How Well Do You Know Chief?

[RodCole]

The only thing I can say for certain is that Chief is always improving, and I am always learning new things.  Don't really care about percentages myself.  I am more interested in what I am able to accomplish and how long it takes.

 

From that perspective I feel a better question might be, how much do you know about Chief's default settings and how well do you organize your workflow using custom templates.  I think the answer to that question comes down to each persons unique needs.  What I have found is that the more I learn and implement Chief's Defaults such as Layer Sets, Anno Sets, Framing Defaults, ect the more I want and the better and faster my work becomes.

 

For my own interests it is more about where I am heading than where I am now.  And that is actually where I see Chief's strength, in it's flexibiltiy.  It can be set up to do any number of things.  The hard part is that you then have to know enough to be able to set it up the way you want.

 

Some programs box you in to a certain method of operation based on the available choices in their dbx.  That has some advantages where it comes to certain industry standards.  But, Chief can do those things as well, you just have to do it yourself.

[johnny]

Here's my CAD resume (in the order I used them):

PowerCAD

 

That was an oldie but goodie....  I think they still sell that program, and it was actually fairly popular with architects....good 2d, and I guess they got better 3D but I had moved on to Vectorworks (MiniCad).  Honestly, if I was to ask CA to incorporate any program's 2d that app would be at the top of my list.  Vectorworks has some very sophisticated image and texture mapping now, but Powercadd was just so nice.

[RodCole]

IMSI used to have a competive upgrade program where if you already owned a qualifying CAD program you could buy their products at prices far lower than what is advertised.  Last I checked Chief Architect did quialifyfor the competitive upgrade price.

 

BTW  you don't have to trade your old program in, you just get the new one from them at a reduced price.  Don't know if they promote this, I think you have to know about it and ask their sales department for the discount.

[ShaneK]

Rod Cole you know CA, your understanding of the 3d modeling is 100%.

[RL-inc]

I started with CA in ver 9.

I would suggest i am about 50% proficient now.

Strongest overall  in structure and design.

Weakest in cad and production drawings.

 

 

When i graduated from high school in 1986 i went to trade school to learn auto-cad.

After 1 year of training there and an associates degree i wasn't very proficient with it but did learn enough to know that i couldn't sit at a desk all day.

So i started framing houses and got my GC licence and ran crews on custom homes in Central Oregon for about 20 years.

 

Fast forward to a JLC live show in Portland OR about 10 years ago and i saw a guy demo CA- he grabbed me and said draw this house.

The rest is history-

The way the program works made so much sense to me because it was ACTUALLY BUILDING A HOUSE !

Not just inputting line and patterns.

I'm by no means trying to disrespect Auto-cad- but I spent so many years fixing designs in the field that a designer or architect swore up and down would work in his office and then when I got him on the job and showed him why it wouldn't work I would hear things like " well I can't see that view on my screen" or " I'm not a carpenter, I don't put all the parts together. I draw the plans"

 

As i progressed through CA and the upgrades I took online classes and went to training's where I could. And of course this forum is probably the moist valuable too available to any of us.

 

I knew I couldn't frame houses forever but I still loved to build and CA was the perfect fit.

[RodCole]

I just posted this U3D file in another thread, but it seems at least somewhat related to what RL-inc is talking about regarding what can be seen on the screen, or more regarding a 2D screen.

 

Play with the render modes and lighting to see what suits you.  This model also has the components organized into layers by group. 

 

The basic model was done in Chief, but I did use other programs as req'd.

3D PDF file Export.PDF

[Kiwideziner]

I would not like to guess at how much I know because as Glenn said you dont know what you dont know. Just as Christopher Columbus did not know what was over the horizon, if anything.

All I know is I can model all the things I need to for the type of work I do pretty well and then get con docs out the door to get paid. I have a basic knowledge of ray tracing but dont do many anyway, althpough that is starting to change slowly.

[Rich_Winsor]

While "you don't know what you don't know" is a catchy

little phrase it doesn't necessarily apply in all cases. For

example I think I have a fairly good understanding of

what areas I am lacking in (as far as Chief is concerned)

and could give you a laundry list of such items if needed.

Ruby & Macros, Material Lists, Complex Terrains, etc.

There are also over 1400 pages of documentation and

countless videos detailing what I do and don't know. I

think some of you guys are over analyzing what I think

was a fairly innocuous question. Just because I haven't

used or fully learned a feature doesn't mean that I don't

know it exists. But if you don't want to put a number on it

fine, so be it. I just thought that it would be interesting for

other users to see what level of proficiency fellow users

think they have achieved.

 

The defense rests your Honor.

[DavidJPotter]

I would estimate based totally upon ignorance that I have mastered about 80% (the other 20% I just do not use often enough to claim "Mastership" of). If you really want to learn this stuff then make an effort to teach others, that is when I really found out I didn't know as much as I at first thought.

 

DJP

[joey_martin]

I'm absolutely sure that I know 100% of what I need to know. The rest is not even on my mind.