Chrisb222

If you're talking about how your elevations look in layout, personally I prefer using plot lines and setting the edge lines to black, and the pattern lines to a thinner gray.

As noted earlier in this thread, watch out for attic walls - they adopt the default wall type and will return a drywall count, unless you change all of them to a wall type with no drywall layer. Just watch the material list, attic boards will show up as being on Floor 2 on a one story house, Floor 3 on a 2 story, so you can just ignore the count for that floor if you don't want to change the walls.

It's not that bad. Copy the drywall material for as many different boards as you use and give them a name that makes sense. I specify 5/8" 4x12 boards for ceilings, so all my rooms have "Drywall - 5/8" as their ceiling finish. I made 3 board styles, 1/2" 48"x12', 1/2" 54"x12', and 5/8" 48"x12', then assigned them to their respective wall definitions and ceiling defaults. In the Define Material, set the Calculation up as Count and put in the correct dimensions: In my experience it gets the count real close, and it's easy to see in the Material List which boards are being counted. Add for waste and you should be good.

I downloaded your first image to my desktop and renamed it Glen Gery Brick, then opened a Chief file, selected Brick 4 as my Default exterior wall, drew four walls, opened the brick material by going to 3D > Materials > Plan Materials..., made a copy of Dark Red Brick and named it Glen Gery brick, then changed the Texture Source to the brick file I downloaded, which automatically places a copy of the image file in the Material Data folder. You can then delete the desktop file. I had to change the scale since the brick was about 1" tall. I changed the X Scale to 60" which got it close but you'll want to play around with that to make it accurate. Also, the size, scale, and proportions of the Pattern will need to be adjusted. I also deleted the stock Bump and Normal maps, which didn't work with this image, because I don't get into all that. It's a nice seamless texture:

Is your "Ceiling Planes" Layer set to Display?

Yes, but with the floor plan as it is, it gets a little janky. If the back walls of the living room and the m bath were in line with each other, it would be a more elegant solution, but this can work. Break the back wall with the Add Break tool, and make the left section Gable. Draw a Room Divider wall across the back wall that's exactly in line with the Main Layer of the porch railing wall, so the joint between the gable and hip sections will snap to it:

Try compressing it to a zip file to get the file size down. If that doesn't work, save a copy of the file and start deleting stuff that isn't needed for solving your problem, then zip. Try using the Dutch Gable Wall setting under the Roof tab for the railing wall by the gable end, something like this: If you want the gable to align with the main wall, set the In From Baseline to match the porch depth.

I don't see the file attached. If you want better help, attach the actual .plan file. I also don't see a room label on your porch. Is it an enclosed room, specified to have a roof?

Best response to a downvote ever. Thanks that made me smile. Yeah the downvoting is stupid. Now somebody gimme a reddie, I eat em for snacks!

Under the Build menu, go to Build > Framing > Build Framing...

It looks good but how are you gonna build it? I see a lot of issues with supporting the second floor and the roof - i.e., this design won't work using bonus room trusses. Not saying it can't be done, but it's challenging...

You could make the Ceiling Finish layer thinner, like .2" which interestingly will also take care of the top of wall issue: Be aware some of these solutions will alter your model and possibly cause issues / mistakes in things like framing and material list, etc.

Personally I would use Multiple Copy, which would probably have been done faster than typing this lol.

I'd just select the wall, grab the top resize handle, and pull the top down and hit TAB to bring up the move distance dialog, enter .01" and presto:

You're welcome. Are you seeing this too? I never noticed the line effect scaling with the zoom. In other words, when zooming in real close the extent and squiggle effects were diminished. Wasn't sure if it was just my file...

I actually don't want the line weights to be the same as the view the detail is made from, and so these unique layer sets can be customized to produce the desired results automatically. Also, some views need a special layer set since the feature converts the model and other objects that otherwise don't have CAD-like line settings into CAD using special layers mentioned above, and those layers can be preprogrammed with the line settings you want. The OOB template doesn't even have those layers in the ALDO, they're created automatically when a detail view from say an elevation is created. Fun fact: when a CAD Detail from View is first made from a plan view, layers "0" and "Defpoints" are automatically created, with nothing on them.

Apparently the line drawing settings are related to the view size in the elevation, and the DPI settings in Save as PDF..? I suspected the Save as PDF DPI setting right off the bat, and went experimenting. I opened a file elevation and set it the same as yours, watercolor with the same line drawn settings. I noticed when zooming in and out in elevation view, that the line drawing effect scaled with the zoom. I never noticed that before. When I saved a 600 DPI PDF, the line effect was greatly diminished from the elevation view and the layout view. Changing the DPI to 72 retained the line settings (mostly) but was fuzzy. Increasing to dramatically exaggerated line settings looked ridiculous in layout, but preserved the effect in PDF:

Hi Damon, Place 0" thickness room dividers where the two walls come together. This will fix your problem:

Shane, go into Defaults and set the layer properties for the various views. CAD Detail From View of Elevations will use CAD_ Default_Lines and CAD_ Default_Patterns layers.

You can also manually draw an attic wall and set to "Roof cuts wall at bottom." I'm not in Chief right now and can't test it but this should work. You may need to extend the ceiling planes into the wall space slightly.

Do you mean for construction? Or to build the model in Chief? The last picture is an attic truss, but it can be stick framed as well. If you mean to just build the model in Chief you just need to create the rooms and roof planes, you don't have to frame it.

Add dormers to increase full wall height spaces, can be gable or shed. This is one I did a few years back:

I don't think that image is what your client is asking for. I think they want an attic room contained entirely within the roof, with knee walls as someone else said: It can easily be done with trusses called attic room trusses or bonus room trusses. The second story walls do not protrude through the roof. The 8' ceiling will be in the center of the room, with a sloping ceiling.

Why not use the Perspective Floor Overview camera? The ceilings are turned off automatically, without you changing the model.

You can select roof trim if you unlock its Roofs, Trim layer (locked by default on stock templates). You can then perform some edits to the molding.... which can get quite glitchy and entertaining, depending. Good luck!