Daylight and Walkout Foundation with Frost Wall Footings

[Steve_Nyhof]

I was asked about how I do frost walls without having to put the foundation on Layer 1. I do my foundations on Layer 0. There will be those who do this differently and will tell me how bad I am for dragging my walls. Well, I don't care. In elevation view if you do not want to drag, click the footing line and enter 40.5 in the temp dimension if that make you feel better. So far I have not been visited by the software foundation gods to tell me I am wrong 

 

 

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/gSUA45dX9UDbG3cJG1ij

 

I am also including my Wall Library if anyone wants to download and mess with them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yQocA0auLY-ZFxMqvSk82JiWlSSGEFyn/view?usp=sharing

 

Leave me a thumbs up if this is helpful

Thank you,

Steve

[Steve_Nyhof]

I want to add that if you have a hard time with the daylight showing up in a camera, to open the Daylight Walls, and navigate to the Layer Properties and check the Default box. This will make it a normal wall and will show up.

[SHCanada2]

I think the pulling of the walls is the way it is done in the CA training video if I am not mistaken.

 

One question, as your terrain is a linear slope down (no crazy terrain interpolations), why not use the terrain as the grade line in elevation view, as opposed to drawing a CAD line?

 

And why not use the storey pole and pull a dimension marker off of it if you wanted something the storey pole does not find?

[Steve_Nyhof]

I think I must have gotten used to doing it this way and never thought about others. I have not heard of manipulating the grade in elevation view. Please show a video or a link to somewhere I can look into these two things. Thank you

[MoeGia]

Steve, I modify the terrain elevation using area regions in the terrain dropdown menu (I have two in my template plans with heights already assigned since we do a lot of basement walkouts).

 

In plan view place a region along to the front of the building extending from side to side of the perimeter.  Assign a high height (assuming the front is high).  Draw another region along the back (or copy/ paste the front region to the back).  Assign you walkout height.  Build terrain.  You should now have a consistently sloped terrain on the two side elevations.

 

I use terrain regions where ever possible as opposed to elevation lines.  For simple modeling is is quick and more reliable (no spiking of terrain).

[SHCanada2]

ditto what Maureen said. with X15 it shows the basement walls as dashed as well below grade if you wish

 

But...looking at your video Steve, you created your slope to be linear, so you should be able to just show your terrain in elevation view and it should show as the grade. I keep my terrain 1 or 2" thick for this purpose.

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

3 hours ago, SHCanada2 said:

so you should be able to just show your terrain in elevation view and it should show as the grade.

I understand what you are saying. Yes, I could do that and maybe I should mess with that again, but I have long before Chief always drawn a thick line. Maybe I do it more because I can just place it where I want and I do not need to fuss with my terrain so closely. 

[Steve_Nyhof]

7 hours ago, MoeGia said:

Steve, I modify the terrain elevation using area regions in the terrain dropdown menu (I have two in my template plans with heights already assigned since we do a lot of basement walkouts).

 

In plan view place a region along to the front of the building extending from side to side of the perimeter.  Assign a high height (assuming the front is high).  Draw another region along the back (or copy/ paste the front region to the back).  Assign you walkout height.  Build terrain.  You should now have a consistently sloped terrain on the two side elevations.

 

I use terrain regions where ever possible as opposed to elevation lines.  For simple modeling is is quick and more reliable (no spiking of terrain).

I think I am doing this same thing. In my template I have two terrain regions, one in front and one in the rear. I can then manipulate them as I want. Sometimes I need to add another to help in some cases. I think this is what you are referencing, or let me know if I am missing something. 

 

[SHCanada2]

that is what we are talking about. So if you put the rear at -120" say (depends on your terrrain below first floor), you should be able to see a nice terrain/grade line on your elevation if you turn that layer on

[MoeGia]

Exactly.  As Jason said, be sure Terrain Perimeter is set to display.

[Steve_Nyhof]

1 hour ago, MoeGia said:

Exactly.  As Jason said, be sure Terrain Perimeter is set to display.

Yes, I am going to mess with that. Thank you

[Steve_Nyhof]

These are my terrain settings... How do I get it to be just one line and not show the background? Maybe I set a start and end distance - will try that

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

That works for the grade, but then the house is also cut. Also, I do not want my elevation marker in the plan, it is typically outside the boarder where I like it on so I can click on it. Thoughts?

[SHCanada2]

i will typically show grade on the other side, but for the case you have which is only a corner walkout basement, it does not work so well. For a typical walkout where the complete back is a walkout, it works well:

 

I also typically show the front and rear grades on the rear elevation and will denote both:

 

 

I also do not use shadows on elevations, which look to be filling in your grade in your screeenshot?

