Chasing Attic Walls...

[HumbleChief]

I seem to be missing something basic in Chief and have never really understood attic wall creation. In almost every model I build there's some attic wall that does not generate. I've attached a super simple plan and expected the attic wall to be generated in the blank area shown. I can drag walls and get them done manually but seem to missing a simple Chief setting or something else I need to learn. I seem to run in to the issue on a fairly constant basis so any help greatly appreciated.

Here's a pic of the missing wall and the simple plan attached as well.

Thank you

 

 

ATTIC_WALLS_1.plan

[DzinEye]

Go to your attic level, you'll see you have a short couple feet long attic wall (You can just see it there in the pic you posted on the very right side).  While there, just drag the left side of that wall toward the left.

[HumbleChief]

Thanks Mark but that's something I have to do in many, many cases and am curious if that attic wall (among many others in my experience) just will not generate automatically? Is that an unreasonable expectation? Are there just some that need to be drawn manually? Thanks again.

[DzinEye]

Happens to me too.  I don't think there's a simple answer.  I'm sure there's many different things that might effect it being built automatically. 
Did you auto-build your roof or build it manually?
You have auto-build attic walls checked?
BTW... sorry I obviously missed the intent of your original post...

[HumbleChief]

19 minutes ago, DzinEye said:

Happens to me too.  I don't think there's a simple answer.  I'm sure there's many different things that might effect it being built automatically. 
Did you auto-build your roof or build it manually?
You have auto-build attic walls checked?

Auto everything and like I posted, I always mange to figure it out but have been stumped so many times I've lost count. This plan probably needs a roof cuts wall at bottom setting or balloon frame through ceiling or another setting but again there's many times where I just dunno what's going on. I'm not sharpest tool in the shed and will probably stumble upon a fix but frustrating in the mean time. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[DzinEye]

For what it's worth, it seems to usually happen to me when the two roof planes are close, as in your example.  If you have auto everything on, see what happens if you either lower the lower roof or raise the upper roof a foot or two.  Does it automatically build?

[rgardner]

Looked at the plan and I think what Mark is talking about is causing the issue.  just grab that wall in elevation mode and lengthen it to cover it.  The wall will automatically cut correctly and fill in that area.  I don't usually worry about those till the very end as at some point many times it fixes itself which means it is a step we are doing that we are not associating it with finishing that wall off.  Probably not related, but I know having rooms not defined, as well as rotating your plan or mirroring it top to bottom without using the reverse plan feature can sometimes mess with this type of thing.  For what it is worth, before building the roof I try to have all of my rooms defined as sometimes it costs more time later down the road to fix things that are associated with defining room types.

[SNestor]

Larry...I think Chief does these things to make sure we stay "crazy".  

I think Mark is correct...it's due to the fact that the two roof planes are so close together.  

 

I usually just drag the one attic wall...or, create my own attic wall.  I think everyone just automatically does this to keep moving...but, it'd be nice if it just worked. 

Yea...after 20+ years of development you'd think Chief would have fixed this.  But - maybe they have a good reason it works the way it does. 

[SNestor]

1 minute ago, solver said:

Copied your exterior walls (and railings) to a new plan and built the roof. No idea why your walls don't show.

 

 

I created my own file...and the walls did not generate...so, maybe it's "finicky"?

[Renerabbitt]

Just now, solver said:

Copied your exterior walls (and railings) to a new plan and built the roof. No idea why your walls don't show.

 

Eric beat me to it. I was doing the same thing, anytime there is an issue just copy and paste to the default Residential template. 

No problem on my end drawing this exact same house. Something somewhere is goofed up in your plan...maybe Wall Types.

[DzinEye]

8 minutes ago, SNestor said:

maybe it's "finicky"?

That's what I think!    But if a definitive solution comes out of this, all the better.
Nice new pic by the way!  I thought we had a new SNESTOR on the forum at first glance yesterday.

[SNestor]

7 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

Eric beat me to it. I was doing the same thing, anytime there is an issue just copy and paste to the default Residential template. 

No problem on my end drawing this exact same house. Something somewhere is goofed up in your plan...maybe Wall Types.

 

Rene is correct...

 

I had tried to recreate in a plan I was working on and for some reason (maybe I have a template issue?) it didn't work.  

Copied to the "residential template"...worked perfectly.  

[SNestor]

Just now, DzinEye said:

That's what I think!    But if a definitive solution comes out of this, all the better.
Nice new pic by the way!  I thought we had a new SNESTOR on the forum at first glance yesterday.

 

Yea...this is what you do when you are quarantined by some invisible virus.  

[DzinEye]

6 minutes ago, solver said:

This is the attic. I wonder about the difference in wall display. 

