Joe_Carrick Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Dennis, Create one of those stone columns and convert it to a Symbol. You can then add the materials to the Symbol Components and they will be reported in the ML. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Joey: again, I never said the ML was worthless again, you are one of the few, the very few who like the ML and consider it a great feature as is Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glennw Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Dennis, If you wanted the ML to report framing, why would you use poly solids - why not use framing! Your turning user error and frustration into statements of fact, and it isn't fair to CA or to those that want to use the information. You can't personally attest to the accuracy or ease of use of the tool, so stop insinuating that it's worthless. Many...MANY..of the frustrations with the Material List are in fact user error, and poor modeling. Now that statement I present as fact...none of yours are. Joey, This is 100% correct. I couldn't agree more. I did make an earlier post referring to the fact that Lew was talking through his buttocks, but thought better of it and deleted the post. But in view of Lew's ongoing comments, I thought it worthy of another mention. Lew, maybe you should get some first hand experience of the ML before you comment any more. The post from kbird1 above is a perfect example of a user who is trying to use the easy way without putting in the time or effort to figure out how the ML works and why he is not getting the results he expects. As the saying goes "Rubbish in - Rubbish out". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mthd97 Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 So to those here who are very good and experienced at getting the best out of ML, did you learn how to use ML from just the SSA videos only? I guess, probably not, it would have been a combination of experience and work arounds. Work Shop is a good I idea, yes. The expert work arounders who spend many hours learning them must have hardly any hobbies or suffer from OCD of some sort. So turn the OCD level down in your brain and let the programmers fix up Chief so it is easier to use and is more productive. Some of us here like to delegate the extra work to the program and not spend many hours tweaking a perfect model in order to say, look how good I am. You must have been brought up with no commendation for your good work maybe? Yes you guys are very good at what you do and you help others but dont hinder the development of Chief for the sake of OCD levels that are too high in our brains. Leave our old mate, Lew alone to toss laptops as the poor guy is very ill with cancer and I hope the doctors are helping him to feel abit better. I think us Designers and Estimators must have high level OCD and that is why we do this job as the careless would fail completely. Me I would rather do some tasks by hand with ML rather than create the perfect template only to redo it after each new version comes out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joey_martin Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Me I would rather do some tasks by hand with ML rather than create the perfdct template only to redo it after each new version comes out? I've had the same template since X1. I bring it with me to new versions and make the needed adjustments, which are minimal. Those of us that "obsess" over getting the model right use the software to do more of the work than those that don't, trust me. I think you would be amazed....no, I KNOW FOR A FACT that you would be amazed at how much time and work you would save yourself by INVESTING time up front into your template and defaults. As for all my free time.....besides completed about 30 homes last year, I also teach high school. I'll go back to beating my head against the wall now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smorris Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 I need to verify if I'm doing something wrong, if anyone has time to run a quick test. In the attached picture, select any wall, open it's Components dbx and plug in a price of $6.03 (as shown). Close the Components dbx using OK. Once closed, reopen the Components dbx and see if the $6.03 price is still correct. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 As I said there is a good chance it is User Error/lack of Documentation but I am here to learn , so comments like "BOOM" or "Rubbish in, Rubbish Out, don't help me or anyone else, I understand you guys are drawing to make a living not give tutorials here , but unfortunately not all of us are daily drivers of this software ( ie Gurus) and the documentation in this area is poor to say the least. If the ML was easy to understand, there wouldn't be other longtime users trying to jump all over a Workshop , 90% of CA users are in deep trouble when guys like Scott , Perry and Nicinus don't use it cos it is too time consuming to learn etc , personally I don't think the ML should be a "black art" . As far as the Drywall goes that means I need to go into every room and spec every wall and ceiling with the material needed based on the rooms sizes, right? , rather impractical i'd say and quicker with a pad and paper , and of course I need to "make" 54"x120" sheets 1st and add them to the Library for this Plan too. Also rather impractical to go through a full house plan's ML and add "extra" to every single item as needed instead of there being a