kylejmarsh

I think you can actually do that - check it out. The place you can see it is in the 'layout box specification' and you can select a different file - here I am showing the existing and the concept both on one layout box view: As far as model organization, the guys are describing a similar process to what I use. First build a rough model based on the simple/basic dimensions you took at the meeting. I don't go overboard with this because I don't even know how good a project this is and the concept phase only pays so much. So I just get the important stuff - namely wall locations for the areas we are working on, the outside footprint (at this point the county/township tax records work fine) and the height of the roof eaves and ridges. This becomes the 'rough existing' model, witch which I use to make the concept options. Once we get further down the line and decide on a concept and I get ready to do 'real' drawings, then I go back sometimes with my computer sometimes with a basic print-out and I get all the remaining dimensions to get the model dialed in. I actually fine-tune the current model and usually discard the 'rough existing' at this point, because later on I'll go back and use my final model, duplicate it, and delete out the stuff that's new, fix up the existing by adding the demo notes, and that one becomes the 'Demo' model that goes in to the print set. It's all pretty straightforward. Chief is kinda like a mini bike - it ain't perfect but it's got just enough horsepower to do what you need, and it's a fun ride. And kind of like a minibike it's not considered a 'real' motorcycle by guys who use really expensive bikes that are really fussy and broken down all the time, meanwhile you're riding laps around them on your Chief Architect minibke. Or something like that. Kyle

I'd like to set-up the sill plate to have an automatic materials cost but when I change it the Automatic Framing turns off. That's fine but I can't find where to find / change properties for this or other automatic framing. Guess I could do it in the materials list editor but to me it's more intuitive to put right on the component itself.

Thanks Michael! I had no idea it was so easy - only 40 simple steps! lol guess that's the Chief way sometimes

Dude - sweet! Thank you

A common way to finish a stair headed up to the second floor, which i stacked over a stair going to the basement, is to infill a wall between the stair and the floor, but then have the wall go all the way to the ceiling at about the point where the handrail touches the ceiling. In order to do this 'correctly' the stair must widen by the width of the wall (4" or so) in order to cap the lower wall. In all my years I have never figured out how to do this. It's probably something simple that I'm missing but does anybody know how to widen a stair mid-run to make this detail accurate? I'm tired of phoning it in with 3D solids.

I assume you have different layersets defined - at a minimum you'd want one for your plan view (with the electrical turned off) and one for your elevations (with the electrical turned on). There are other items you may not want turned on for the elevations, for example the cabinets. Maybe the interior fixtures, interior furniture, etc. turning these off can really speed up the rendering of the elevations and make your drawings faster. Learn to use the layers and it will make life good

For band-boards and other accent trim like that I almost never use that molding tool. Much quicker to use a 'wall material region' which I set up as my exterior trim material. You can set default depth to 3/4 or 1 and then just draw them right on the wall you want. You can even draw them across doors and windows and they'll automatically cut themselves.

Chief allows you to 'export thermal envelope data' which may be helpful. Look in the File > Export > menubar. There's also an 'export to rescheck' in there which may be useful as well.

Its shouldn't be slow. I've been working with Mac + Chief for a while and I've got just an M1 MBP with 16 GB and chief works great, especially since x15 update. x16 has more bugs/crashes but it's not slower.

Sync your hotkeys so all the major items you usually use are available from the left-hand home row. This allows you to keep one hand on your mouse, and the other on the keyboard, without ever needing to look (or minimally) at the keyboard. Remap your tools like this: the most used tool goes with the easiest keystroke. That way, the tool you call-up the most is assigned to the letter 'F' (to me this was the easiest keystroke for my left hand). The command I used was actually the 'open object' command, because as you know we do a lot of opening dialogues in Chief Architect. Continue through your tools and pair them with other easy to reach commands. All the left hand home row is easy (ASDF keys) and T and G, V, C, and simple shift-modified versions of that are doable with the left hand. To make my map I made a spreadsheet with the easiest keystrokes ranked, then I ranked my tools based on how often they got used, and then I paired them up that way. I believe my 'text-arrow-note' is under the D key since I use that a lot. I also created a 'paste in place' for the V, which helps me easily move objects between floors and keep them in the same area. So that's my suggestion - if you haven't remapped your hotkeys yet go do it. Last thing - print out a list or better yet draw a graphic of your new layout to keep next to your monitor for a while. Good Luck!

I used to be able to just mull them up and it would get rid of that center piece of trim - however it seems like that doesn't work anymore on X16. The real question is why cant' we specify horizontal panels the way we can specify vertical panels? This would solve the issue immediately. I have provided a graphic for the chiefs at chief to study and implement.

Guess it's time to update to the official release. Thank for letting me know. Are we getting a gui update next?

Makes selecting the correct layerset very confusing and tedious - this list used to be sorted Alphabetically

Anybody else getting this? Not a major issue but they've introduced this new Table to X16 and it's chopping off the names of the framing members because the column is too skinny. I'm unable to make it wider in the Mac version, though I can adjust the other column widths. Wondering if it's just me or if this is an issue. Makes me wonder when they'll let go of these dialogues entirely? Hopefully the plan is to give us a modern interface where we can adjust things from live info panels in the sidebar instead of clicking through these dialogues all day. To me that's the biggest issue for Chief at this point, everything else seems to be running pretty well on the backend for this new version so maybe the interface update comes next. Kyle

Yeah I'm not sure you can do that - I'm sure there's a way but I've not figured it out yet successfully. I just fire up the elevation point tool and place new ones where the surveyor shows them. Also make sure you set the Label of the elevation point to the 'elevationf' so that it displays it's actual elevation.