Eric, you and Rene both copied the walls to a new plan and it worked, but neither of you mentioned what you had/saw when you first opened the plan.  Did it first show with only the tiny piece of attic wall?  What made you think of copying and pasting to a new plan, have you experienced that solving this kind of problem before?

[DzinEye]

 

42 minutes ago, SNestor said:

Copied to the "residential template"...worked perfectly.

 

52 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

I was doing the same thing, anytime there is an issue just copy and paste to the default Residential template.

 

35 minutes ago, solver said:

This is the attic. I wonder about the difference in wall display

In trying to do what you guys successfully did,  I copied (Edit Area - all floors) and pasted into Chiefs own residential template... and this is what appears?!?
Can anyone explain the difference between what you're seeing and what I'm seeing?.. and by the way... still no attic wall either

[DzinEye]

12 minutes ago, solver said:

 

I copied individual 1st floor walls. Did not want all the extras that Edit Area picks up.

Ahh...okay...got it.  That's a good tip.
Wow... what a crazy amount of difference!..and yes.. what the heck is the deal with the missing/invisible walls? 
The only way I could get them to show in elevation or 3D was to redraw them.
Larry, while as per some of our original responses, we also have the occasional issue with no attic roof forming, but it definitely appears that you have a much bigger issue going on. 

[Ridge_Runner]

Do any of you guys think the new "X12 Residental Template" makes any real difference? Larry, was your plan done in an older template, or started in an X12 template?

[Alaskan_Son]

7 hours ago, HumbleChief said:

I seem to be missing something basic in Chief and have never really understood attic wall creation. In almost every model I build there's some attic wall that does not generate. I've attached a super simple plan and expected the attic wall to be generated in the blank area shown. I can drag walls and get them done manually but seem to missing a simple Chief setting or something else I need to learn. I seem to run in to the issue on a fairly constant basis so any help greatly appreciated.

Here's a pic of the missing wall and the simple plan attached as well.

Thank you

 

 

ATTIC_WALLS_1.plan

 

This is a simple example of getting involved when you didn't need to.  You placed a wall on the attic level that shouldn't be there.  In addition, your attic walls are super difficult to troubleshoot because you're not using the default layer for your exterior walls.   You're just fighting the program. 

[HumbleChief]

Thanks so much for all the help. The plan I posted was directly from the simple model with auto everything turned on and I didn't place any attic walls manually but I think I might be closer to understanding the issue since the 'default' residential plan seems to solve things.

 

I've changed all of my 'interior' walls to be on an interior layer and all my 'exterior' walls to be on an 'exterior' layer which needs to be turned on for them to be visible. Pretty sure that's why the walls looked like they were invisible. I've set up the 2 wall types to make my ref sets easier to manage as I set just the interior or exterior walls to show on the 'as built' ref set.

 

I pasted the walls and railings in to the 'Profile Plan from X12 and the attic walls generated properly so I've most certainly set up something in the wall defs incorrectly. My default template is pretty old but not ancient and represents a LOT of work. I'm going to try and diagnose the problem with wall defs and see what I can find and thank you again for all the help, it is much appreciated.

[HumbleChief]

7 hours ago, solver said:

In this plan, for example, why are the copied walls invisible? Why are there no layers showing in the walls?

I think they are not showing because those 'exterior' walls are on a separate layer that may not be on by default in the standard overview camera.

[HumbleChief]

For some reason my wall defs are no longer generating 'attic' walls. They are all shown as 'exterior' walls as in the first pic with that short little piece of wall generated by Chief over the exterior wall bordering the porch.

 

The second pic shows 'attic' walls properly generated in the X12 Profile Plan after copying and pasting. A different wall type but they are there properly.

 

Has to be my wall defs? Is there a default for attic walls? I have Auto Rebuild Attic Walls Turned on.

[HumbleChief]

1 minute ago, solver said:

 

If you change the layer in your wall defaults (from the Chief OOB layer), then Chief uses the new layer for the attic wall.

I think I just discovered the same thing. And won't generate an 'attic' wall for the same reason?

[HumbleChief]

But even with that change the attic walls are now on the new layer but the attic walls still generate properly in the X12 template, but not on the plan I posted earlier. Hmmm..

[HumbleChief]

OK getting really weird, or not. The house is obviously very simple so I decided to redraw it to see where, when, how the attic walls decided not to generate properly. It generated all the attic walls fine and as expected. Same template plan BUT I edited area and deleted all floors before drawing the new walls.

 

Tried it again using and modifying the template's existing walls, without edit delete all floors, and sure enough the problem was there again.There was something in my existing template 'exterior' walls, when modified, that was not allowing those attic walls to be drawn. Probably never know what that was but will not use my template 'walls' at all and edit area delete all floors before beginning to draw any new walls in my template.

[Alaskan_Son]

See if this helps you at all...