor and ceiling surface layers are turned on in the current active layer set, which they are. I tried a different camera type and rendering method, same deal. I close the file and open a previous save from the prior week and get the same results. I open a different file and everything displays fine. I figure it must be some of my preference that got screwed up so I open the older and current file on a coworker's machine and get the same problem. I went back and opened the current file and try a camera on a different layer set and it looks fine, which tells me some layers are screwed up on my camera view layer set, but I have no idea what happened, or why the problem affects previously saved files too. Then the really perplexing thing happens; I open up the associated layout file, open the plan via the layout, open a camera on the same default camera view set, and the floor and ceiling surfaces display fine. I have double checked that the file I was working on is the same one the layout is opening, and it seems to be the same one. So I am thoroughly stumped on what I did to screw this up. The file was created on x10 and I haven't downloaded x11 yet. I attached the file with a few things deleted to get the file size down enough to post, but I checked again and the issue is still there. If it would be helpful to have the associated layout file I could post that after deleting the client info. So any thought folks? floor&ceiling_issues.plan

I tend to use cad lines when I'm measuring a new house instead of any dimensioning tool. That way if I move a wall I still have all my other measurements in tact. I can just use the point to point tool to put the cad line back in place. They don't have numbers on them, but you can be as precise as you want with them. Just start a line at the right spot, open up the dbx, and enter the desired length. I want to credit Alaskan_Son, but am hesitant to do so in case I bastardized his idea lol.