Chrisb222

You might play around with the method described here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01142/creating-an-image-for-use-in-a-brochure-flyer-or-website.html It uses a Top View 3D Ortho to give you a "flyer" type of look to the design, then overlays the floor plan for annotations. I've also done something similar, but used the cross section slider to display doors and windows in the 3D Ortho view without having to overlay the floor plan. I like that look better, and then you could add a plan view with just the room names and dimensions, instead of the entire plan which doesn't always look right with the 3D ortho.

Haha, I have a Chief .plan that is nothing but reminders on how to do obscure or complex techniques that I don't use often enough to commit to memory. And sure, it could be a word document but I'm in chief so why not access my tips without leaving the program.

Saved that to my tips and tricks file, thanks Robert.

Post it up in https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/forum/8-suggestions/

Simpson catalog, 160 Interior is very close:

Shane, I didn't bother to track down the cause, I just went to fix it. If you select the wall in elevation or 3D, you can see the little stem projecting down. Just grab it and slide it up to align with the bottom of the wall: This cancelled "Default Wall Bottom" in the wall specification dialog under Structure, so something is wrong somewhere. But personally I don't usually fight the program on stuff like this, as long as it doesn't cause a worse problem elsewhere. I just find a fix and move on. Hope this helps.

Yeah it's normal. Somewhere along the line a material was used in a way that caused the program to create an additional copy. You can merge the multiples in Plan Materials, but it maps anything using that material to the first one in the list. Sometimes I go in and clean it up but, I mostly ignore it unless it causes issues like you described, then it needs fixed. From Help: Click the Merge button to merge multiple selected materials into one. The material that is listed first is retained and all other materials in the selection set are deleted. Any instances of the deleted materials in the plan are replaced by the first material. Only available when multiple materials are selected.

As of X17, Temporary Dimensions now use settings in the current Dimension Default, under the Setup Temporary panel: There no longer is a single default setting for temp dims. That way you can have multiple setups and switch between them, without having to change them in the Defaults.

Just scoot the "rafter tail" roof plane over the thickness of your I-joist. It will throw off your roofing material, as Shane shows above.

For the 3D I would just toss a ceiling plane and move on. If you want to show a cross section with framing or other, detail it out in CAD. Sometimes trying to bludgeon the parametric features into special situations just ain't worth all the squeezin.

Idk, it doesn't do that for me. It blinks for half a second but does not restart the PBR. Are you going to File > Export > Export Picture?

As far as I know, you can't narrow it down to a species and display that as a single report, but you can total the cost of everything combined. Set up your structural materials pricing in your template, and everything will calculate automatically. Go to Tools > Materials List > Structural Member Reporting... and then open your preferred reporting type, and enter the pricing for individual members. Then the Materials List will pull pricing from there and run out the totals for each member automatically. As far as I know, you can't narrow it down to a species and display that as a single report, but it will total the cost of everything combined. Plug "structural member reporting" into Help.

Why is someone running around the board posting AI replies to every topic question??

You're right, using the "Select tool, shift-drag" function on beams will also select posts. For this you want "Marquee Select Similar." Select one beam, then hit this button on the bottom Edit toolbar and drag-select: You can also use Match Properties in that same toolbar, but for this use case MSS is better.

The SP feature shown here looked like a poorly implemented, basically useless feature. Chief, PLEASE do not emulate this! But to add to my previous post, I used AI the other day to enhance a master bath scene and asked it to fix a couple of things that would've taken ages to fix in Chief, and add some bathroom stuff. I got a nice painting on the wall, a towel bar with a towel nicely draped, a little wastebasket, and a TP holder with TP... all for free, and fast! Ignoring this tech is just nuts I tell ya!

The debate is over. AI has gotten extremely better-- fast-- at everything regarding enhancing a basically instantaneous CA Standard or Vector Render, including not changing the architecture in most cases. And it will continue to improve. At the rate it's going I would guess by this summer it will be nearly foolproof to get exactly what you want the first time, even from the free sites. Speaking of free sites, I'd rather not see CA put one minute into developing a built-in AI generator like the SP one shown in the OP-- which doesn't seem to even give you the ability to prompt it-- unless doing so helps increase sales which helps the company stay in business which results in continuing improvements to the software that I DO want. Sure, I post-edit in an image editor, but that's because at this point it's still not perfect and I enjoy doing it. But for most people using this software it would be fine, and spending another second learning just the right way to hold my mouth while I wait for CA to churn out a PBR, hoping it's "good enough" and doesn't look as phony as mine always do, then spend time learning the lighting, settings, and masking techniques I've seen described here, and still not getting the "free" lighting enhancements and extra features like landscaping, wooded mountainous or waterfront backdrops, etc, added automatically.... it's just nuts to not use this technology. And I doubt many of us consider ourselves "rendering artists" or are trying to get into commercial rendering work. I'm also not looking to start a buggy whip manufacturing company, if you get my drift.

You might send it in to support, it might be a bug. I can't think of any reason anyone would want or expect the list to go bonkers like that.

Yes. It maintains "Used" as the sort method but reshuffles the order of the layers to some nonsense, because it's now not sorted alphabetically, by Displayed or by Locked.

Gemini is pretty good. ChatGPT is way better than it used to be so at this point they're similar in usability but different in interpretation. I just copy the prompt and send it to both. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other.

As far as I know the behavior you're seeing isn't new; that's always how auto roofs would handle that condition from what I remember. I went back to X12, which is the oldest version I have on this machine to test it and got the same results as you. Maybe someone else has a different answer...

The saddle is taking its height information from the ceiling height of the main room, which is lower than the addition. To fix this with Auto Roofs, create a small room under the saddle that is the same ceiling height as the room addition. Display Roof Planes and draw Room Divider walls directly aligned with the saddle: Open the little room and set its ceiling height to match the addition: This may cause undesired results with the interior of the building that will need to be addressed, like adding a manually drawn ceiling plane in the overall room, but this fixes the roof. It's interesting that even though the Room Divider walls no longer align with the saddle, it still works. There may be a better solution...?

This needs to be a Suggestion. Of course it's backwards, I use "move object" 99.99999% of the time. I use "move edge" zero%. And I don't think a macro will do it.

I agree, and that rendering looks fantastic. Do you send it out like that, or keep trying to get AI to fix it? I find that asking it to fix things repeatedly just keeps getting further from the goal. And if you send it like that, do you explain it was altered by AI?

Looks great. One of the best things AI does with exteriors is making the glass look so much more realistic.

CA: Free AI: I told the AI to make it more realistic, add a strip of border tile on each side of the door opening, and add some bathroom stuff. It added a niche where there wasn't one but that's pretty standard anyway, and the perspective is wonky over the toilet, but overall a major improvement compared to the original. I did have to correct some weird stuff in post editing software but it was easy.