tundra_dweller

Well that's an interesting method that I never would have considered. Looks like the key is to draw your gable wall at the attic level and select "Roof Cuts Wall at Bottom" for that wall.

Yeah these are a pain. I usually do like Mark and make a solid, maybe add some molding lines.

There are pretty robust header framing options in the default door/window settings, or you can set individually per opening too.

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/29470-user-defined-shading-of-coloring-of-open-tabs/?tab=comments#comment-234368 https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/23929-smarter-active-window-please/?tab=comments#comment-193476 https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/23203-tab-icons-for-layout-vs-plan/?tab=comments#comment-188281 https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/42698-x17-looking-ahead-i-would-be-100-okay-with-this-1-single-update/?tab=comments#comment-314771

You betcha. Here's a step-by-step. In your foundation defaults, set your slab to be at top of stem wall. In your exterior wall type definition set the main layer to have 3 bottom plates. In your auto-built foundation room DBX set floor-to-SWT to -3" and ceiling to -3". Note that in the plan I attached earlier, I didn't change the ceiling to -3", so it caused the floor to move up to 3" elevation instead of 0". The detail where the slab meets the ICF is the same, but setting the ceiling to -3" forces the top of the slab to stay at 0" elevation. Open up your floor structure for the foundation room and add a layer of rigid insulation below the slab.

You just have to adjust your floor heights accordingly, and you'll probably get a message about a negative ceiling height in the foundation that you can ignore. Also changing to 3 bottom plates in you ext wall main layer, and adding your 4" insulation to the foundation floor structure. And there'll be some CAD work for the cross section but nothing too major. Here's a sample plan with how I was able to do it. MNJohn.zip

I'm not at all proficient with Sketchup yet but I do have and use the Medeek tools occasionally. At this point mostly for creating timber trusses and other trusses that I can import into Chief. I can build timber trusses very quickly with exact specs including hardware that are actually how they would build in real life. Same with attic, scissor & parallel chord trusses when I want to show them in a detailed section and can't get Chief to build them realistically. I realize it's impossible, but some kind of mashup between Chief's speed in getting the building and basic elements designed along with Sketchup/Medeek's framing & foundation capabilities would damn near be the perfect design software.

Great info!

Thanks @para-CAD for sharing all the content with your fellow users. There's definitely a lot of knowledge and insight here that I didn't have before.

Same here. Still annoying to see all the time while working on the project, but not very high on the list of fixes/improvements I'd like to see for the software.

I don't think there's a legit fix for this, only workarounds. I haven't run into this in a while, I find myself designing away from mulled shaped windows, and mulled windows in general as much as I can because I know how much Chief's mulled window function is going to annoy the hell out of me. Off the top of my head there's a few things that may work, try using a lintel for your top casings, or turn off exterior casings and use a molding line or shaped material region instead. If you find a fix or a better workaround, please do share.

Great point...I forgot that you can't break & shape soffits.

I would think the soffit tool would work well for this if you don't need to show framing for it. Drop section of soffit in the room, resize the perimeter as needed, open up the soffit dbx and enter in the height/thickness you need. If you need to show framing then using a custom ceiling plane in the center of the room with a lower height might get you close. Or putting a room divider around the perimeter of the room and spec'ing a lower ceiling height in the center "room". I think the soffit tool would be the most simple and clean method though.

You are figuring this out in the best way possible, that is working through it and learning as you go. Nice work!

No but I wish some version of it would appear on the edit toolbar whenever an applicable object was selected, would save a lot of clicks.