kylejmarsh

I have never, and still today can't figure it out, been able to get the 'Alt' / 'Alternate' behaviour to work in the multiple copies dialog. I wonder if this is because I'm a Mac User? Does anybody else use this alternate offset/copy distance? Here is the dialog to refresh your memory. Theoretically we can use this Secondary Offset to change the spacing. But I've never been able to get it to work - either by holding the Alt button or using the right click. Here's what the Manual says: Is this something that others are using, and if so how do I unlock it's power?

Very nice detail sheet - thanks for posting.

Yeah that screenshot is from the logitech options app. Just getting the feel for the mouse - this thumb button could be useful. Maybe I can remap that horizontal scroll because I don't really see myself using it when I can just drag the screen around with the middle click.

Just got a new Logitech MX Master 3 and it's so far so good - but haven't been able to get the horizontal scroll/thumb scroll to work in CA. Anybody solve this issue or is this feature not supported yet?

I used to submit a bunch and see others have killer suggestions which never get implemented so, eventually, you quit suggesting things because why even bother. Plus I have kids now so I'd rather just figure out a work-around to these issues and deal with it quietly so I can get back to playtime or bottle time or whatever more fun thing there is to do. If Chief ever gets serious about a GUI upgrade and productivity improvements I'll be there to contribute, but until then if it ain't broke (or even if it's a little broke) then don't fix it. You should get a copy of the codebook, and read through it. While you're reading through it, take what you've learned in each section and make a set of notes for your drawings. That forces you to read and understand it, and communicate it - and you'll always remember it after that. Until then, still get yourself the latest Florida codebook PDF - probably from the ICC - Then you won't have to look at old drawings because you can just search for it in the codebook and you know you'll be right. Good luck.

IMHO you should use different wall types for your 'existing walls' I use an (E) at the end to denote this. That way you can have it on it's own layer 'Walls - Existing' and have it turned off of materials list. You can give it a neutral fill like a white. You can control the lineweight since it's on it's own layer. Then for your new walls have the fill you want, are on a different layer, can be added to materials list.... so many advantages. Only time I use a wall hatch is when there's a window removed / infilled in an existing exterior wall and it's a pain to do otherwise. That said, I think there are a number of these items which would be nice to have control over the default appearance. Some others are, thinking of section views + autohatch: - Insulation hatching. Right now it's a thin black line - a fat grey partially transparent one is what I like on my sections. Right now i have to change each one. - Footing hatching

I have reported this problem for years - both here in the forum and during the X11 beta test. I use an iso camera of the floor plan with a normal plan view laid on top for the notes and details - that way I get a nice looking image for the concept layout. I haven't been able to eliminate the issue, and was wondering if it was a Mac/Apple only issue, but now see it's general. The only things I've found to minimize it: Make sure cameras are set up correctly at x=0 y=0 position, with z=10' or less above floor. Rendering style set to 'standard' Export to pdf at 144dpi. Then once you get your camera correct, don't mess with it in the model. If the camera Jumps around in Layout, try closing the layout and reopening. Maybe restarting Chief. Finally if it's still moving you can use a point-to-point move to line it back up, but it's always a bummer chasing these cameras around your layout. Good luck - I remain ever hopeful that this issue will one day receive the attention it needs

As a fellow Mac user I have looked into this topic a lot. It's not a Chief issue, there is a fundamental disconnect with the MAC GPU architecture and the way everybody else does it, so I don't even think it's an issue that the CHief programmers could solve - it's more of like an AMD level issue. Luckily, they have solved it and in stunning fashion. To enable real time GPU rendering you'll need to get Twinmotion and export your chief model to .dae (collada) and import it to TM. I swear it's the easiest and most amazing rendering software I've used and right now you can try it out for free, then it's only like $300 or something. Use chief for the geometry, then when you want to render just export it and move it to TM - takes maybe 5 minutes to move it over there, and you'll save that much time on a single Raytrace if trying to use chief and it won't look half as good.

Do an ortho floor camera of just the foundation, then adjust the view to be front/side/whatever site you want to see. Who's asking for this view? I'd charge them extra IMHO

You can edit what your reference display shows - it's one of your layersets - just find it/switch to it and turn on the layers you want to see. Ponywalls could be tricky because they have individual settings in the wall dialogue about what layers they show in plan view - you may have found a funny quirk but I would guess it would be in your Ref Display Layerset, make sure you're turning on your 'walls, layers' layer. that's a tongue twister - good luck!

That's my philosophy too. 80/20 rule why would I spend even a minute trying to make a beam pocket appear when nobody is ever going to care about that, nor will they notice it on the drawing, and I could be spending that time playing with my daughter instead. If you want a pocket to show just give your default floor beams some 'fill' - I use 70% transparent fills for mine - and it will give a bit of a beam pocket effect without the fuss. That said, it seems like something that will probably be in the auto-behavior sooner or later, and I'm happy to see it added to the fuctionality.

Thank you. And you're running a mac too, so that's helpful. No PDFs on my layout file. But today I started a new layout file for a (much smaller) project and the feedback is almost instantaneous as you say. Also who the heck is downvoting me for this?

If anybody else gets a chance - can you post videos/screencaptures of working in Layout? I'm interested to see what the lag time is like for everybody else so I can figure out if this is a standard issue or something unique to my setup. Thank you all.

Sure but they're on other sheets. This sheet only had 5 viewports sent - and they're not 3D views either - just 2d plan views one for the second floor framing, one for the first, and then my sheet notes you can see on the upper right there. Does it operate much faster on your machine? Can you send a video so I can see if I'm nuts?

