a5uperman

Turn the sun LUX down too. It tends to wash out everything.

You can always try the trail version of Chief Architect to see the difference. I use the trial to import my Home Designer Pro plans and raytrace them. The "trial version" text doesn't make the value of doing this completely negative.

Are you trying to do this? https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00904/creating-a-bonus-room-above-a-garage.html

You have to make multiple cameras in your plan, and save each one before uploading your plan to your Chief Cloud account. You will know you have them saved because you can see them on your plan in Home designer. Then when you put the 3d viewer in VR mode, look down at the menu circle below you, and it will let you select the Cameras you saved with your plan to your cloud.

Maybe this helps, from the help file. The floor framing for a given floor is always created on the floor below. As such, the floor framing settings for a given floor are found on the Floor panel for the floor below it. For example, the floor framing settings for Floor 2 are found on the 1st panel, while the floor framing settings for Floor 1 are found on theFoundation panel. See Floor and Ceiling Platforms. In order to create the floor framing for Floor 1, a Floor 0 must be present. If a Floor 0 has not been built, the Build Floor Framing checkbox on the Foundationpanel will not be available.

Are you trying to build a garage? Set the room with the garage door to "garage".

Delete the short wall segment your call out is pointing to, select the wall next to your call out, then grab the "Same Wall Type Edit Handles" at the end of that wall (the little diamond symbol) and drag it to meet up with the existing wall end. This creates a wall with the same settings as the longer remaining wall and fixes your footing.

looks like a guy walking with a shovel on his shoulder to me.

It doesn't really import dynamic content created in sketchup. Something I have suggested would be a great idea. Although there is so much you can do with dynamic objects, and so many options doing them, I doubt it will come anytime soon.

Having just started using this program a couple of months ago, I can say there is nothing wrong with starting over. You have probably learned a lot since you started, and will do many things differently the second or third time re-making this. If you just want to get to the finish line, fixing a broken design over and over is OK, but you will get in to bad habits if you intend to use this program a lot. For instance, the first thing they show is how to set the defaults on your plan, and that really does make building what you want far easier in the long run. You might not know exactly what you want to do the first go around, but after messing around with your first design you probably have a better idea what you want and can set some defaults the second time. Although from your signature I see you're a General Contractor, and probably might not have the time or money to continue to mess around with the plan over and over again. But if you put the time into the first few jobs and learn the program you will be much better off in the future. Also, If I get stuck on how to do something, I'll make a tiny home (one or two rooms) with the feature I'm trying to learn and mess around with that as a test. It's easier to figure how to fix things that way than to mess around with a huge floorplan you have done a lot of work on. Some things you want to do will have multiple ways to do them. And each way will have an impact on something you do later on. Using this program is addictive for sure! I've looked up a couple nights to find it was 3 or 4am. LOL I have one design I think I've started over maybe 6 or 7 times, and every time was better than the last and fixed cascading problems that were starting to build up from earlier decisions made earlier on in each version. And each restart went quicker to get to the same place in the design process than the last try. I have a background doing 3d animation from years ago, and those are things I found from working with those programs. It looks like you have a good foundation with your background in autocad?

You should check the pool video, make hole is not how they show you to do it. Looks like you're seeing your background through the "hole" you made the pool into. https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/videos/watch/2277/pools.html?playlist=200

Try clicking on the roof plane and typing -12" after the height that's in that box (this will subtract 12 inches from that original number, easier than doing the math) in the "lock fascia top height" box. You should include what version of the software you are using, some versions may not have that setting.

As a fellow newbie I really second Eric's suggestion to test/learn the software by building simple one or 2 room buildings to get the hang of specific things you want to do in the software. When I get stuck trying to accomplish something on a more complete design, I'll jump out of it and make a simple test building to learn how something in the application works, like how roofs react, etc. It saves a lot of adjustment to your real plan. David's videos are good, because he helps fix problems people have, ones you probably will run in to. Right now, I'm mostly looking at home designs online and trying to re-create them. I usually run into multiple problems trying to re-create some room or roof or other thing, and spend a few hours digging in to all the online reference and tutorials about the software to overcome the situations. I've also found that using the space planning tools is a quick way to play "what if" very useful. After you set all your defaults in the plan, then use the space planning tools to lay out your rooms, closets, hallways and such you can hit "build house" and the walls will be were you need them. You can even do multiple floors in the space planning tool, you just need to "build house" every floor separately. It's a good way to go into the camera view and get an idea what the rooms will feel like in size and flow. If you have the floorplan of your current home, it might be faster to use the space planning tools to re-create it than to build every wall by hand. Especially if you're just using it for reference. I've been trying to create my plans to auto build everything. I know in the end I'll have to make adjustments here or there, but if you stick with as much auto build as possible you can resize rooms and move things without having to manually move everything around it too. But manual works too. After I build a plan for a couple days, I've learned enough about the program to start over. My third and fourth attempts are always much better and come together much quicker from all the learning I did getting to this point. Trying to micro adjust a bad start is just too much work sometimes. Save revisions a lot too. Like My_Home_V1.1 My_Home_V1.2 etc. I don't remember where I saw it, but you can make a material with cross hatching and such and just paint your existing home with it at the end to note the old and the new.

Thanks I e-mailed them.

I just bought Home Designer Professional 2018 on January 27th and I see you just came out with a new 2019 version. What are my options? Do you have any recent purchase free upgrade policies? Thanks.