Beginner questions

[Houligan]

I am looking into taking the introductory virtual training. I have a graphic design background, I would like some advice from anyone who has taken the course. Wondering how comfortable you felt using the program after taking that course. Any advice or input would be appreciated.

-Thanks

[DavidJPotter]

The best possible teacher and tutor one can have is yourself. In fact, I have been teaching and tutoring people live in person and live online since 1999. I have observed that people who discipline them selves to on a regular basis, to study and practice on a daily basis for no other reason than to advance their knowledge, skill and competence level are the ones who most quickly become Chief Architect Savants. Those who just attend seminars and classes rarely ever become fully competent using/knowing the software. I am NOT panning Seminars whether physical or online, I am saying that regular sessions per day of self study followed by practice what one just studied is a more workable method of gaining competence and knowledge.

 

The most fundamental-fundamental is making sure, while studying to NEVER pass a word or symbol used by a teacher or study material that you do not fully understand. Especially in English, words commonly have more than one definition. (The word "of" has thirty distinctly different definitions depending upon how the word is used in a sentence!) Words have different definitions in different environments or trades. When you encounter or hear/read/notice a word or symbol that you are unsure or unfamiliar with, "Google it" or look it up in a BIG dictionary and apprise yourself of its differing definitions before continuing your study session. If you do not fully understand what was written or spoken, you will NOT then get what was intended to be transferred as knowledge and the ability to create/cause things.

 

DJP

[MarkMc]

I took a class at the start, then immediately came down with  a bad case of the flu and was down for a month so didn't manage to follow up immediately. I had a large project that I managed to get out the door the month after that though it was challenging and a bit messy. Followed up with a second class and was off and running.

 

In my retail business I trained 3 assistants and had each take the intro class to start with regardless of what skills they brought to the table. Two of the three did fine, the other simply balked at working in 3D (came from AutoCAD).

Nowadays I do spot training; just tech support really for my drafting clients. One thing I see often is a lack of understanding of the fundamental foundations-defaults, dynamic defaults, layers, layersets, plan views, and default sets. The intro class covers those,  pay attention.

The classes tend to focus on what you CAN do, "the program will do this". There is a bit less about what you may do wrong, how you can mess things up or the program can fool you.

 

I would second what David says about follow up. The class  won't make you an expert IT IS a good foundation, build on it. Use all the help resources they are excellent-F1 for context sensitive help, the reference manual (my favorite), the free training videos (I don't use the vids as much as some folks though), and this forum (learn how to search it!!). I've read this forum every day since I started. Read anything that looks interesting, challenging, or just MAY be useful someday. Take some time to try to solve someone else's problem for practice. I copy and store some things from here though rarely go through those files. The act of copying them helps in a way similar to taking notes, tucks it into my brain somewhere.

Then it depends on where you want to go with it, how you intend to use it, which is different discussion.

[HumbleChief]

Great advice from both David and Mark and I would only add, if it hasn't already been said better above, do not give up. Chief is a very complex deeply technical piece of software and when I first started I simply did not get the paradigm Chief uses to create computer generated homes. My brain simply was/is not wired to the same drummer and beat that Chief uses. My internal logic said it should work one way and Chief's external absolutes demanded it work another. Took a while to adjust and am still adjusting 20 years later.

 

Best part about Chief, hands down, is this forum as demonstrated by the great advice above. Best of luck and come here with any questions and concerns and someone will surely help.

 

...and the best tutorials and Chief information is IMO David Michael and Chieftutor.

https://www.chieftutor.net/

[Ridge_Runner]

2 hours ago, HumbleChief said:

...and the best tutorials and Chief information is IMO David Michael and Chieftutor.

https://www.chieftutor.net/

Well worth the $100 lifetime membership fee if you choose to join. Lots of free stuff there but much more for a one-time fee. One or two custom symbols will pay for the fee. Did I say Lifetime?

[lbuttery]

also check out Dan Baumann at www.Chiefexperts.com

 

Lew

[CharlesVolz]

On 5/21/2020 at 8:26 AM, HumbleChief said:

...and the best tutorials and Chief information is IMO David Michael and Chieftutor.

https://www.chieftutor.net/

 

+1

[parkwest]

Dan Baumann's updated site is: 

 

https://www.chiefexpertsacademy.com/

 

And is well worth the price of admission.