I don't think I'm being a prima-donna here either. Perhaps I'm spoiled now since I've started playing around with TwinMotion and Blender, but these programs are modeling far more complex geometry and the feedback is almost instantaneous. Screen Recording 2021-03-01 at 3.39.21 PM.mov

You could change the framing layer in your existing walls or turn it into something else like an air gap or just pick a random color. Then when you create the framing on auto it won't frame those walls. Alternatively you could just click your new walls and down in the bottom panel create the framing for just those ('manually')

How can I speed up layout? Seems ridiculous that moving some text WITHIN LAYOUT and not even touching my synced viewports has such an awful lag time. I have a fast computer and the modeling is plenty smooth. I also have used lots of other cad software and even old, clunky dried-up CAD software doesn't have the terrible lag that working in Layout has. I've devised ways around it - trying to do everything in my model and nothing or as little as possible in Layout - but this is just bad and seems unnecessary. What is going on within the code when moving text like this takes a few seconds? Is this common or am I an outlier? I've posted a video of the lag time here - can anybody else corroborate this lag? Is it time for a (nother) computer upgrade, or will even DeepBlue have a similar lag time? Is it some secret setting within chief that is slowing me down like this? Screen Recording 2021-03-01 at 3.31.31 PM.mov Screen Recording 2021-03-01 at 3.23.19 PM.mov

It's still intermittent from what I can see. The 144 helps. Maybe check to see if the ones that are fixed have the 'live view - update always' option checked. The other thing - make sure you zoom into the page quite a bit before hitting the print/export button - this will make sure that when your views render they do it with nice fine linework instead of ugly fat lines. But to answer your question - I haven't seen an official fix happen.

Another neat thing I just learned is you get access to all these textures and models on the MegaScan website: https://quixel.com/megascans

Yeah as an Apple user it's pretty much the only rendering program that can utilize a graphics card, especially my AMD 580 Radeon which has basically been sitting dormant... it kinda kicks on with Chief... but not like this that baby is pegged when I use this program it's kinda nuts. Been playing around with it all afternoon and there's all kind of light settings too - exposure, sky color, background, sun intensity, cloud cover - any setting I could hope for on the exterior. Why did I not get this sooner? Figured out how to export a proper 'render' and not just a screenshot of the live rendering - lol my grass is out of control! But look at that grass! Beautiful, realistic grass! And I can choose the length, the cut style, the 'dryness' (brown tint)... this is awesome

Update: Twinmotion Interior vs. Chief Interior I realize both are lacking in basic skill and execution, but are useful for comparing basic rendering settings of both. Both are screenshots from the fluid (no wait) rendering - TM operates much like 'standard' view in chief:

Did I mention that the rendering updates in real time? So I can just paint on some grass, change the time of day, month, north arrow.... yep could become a pretty good time waster lol but I bet I could get some pretty neat rendering out of this software. I will repost when I get a few really good ones...

So I have been looking to enhance my renderings a bit, and have been diving into some of the information about Blender rendering engine. It's really great, but also very complicated stuff and I think eventually I want to get good at Blender because there's just so much you can do with it - modify the meshes, add displacement/bump (battens/stones/etc). But after about a few hours or so I'm still only able to create something like this, which is not a real rendering but shows how powerful the texturing is in Blender - notice how I've added battens to the siding, ribs to the roofing, texture (incorrect texture, but this is just testing out the tool) to the stone: OK so as a MAC user there really are only a few options for GPU rendering (the rest are CPU based, just like chief is on the mac). Well I have this sweet GPU so I want to put it to work for me. What other options do I have? Well a while back I downloaded the Unreal Engine and the Twinmotion app, but never really looked too hard at it. Well, I should have. This thing is awesome. You get textures, grasses, skylines, depth of field, normal/bump mapping (no true displacement like Blender, that's the only issue with it, but the bump mapping is pretty convincing) - you get people, etc etc etc. So here is the best rendering I could come up with in chief as far as normal mapping/bump mapping to show some texture on the board+batten siding, some stone texture, etc. and to render it in a nice lighting: I'm finding the chief materials to be a bit hard to work, but if you get the normal maps and bump maps in there they can be pretty convincing too. OK so not bad for chief above. But with about an hour of 'learning' the program and exporting to collada + importing into Twinmotion, and messing with the cameras etc. I was able to come up with this: Soft shadows, materias masking, and a lot more. I chunked some of their included plants in there and they look good and cast realistic shadows too. Battens look pretty good. Woodgrain has some texture on the columns.... look close at the stone though, the normal maps are inverted in twinmotion because they use a DirectX normal map with is somehow inverted from the OpenGL normal map.... so still some kinks to work out but I'd say it's pretty exciting. So nothing really to ask but just wanted to share this with everybody - so far my experience using TwinMotion gives me hope for using it in the future. There is currently a trial license you can use unlimited (?) while you try it out. Anybody else using twinmotion? Got tips, materials, example renderings, etc?

Yes a background pdf in plan view, for example tracing over a site plan or as-built pdf, will really slow things down. Better to export it to an image then import it.

It's tough - unless you want to import some kind of geometry or use polygons, you'll have to be satisfied with the 'bump' map that chief includes. You could also try out Blender - I've just started using it and exporting my Chief models - and then in blender you can do all sorts of neat things to the geometry like add really great textures, create offsets/displacement like you've described, and a bunch of other stuff. Still getting into it but seems like, for me, this is going to be a part of my future workflow. Good luck