rlackore

This is because the north-south exterior wall doesn't align perfectly with the north-south interior wall. Just drag one or the other so the main layers align, and your issue will be fixed.

To fix the half-walls, open the wall dbx and change the railing height to 45", or whatever you want. It's confusing, but the railing height is set in the Newels/Balusters tab.

Yes, I agree. I've done plenty of whipping myself. Again, true - Chief isn't nearly as robust or efficient as ACAD when it comes to 2D CAD. No. I absolutely disagree with this statement. Sure, eventually you can create anything with just a Line Tool, whether you're using Chief or ACAD. But to assert that you can create 2D CAD more efficiently with Chief is absurd. Please don't take this as a personal attack, Jim - it's not - it's just a profound disagreement with your assertion.

Where did those thousands of CAD details come from? Did you create them in Chief? I assert, now having experience in both programs, that if you have to create numerous CAD details you are best served with a dedicated CAD program. I'm not bashing Chief, but I don't see any reason that a program like Chief can't also include better, more robust CAD tools.

We create a new folder and save copies of both the plan and layout, then append the date to the file names. Like you, we save the con docs in the same folder as PDF. This creates a bunch of "archive" subfolders, but it keeps everything nice and chronological. I suppose you could zip everything instead of using folders.

Learning CA will be your biggest challenge. I had twenty years invested in all flavors of AutoDesk products before being forced to switch to CA, and it was an extremely painful and frustrating transition. AutoCAD Architecture was a horrible Frankenstein monster that didn't fulfill its promise; but even the Architecture product had, at it's core, an extremely powerful, polished, and flexible CAD engine. CA treats CAD like an afterthought; but to be fair, you can't evaluate CA against a dedicated CAD program - it's a completely different animal. REVIT certainly has much better CAD capabilities, but it's not a perfect product either. I think the overwhelming benefit you would receive with REVIT is that it will seem much more familiar to your CAD operators, and it will fit into your established workflow much better. Have you clearly defined what you expect the software to do? Before CA, my office treated 3D as an "additional service" - we charged big money for it: we modeled with SketchUp and rendered with Artlantis. All of our production documents were created with AutoCAD Architectural Suite. As we began transitioning to REVIT, my boss abruptly made the switch to Chief Architect. Everyone rebelled. Most of us still aren't happy. Now, we "give away" the 3D - it's included in our basic contract, with no additional fee, under the pretext that CA does it automatically, so why should we charge extra. You can probably tell that I'm not completely on board with this approach. If you have the budget, and you're used to AutoCAD, I'd stick with REVIT. It's much more prevalent within the industry, and the Tech School grads are all learning it (no one learns Chief in school). If you have young CAD operators and you care about their professional development (and future employment), stick with REVIT. If you want the greatest flexibility in collaborating with other firms and government, go with REVIT. If you use AutoLISP and like it, don't expect similar functionality with CA - it simply isn't possible.

Scott, What are you using this web site for? Back country hiking? I can't see any relevance for the construction industry, unless you're laying pipeline or conduit. I'm just curious.

Does the County have a Land Records System / GIS portal? You can usually get 2 and 10 foot LIDAR contours from these sites. Or are you looking for 3D elevation data? That stuff is available here: http://ned.usgs.gov/

If the file isn't too large, don't even zip - just attach the plan file - that's what I do.

Oops. Watching Perry's video what I was doing wrong: I was using a floor camera, not a full camera. With a full camera, I do indeed get the z-fighting. Doing what Perry did eliminated the z-fighting, for whatever reason.

Post the plan, quick!

Well, when I deselect "Use Room Ceiling Finish," I get nothing - the entire roof ceiling plane disappears. Obviously, there something going on - maybe unique to each of our systems, video cards, etc. Someone from Chief needs to jump down the rabbit hole and figure this out.

Opening the Ceiling Plan Specification dbx doesn't fix it for me either. Neither does changing the soffit material back to default. I still don't get any z-fighting. I've even played around with changing the camera settings.

Nope, I haven't heard that name before.

Started a new plan, built a simulacrum of Scott's house, and everything builds fine with default materials correctly assigned. I've concluded that ceiling joists will receive, by default, the default roof rafter material. Scott's issue must be plan specific - maybe there's something corrupt. However, Perry, the ceiling still disappears when I uncheck the "Use Room Ceiling Finish". With check box: Without check box:

Perry, yes in Defaults. Another thing I notice is that if you uncheck "Use Room Ceiling Finish" in the ceiling plan dbx, the ceiling plan completely disappears in 3D, no matter what material you assign to it.

Even when I re-assign the default roof rafter material (DEFAULT>FRAMING>MATERIALS>RAFTER), then rebuild your roof framing, it doesn't use the new default material - it uses FASCIA 1. FASCIA 1 is your default for fascias. So re-assigned this material, rebuilt the roof, still get FASCIA 1 for the rafters.

When I assign USE DEFAULT to a ceiling joist, it assigns FASCIA 1, which is the default material for your roof rafters (DEFAULTS>MATERIALS>RAFTERS). So those two things seem to be tied together. However, if I delete your ceiling surfaces, add new ones, and build the framing - I get SIDING VERTICAL on the ceiling joists. Weird. Still no z-fighting, even in Standard View.

The plan I opened has SIDING VERTICAL assigned to the ceiling joists. Didn't you mention stucco - or did that change before you posted the plan? I don't get any z-fighting between the ceiling surface and the ceiling joists.

You can also shoot an elevation and use a wall material region.

It deleted for me. I get a dbx asking to confirm - do you get the dbx?

Can you be more specific? Are you going for an interior view, doors open, showing the car interior? An overview showing hoistway, rails, car, etc?

View>Drawing Sheet

Here are some ideas: 1. 3D views can be rendered using different methods. If you are using Vector View, and you make a change to the material texture, but not the pattern or color, you may not see a difference until you switch to Standard or another method of rendering. 2. The materials can be defined and assigned in different ways. For instance, the exterior finish of a wall can be defined in the Wall Specification dbx (Wall Specification>Materials>Exterior Wall Surface), or in the Wall Type Definitions dbx (this is the the default). So, if you're making a change to the material using the Wall Type Definition, but you've "painted over" that default material using the Wall Specification dbx or with the Spray Can, you won't see a change until you remove the material applied to the Exterior Wall Surface. Posting a plan, or some pictures, will help us narrow things down.

File name is too long. When CA appends "_auto_save_plan" to the end of your file name, it exceeds Windows' limit for the length of the path+filename. Shorten your file name, and I'll bet it works.