global or Category setting. Yes the Ceiling and Walls are Painted and the Colours are in the Room finish Schedule, but that doesn't help with the Material needed , and why does the ML list Ceiling color (1 coat only) and not Wall Color at all? what am I doing wrong? How do you add a coat of paint so it calculates the industry standard 3 coats? add 0" depth layers to my wall definitions is my guess but again where is this documented? , though it shouldn't really be needed if you know how to calculate the paint for a room from it's sqft. And I guess Paint for the exterior doesn't count either ? CA already knows how many sqft there are of exterior wall ,so should be an easy calc. without me doing anything extra. It's almost like the ML Code got 1/2 done and never completed cos the guy doing it left the Company or something.... no idea how a total CA Noob would ever figure half this out.... Why is the subfascia called a rafter in the ML ? it knows its subfascia in the Plan/3D , just more confusion... Still haven't figured out why I have 93" insulation though , its a 9' tall wall , and the fact you can't get 93"x16" insulation The Rafter size issue BTW was cos I had "use trusses" on by default thinking that setting would be ignored if there were no Trusses. Not So...which is plain dumb.... I'm more than happy to learn as much as I can about this area of CA , but I can't be bothered arguing about it, I am not surprised the OP hasn't reposted to the thread..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mthd97 Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Joey that's cool you are a hard worker too, CA could use you on the panel for ML since you are a power user of this feature along with Glenn. CA could contract you to do some teaching videos on ML templates and Defaults as you are a teacher as well. What do you think about this Video and can we do things as easy in customizing formulas in the CA ML? https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/4106-chief-ml-vs-softplan-sl/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 No CA does not allow any access at all to the (any) Formulas , I was meaning to post to your other thread but got caught up here trying stuff. M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Lew, maybe you should get some first hand experience of the ML before you comment any more Glenn: I have opinions and I don't need your permission to have them my opinions are based on following the discussions on this forum for a decade I don't need to touch a hot stove to verify that it is hot if others tell me it is hot I'll believe them and save myself the burn once again the ML can be used if one is willing to dedicate the time to learn it and tweak it many have found that to be onerous if that concept bothers you and Joey - too damn bad Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill_Emery Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Here's a simple case where the material list is technically correct, but not usable for estimating or purchasing. build a house that is 8'-10" square. Generate a material list. 8 sheets 4' x 8' of drywall are required. This is correct Take the same house and add a few doors and windows. Now six sheets are required. This is not correct. In the world of drywall it still takes 8 sheets. I can compensate by doing a "save as"of the house and then delete all the doors and windows, and get 8 sheets, but I shouldn't have to do this. I should have the option to calculate this material in a way that makes sense to me, and to my drywall subcontractor. There is a very similar issue with OSB sheathing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joey_martin Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Actually it is correct. Again, for the last time on this subject....it counts what there, not whats not there. Stop fighting the program and save yourself the headache. You and your drywall contractor are going to add 10% to the figures you calculate....don't tell me you won't because we both know you will. So if Chief takes out all your doors and windows for you in advance, and you add the industry standard 10%, you are going to have the same number, or better yet, you won't have 10% too much drywall on the job site. Try it...you'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicinus Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Here's a simple case where the material list is technically correct, but not usable for estimating or purchasing. build a house that is 8'-10" square. Generate a material list. 8 sheets 4' x 8' of drywall are required. This is correct Take the same house and add a few doors and windows. Now six sheets are required. This is not correct. In the world of drywall it still takes 8 sheets. I can compensate by doing a "save as"of the house and then delete all the doors and windows, and get 8 sheets, but I shouldn't have to do this. I should have the option to calculate this material in a way that makes sense to me, and to my drywall subcontractor. There is a very similar issue with OSB sheathing. Mick, I'm very flattered to be grouped with power users like Scott and Perry (whích I'm sure is ill-deserved) but in my case I've actually never touched the material lists, so I can't say if they are hard to use or not. However, in Bill's case above I find it encouraging if most of the problems are on this level. This to me appears more of a thing where the developer didn't consider the use of panels and just calculated surface, because it didn't occur to