 

although for the full walkout, it looks ok (I think rene put in a request to not shadow below grade)

 

you will also get different results if you put the elevation camera in the terrain vs outside of it. The latter will not show shadows below grade, but it will also not show basement walls

 

 

 

[SHCanada2]

the other way to do it if you do not want to see terrain on the other side of the house is to use a terrain feature of materail glass  on its own layers in you default template. See my comments on this thread

 

in plan view it is just a line(thin terrain feature) cutting the terrain near the house:. This is essentially the "cut" of the plane that will show as the grade line

 

 

with material set to glass

 

 

so you could turn this below, where it shows the elevation on the other side (see bottom right):

 

to:

 

 

the grade line is also cleaner. Int he above the terrain layers are turned off except for the custom layer for the terrain feature, named appropriately something like "Terrain Right Elevation". You would need 4 of these on 4 different layers in your template. And each elevation would need its own layer set (although you might get away with 2 by grouping the perpendicular ones)

 

..and no shadows below grade:

 

This is a black and white camera, with live layout view

 

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

7 hours ago, SHCanada2 said:

See my comments on this thread

 

I watched the video and also followed your steps. From what I see is that if you have a flat surface this will be better and easier. Maybe the bottom could be hidden if I extend the thickness more and out of the view. But I am seldom drawing plans so simple...

 

After watching the video and showing him cleaning things up, I may stick to my solid line as it takes a moment to position. But I do like automation, one more things to not think about. 

 

I would need to see more of how it would be handled with a house with many jogs. Also, on this house I laid out the initial grade per the sitemap. Then once I changed the grade to what they needed it became a complete disaster - it looked more like a moon scape.  

 

 

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

"NVIDIA RTX 4090 16GB" This is what I really want to talk about. (Off topic)

I currently have a 3080 it does fine, but with more complex hatching (which I seldom do) can bring it to it's knees. Rendering does quite well, but faster would always be nice. I have put off building a new computer now for over a year knowing a 5090 was coming. However, there is a lot of talk about its use of AI and that it is not all that it is hyped up to be. I found one video with a business fellow excited about it. Not sure if you are into rendering, but when I was in Twinmotion my system could take some time to render a larger image. Not sure I have a question other than, have you used Chief with a smaller graphics card and notice a big difference with the 4090? You are the first person I have seen that has a 4090.

[Steve_Nyhof]

8 hours ago, SHCanada2 said:

I also do not use shadows on elevations, which look to be filling in your grade in your screeenshot?

 

although for the full walkout, it looks ok (I think rene put in a request to not shadow below grade)

 

I have also liked the shadow as it gives it some dimension. Many times it does not really make sense, but I like it - what can I say? 

[SHCanada2]

yes, I used to have a 3080 laptop, and my current laptop is a 4090 16GB which is a laptop only version and is closer to a desktop 4080. I posted some performance statistics on rendereing when I first got it. if you search for 4090 and 3080 and authored by me you should be able to find it

[Steve_Nyhof]

3 minutes ago, SHCanada2 said:

if you search for 4090 and 3080 and authored by me you should be able to find it

Will do. Thank you

[SHCanada2]

4 hours ago, Steve_Nyhof said:

After watching the video and showing him cleaning things up, I may stick to my solid line as it takes a moment to position. But I do like automation, one more things to not think about. 

He had one way, in that thread I proposed another (terrain feature with glass). There should be no cleanup with the way I proposed as it is just a cut of the plane (as shown above)

 

The other way is what Maurren proposed and is what I do normally. Not sure it if would work for the one above. probably not because the grade changes in front of the gagage at an angle

4 hours ago, Steve_Nyhof said:

Maybe the bottom could be hidden if I extend the thickness more and out of the view

yes, make it 200 and you will not see the bottom

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

Very good! I did add the glass and that was clever.

[SHCanada2]

did it work on the two examples you show (corner walkout and angled garage)? I am curious as to if the cut plane terrain feature would need to be broken up to follow the angle of the garage for that side elevation

[SHCanada2]

If you are making your terrain in CA true to real life, then the cut plane would ensure your grade line is real life, where if you are drawing a CAD line, it would be more of an estimate I would think.

 

I will use CAD lines when the terrain does weird things and I get exhausted at trying to fix it, but my first go to is to just try and use the terrain without the cut plane as most of my projects are boxy box 120ft deep lots by 30 to 50ft wide. And some of my projects I just superimpose on existing customer's elevations, so in those cases I also just draw a CAD line.

 

Lots of options 

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

Yes, I can see where if the homes are in a subdivision or on flat grade, or little grade, or even a full walkout if it is straight, that doing what you show makes sense to me. I certainly draw houses on flat grade so I will look into this more as a default for simple houses, and use CAD lines when the grade goes off into left field.

 

I would say my template is set up to cover 85% of what I do even when some pages are deleted or added. But sometimes with remodels especially that just create as I go. This could be similar and have the grade and terrain features in place and hide them if I don't want to use them. At the moment I need to get a few plans off my plate but I will get back on it. I appreciate the help!