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30 minutes ago, rdglnd said:

How do I find a centerline symbol in Home Designer Pro 2021?

What are you wanting to do?

@Pro2023UserMatt

Did you give up?

20 minutes ago, LeighG123 said:

How do I go about closing up the gables? 

59 minutes ago, LeighG123 said:

and turning off the automatic attic walls

And you might want to do the same with the foundation -- leave Auto Rebuild on.

17 minutes ago, LeighG123 said:

Do you have a solution to my problem?

Rebuild the roof. Suggest you leave Auto Rebuild Roofs checked.

8 minutes ago, LeighG123 said:

When placing a roof, how do you tell it that you don't have an attic?

In this program, you will always have an Attic level, and even an actual home built using trusses for the roof has an attic, it's just not as useable as a stick built roof.

For many questions, and this is one of them, attaching your plan file will help someone help you. So many possible settings and ways of doing things, having the file eliminates lots of back and fourth.

14MB size limit. Zip or remove unneeded things like furniture, cars etc. if it's larger. Close the program before zipping and attaching.

I'll guess, and guess is all I can do since all I have to go on is what's above.

You are looking at this much like you would when actually building. You have a tall empty building and you want to build a two story structure within it. 

You would build your new walls on the slab, so you try to do the same in the program, drawing walls on the foundation level.

And you probably do not have a 2nd level in your model because you don't see it as a 2nd floor, but rather just a room above another that all fits within the larger structure.

Because of these things, I suggested you watch a video or three to see how the program works. You won't learn how to do exactly what you want, but you will learn the concepts, and then be able to apply them to your project.

I'm certain the step by step instructions I provided above will get you started. Please start a new thread with questions unrelated to your OP.

Start a new plan. Do not make any changes to defaults.

Draw four walls to form a room. Don't worry about exact dimensions.

Open the resulting room and set it to be a Garage. Do not make any changes to any settings.

Build a foundation. Make sure Walls With Footings is selected, but make no other changes.

On the 1st level, draw a wall dividing the room. Select the wall and copy it.

Build a 2nd floor taking all the defaults.

Paste/Hold Position to paste the copied wall on the 2nd floor.

Open one of the rooms and change its room type to Open Below.

Take a Doll House View and see what you built.

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As an alternate method, instead of using an Open Below room on the 2nd level, raise the ceiling in the 1st floor room. Experiment a bit to see which method works for your application. Framing will change, if that's important.

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Now start over setting defaults before drawing anything, and at each step (like when you build a 2nd floor), make changes as required.

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I had about 30 years working in IT when I started with Home Designer, but I think the only carryover was knowing how to learn new software.

I was lucky I suppose, as I picked up this software fairly quickly, but I probably spent 40 hours of study in the beginning. 

Something that has always worked for me is to start small and simple. Once I understand that, slowly add and/or change things, pausing as needed to learn and/or experiment before moving forward.

You are limited by the tools you have in Pro, and it sounds like you are doing things the only way possible. There may be better ways to do individual things in your process, but it's difficult to recommend anything without seeing your steps.

Suggest you ask specific questions if you feel like something could be done better. Attach a simple plan that shows a typical structure, and the corresponding layouts showing what you want.

Some will build the basement on floor 1, and the foundation (footings etc) on floor 0. This is mostly manual, but it seems to give more control.

I'm not here to sell you on an upgrade to Chief, but here is a comment I made earlier today on some of its capabilities.

What you see is what you get. No way to "snap" individual parts together to create a new fixture.

Best you can do is manually place them together, then create an Architectural Block so they are easier to position.

9 minutes ago, MississippiMims said:

would you place a mask on the layout sheet or is this something that's available for the plan

Should work either place.

6 minutes ago, Rookie65 said:

Change the line style to "blank" in the default for the walls you don't want to show. When you open up the line styles, you will see one row that has nothing in it.

I believe the dashed lines are controlled by the Layer. Even if you set a wall to have all blank lines, you still get the dashed lines when you make it invisible.

In Chief, you can place the wall on a unique layer and control the lines, setting them to blank and the wall will not show.

14 minutes ago, MississippiMims said:

The only problem with turning off the invisible walls layer in the Display Options is I still need the invisible walls for the porches to show up in the floorplan.  I'm trying to isolate this particular invisible wall.

It's really helpful to include info like this when you ask a question. 

I'd use a mask to cover the wall.

Watch a video or two and you will see how the program is intended to work, and will be able to answer your own questions.

Having an actual foundation gives you dimensions.

Here is what I would do.

Using the CAD tools, trace the exterior of your foundation. 

Copy that line to a new plan.

Draw walls (they will snap to the CAD lines).

Build the foundation.

Adjust things as required filling in interior walls etc.

But first, I would watch that video so you understand the process (big picture).

I'm going to guess that you created your foundation manually, maybe using the Slab tool.

The program does not know you want that to be your foundation, and there is no way of telling it to use what you have drawn as one.

I'll suggest you watch the latest Home Designer Getting Started webinar on YouTube (link above) to get an idea of how the program is designed to work.

There is also a tutorial linked under the Help menu you might want to follow.

Come back with questions -- in a new Topic please after you have gotten started.

24 minutes ago, MississippiMims said:

I would like the door below the stairs to display in the floorplan

You can change the Fill on the stair, or maybe use the Draw Order controls to move it so the door draws on top.

29 minutes ago, MississippiMims said:

Is there any way to display a portion of stairs in a floorplan view? 

Not with a setting.

11 minutes ago, PaulKramer said:

Also, I've tried to locte the "Open the View Associated with this Object"

There is no list of cameras in Home Designer.

Best to attach the plan file.

14MB file size limit, and the plan cannot be open in Chief when you upload. Usually just need the plan and not a full backup.

24 minutes ago, BadgerEngineer said:

How did you get it to generate that way?

Made the fascia 36", and the overhang is a separate roof plane.

How you model will depend on the details, like what the finishes will be. 

26 minutes ago, BadgerEngineer said:

Is there a way to change the layers of the roof in HDP

Yes there is. Open a roof plane and check the settings you may change.

For the best help, someone would need more details on what this overhang needs to look like. My image is using a thick roof plane, but you might consider using a sloped soffit.

@TallDesign

Tip: See how clear my Vector View image is?

As shown, I had no problem. Place 2 outlets, select one and raise it, then center it over the other.

If this isn't working for you, attach a simple plan file -- 4 walls and your 2 outlets.

Start a new plan. Copy the defaults to your plan.

The default for new plans is a framed floor, not a 4' slab.

It sounds like you somehow changed it to a slab. To change it back, you need to input the new structure. The program does not know what you want, so it needs to be done manually. It's common to change the floor structure defaults to match an existing structure, or to match what is needed on a new build.

If you have the defaults set correctly, and if the rooms are set to use the default floor structure they will change automatically (there is a Default checkbox next to the floor structure settings for a room). If the rooms are not using the defaults (checkbox is unchecked) you need to check it. You can multi select all the rooms and do it at once.

Not suggesting you did this, but many new users make changes without understanding what they are changing. The program does a good job with its default settings, and most are easily changed if needed.