him. It is a clear cut case where theory mismatches practical life and where users feedback is crucial. The potentially good news is that this is a formula that hopefully could be changed very easily to not subract door and windows surfaces at least as an option, we're not talking cad lines or viewport graphics programming here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Carrick Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 On the issue of paint. Chief's Wall Types typically have been defined without paint layers. I've been experimenting with various ways of using Material Regions, one of which is to create Material Regions that consist of paint. These can be single or multiple layers and can be colors specified (Sherwin Williams or ......). You can also add the Drywall tape, mud and texture if you want. Those can have costs assigned to them and they will be reported accurately in the ML. I haven't tried the "Wall Coverings" but I would bet that they are also reported in the ML. As some of you have discovered, Polyline Solids are just CAD and are not really integrated as intelligent BIM objects. If you are going to use the ML effectively, you have to use the objects that have the intelligent info (components list) otherwise you will miss out. I don't totally agree with Bill Emery about the number of sheets of Drywall, OSB, etc being the same with doors and windows as if there were no openings. However, there is always going to be a certain amount of waste and that needs to be accounted for. Having a way to include formulas for material waste would be an appropriate addition to Chief's ML. I need to look at the Master List to see if that can be added to the "Extra" field. The bigger issue for me is keeping prices up to date. Quantities are one thing, but prices are a totally different thing - much more difficult to keep current. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mthd97 Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 The problems come from when you go from a ML and an actual order list. Counting Drywall in real life is nothing like the way ML works it out right now. Timber cutting lists are the same as they need to be rounded up to the nearest foot. I get what Joey is doing, you can make it do an estimate with his 10% wastage factor built in but don't order that exact ammount as the actual wastage factor may only be about 7.5% in reality. In the end to get order lists you need to put in more work than you would for basic estimating. I am interested in finding how good SoftPlan SoftList is in doing the job and what the drawbacks are for using it to build a framing model? Maybe it might do a better job for quantity take off and costing out of the box but may not be good enough for doing an accurate model, who knows? Chief is there for Estimating but not complete for Quantity Surveying and Order lists just quite yet. It does do a good job in auto building framing and editing framing elements and adding framing elements. You can create an order list from ML but not without allot of data extracting and editing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis_Gavin Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Joe - Never looked into material components for symbols. I will keep that in mind. OTOH doing remodeling I still prefer to calculate what I need from scratch versus eliminating what I don't need from the ML, adjusting lengths etc. Also, a lot of my costs come from suppliers and subs. I just use a spread sheet for estimating. Again, I am not complaining about what the ML does or does not do. In the picture I attached much of what is there is the existing house only there for presentation. Just adding my .02, less tax = .01. I will bow out now and leave the rest to those who do more complete projects. Have a nice weekend all........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Carrick Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Some of the problems that people are having with the ML is understanding the relationships between the Master Material List, a saved Material List & a new generated Material List. When you create a new Material List for a Plan, it will only have basic information included (the stuff Chief already knows about) so you may need to edit some of the fields with Extras, Price, etc. Once you have done that you can save all or part of the List to a "Master List". You can also save the new List when you close it so you can call it back up using "Materials List Management". If you then create a new Material List you will see that none of the edited information is in the new List. However, you can update from the Master which has the detail of the edited fields. When a new Material List is created it is only a snapshot of the current Plan. Editing the Plan will not change the quantities in the ML, so a new ML must be created. You can open a previously saved ML but it will not reflect any changes to the Plan. It would be nice if there was a way to "Update" a ML to the current Plan but it's really almost as easy to just create a new ML and update the fields from the Master List. For purposes of using formulas for waste, etc you can export the ML to a spreadsheet and use the capabilities of that software. It would be nice if Chief had the ability to save formulas in the Master List but that's not something currently available so using a spreadsheet is the only way to do that currently. It would be a nice feature if there was a way to specify a percentage in the "Extras" column and have that as a part of the "Master List". