Understanding raised ceilings, attic walls, and porches a bit better....

[PMMully]

Here is a sample plan that works well, that I raised a center room ceiling, and it looks great except for:

 

1. The generated attic walls can not be set via a color when the second porch is added on. I went in, changed the type to standard exterior siding, clicked off attic wall, but I can not change the exterior color. Then I changed it back to attic, but can not change the exterior, but the interior changes. I understand CA can generate attic walls, and I guess because the exterior of those generated walls is not under roof due to the lower ceiling heights of the two adjoining rooms, it is not possible? I thought I had it when I assigned the attic walls a real wall type. 
   1. I saw one video from CA Version 8, and the author was very additament that raising ceilings and dropping floors is not the way, using multiple floors is with open below room type to do this type of thing, Truth? The one CA video of dropping a floor and raising a ceiling is not like this plan, but that is where I got the idea so I wanted to try it again.
      1. I have had success with the second story open-below approach. Much of that is CBS on the bottom and frame up top, and I just seem to have to fight the corner layers and stuff like that often, sometimes its easy, sometimes its not. I can not seem to put my finger on what I am doing wrong. It almost seems that CA likes certain layouts and pukes on others.
   2. I also saw a CA video when this exact multi-dimensional thing happened, and the trick was to pull the wall up through the attic wall, and that seemed to work. I left it odd colors to see it. UPDATE: However, I can not set the bottom portion of the wall to drywall using the material painter, the whole wall changes all the way up to the roof.
   3. Regardless, changing the type of attic wall seemed to have no effect on the outcome, the only thing that worked was number 2. I did not check what the effect on the wall schedules will be yet.
2. What is the best way to drop an exterior porch 4" but with no curb like a garage? I have been wrestling with the mono slab settings but to no avail, the foundation generation just keeps producing the same output. I tied railing walls, exterior wall types, same thing. I have gotten it to work, but sometimes its like it just ignores it.

 

So the best practice is what it the best way to do a plan like the attached? This one is simple, the real ones have lots of dimension to them. Go two story with open below, or just like I did in this one?

RaisedRoofPorchGames.plan

Edited July 27, 2022 by PMMully

[PMMully]

@solver Eric, thanks once again for the informative video. The trick was the checkbox on the butting roof. For this model, using this method is by far easier than the 2-story method, at least for concept. I see chief extended the front and rear walls up (CBS in this case), which is certainly fair. In practice however, we would likely build the front  and rear walls upper walls as the same wall type  for simplicity and cost (no second block-up and tie-beam pour, one crew, etc.).

 

Given this, I will check to see if I can use the same checkbox method on that front wall. If not I suspect I will be forced to used the "second- story-open-below" method, or maybe make the front/rear walls have a pony wall of CBS below and matching frame wall above. Open to suggestions on other or better methods.

 

P.S. I will try and remove the grid in any future plan posts :-)

Edited July 28, 2022 by PMMully
added comment

[PMMully]

@solver I did try to make the front and rear walls act the same way. To some extent it did, meaning I could check the box, assign a pony wall type, and upper wall. But when I  assigned the top to Stucco-4, it reassigned the rest of the entire wall on either side of the porches (non-raised room areas). When you click the top wall, it auto selects the other sections, from there it seems to get more confused as you try and reassign the pony and top section, it just refreshes with no change.

 

So I guess the moral is the raised room method is great if you are willing to accept the any of the exterior walls to be of the same type (in this case CBS in the front and back). 

 

@SNestor FYI