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 As I said there is a good chance it is User Error/lack of Documentation but I am here to learn , so comments like "BOOM" or "Rubbish in, Rubbish Out, don't help me or anyone else, I understand you guys are drawing to make a living not give tutorials here , but unfortunately not all of us are daily drivers of this software ( ie Gurus) and the documentation in this area is poor to say the least. If the ML was easy to understand, there wouldn't be other longtime users trying to jump all over a Workshop , 90% of CA users are in deep trouble when guys like Scott , Perry and Nicinus don't use it cos it is too time consuming to learn etc , personally I don't think the ML should be a "black art" . As far as the Drywall goes that means I need to go into every room and spec every wall and ceiling with the material needed based on the rooms sizes, right? , rather impractical i'd say and quicker with a pad and paper , and of course I need to "make" 54"x120" sheets 1st and add them to the Library for this Plan too. Also rather impractical to go through a full house plan's ML and add "extra" to every single item as needed instead of there being a global or Category setting. Yes the Ceiling and Walls are Painted and the Colours are in the Room finish Schedule, but that doesn't help with the Material needed , and why does the ML list Ceiling color (1 coat only) and not Wall Color at all? what am I doing wrong? How do you add a coat of paint so it calculates the industry standard 3 coats? add 0" depth layers to my wall definitions is my guess but again where is this documented? , though it shouldn't really be needed if you know how to calculate the paint for a room from it's sqft. And I guess Paint for the exterior doesn't count either ? CA already knows how many sqft there are of exterior wall ,so should be an easy calc. without me doing anything extra. It's almost like the ML Code got 1/2 done and never completed cos the guy doing it left the Company or something.... no idea how a total CA Noob would ever figure half this out.... Why is the subfascia called a rafter in the ML ? it knows its subfascia in the Plan/3D , just more confusion... Still haven't figured out why I have 93" insulation though , its a 9' tall wall , and the fact you can't get 93"x16" insulation The Rafter size issue BTW was cos I had "use trusses" on by default thinking that setting would be ignored if there were no Trusses. Not So...which is plain dumb.... I'm more than happy to learn as much as I can about this area of CA , but I can't be bothered arguing about it, I am not surprised the OP hasn't reposted to the thread..... I really don't use the ML because, it wouldn't be very accurate for most of my work (remodeling). To much setup and a lot of break walls and new vs. existing things to make it worth it for me.. Around here everyone wants to do their own take-offs anyway. They just don't trust a computer doing it and things like shear walls, (wood and steel), and holdowns are usually all over the plan ,which I have to do in cad b/c Chief doesn't even address this stuff. Another thing is patches, wall Ceilings and floors, How would the ML handle these things, Some jobs could have 20 0r 30 patches of drywall, stucco, floor sheathing, That's a lot of missing items. I imagine you could set Chief up for that but what a mess it would be. I really don't make money doing ML so I'll leave it to the pros to spend their time to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 I'm with you Perry, tough to put together a good M.L. for a remodel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Westworld (or a computer model), Where nothing can go wrong…go wrong…go wrong… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Carrick Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 For those of you who think it's too hard to do Materials Lists for Remodels...... If all your remodel work is on their own Unique Layers, you can select only those Layers to be included in the ML. It can all be done in a Custom Layerset. IOW, new walls, doors, windows, cabinets, fixtures, material regions, etc just need to be on the "New Layers" and "To be Removed Layers". It might be a bit more complicated but it's not as difficult as you might think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 yes it is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 if you set the defaults for an 1885 house then later need to remodel a 1955 house how does that work ??? each and every remodel job is "different" I'm not saying it can't be done I'm asking if it can be done If yes, is it worth doing ??? Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 yes it is Thanks for the smile Perry unfortunately not being a CA Guru like Joe and Joey , I have to agree with your comment . I don't expect it to be fall over easy and perfect every time either but since there is no way to bring myself upto speed on the ML easily, I will have to keep doing my takeoffs the old fashioned way, since I am no Excel guru either, it's safer too use Pad and paper since as pointed out above the ML only calculates surface area and not how things are done ( and estimated) in the Real World. I had hoped it reported something similar to this Sample I found posted online Sample - Takeoff.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Mick: have you checked out Planswift ? Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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