DavidJPotter

Elovia and most of the rest of us are NOT State Licensed Structural Engineers and as such if any of us answer any Engineering questions we could be fined for doing so. In Texas it is a $5,000.00 file levied by the State Architectural Board, such policies vary from state to state but anywhere in the USA, that is a 'NO-NO". Hire a real Engineer and them them as agents of your State do their jobs. DJP

In Suite, yes absolutely! Get the roof right by any means and then turn off Auto Rebuild Roofs and finish the design. DJP

You can also just make filler upper cabinets and base cabinets that are 3" wide and manually place them, before auto fillers were added several versions that was the only way it could be done and the old method still works. DJP

Home Designer Pro and Chief Premiers framing tools are virtually the same with a few exceptions. This video produced by Chief Inc should be helpful to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2C-VNGVsBw DJP

You get variations of finished ceiling height due to variations in floor finish thickness. This and other software is purely mechanical, controlled by settings that you make, fail to make or make wrongly. The software is not capable of judgement, prediction, logic rather it has some automaticities that are often helpful but not always. The main thing you must grasp is that it is up to you and only you to guide and control the software to a specific result. The software "knows" nothing and "does nothing" other than how it is programmed to work and your specific orders, good or bad. DJP

Here is an additional solution explained in this You Tube video done in Suite 2017 https://youtu.be/HS_XQLa9qH8 DJP

Make sure all exterior walls are aligned floor to floor, you also might try rebuilding roofs after you have aligned the walls. DJP

I believe you will find that "802" is actually 802 Square Feet which you can divide by the SF of the panels to obtain an estimate of how many panels. It is programmed to measure in liner feet for framing and trims and square feet for things like roofing, it is fully explained in your Reference Manual, take a look. DJP

There is no interior wall directly below the inner gable so the software, being completely mechanical, just does not automatically fill in the missing gable wall. All you need to do is to go to the Attic level (<A>), find the attic wall that is partially missing and manually draw it so it extends all the way across. DJP

Try importing this please. (See the attachment) DJP Utility.calibz

The main limitation of the dormer tool is that a dormer object cannot form across two roof planes, it has to reside fully within a single roof plane in order to form so, if you want it directly over the front door you will have to create a dormer manually, which is hard to do in terms of your "first time" doing so. DJP

The answer as Eric pointed out is to be found in your "Build Roof Specification Dialog - Roof Styles Tab" Take a look DJP

The steps necessary to import an image as a "custom material" are simple but non-forgiving of any missteps, something must have been not properly done with the importation process. Recheck the article and try again please. I do know it works, I have done it many times. DJP

With plot plans, the hard part is making sure that once imported, that the dxf or image file is properly scaled for tracing over. When a .dxf file is imported it must be scaled to 1' = 1' (the native plan view scale of Home Designer and Chief Architect). I was probably scaled to fit a particular piece of printed paper (scaled down to fit), the same is true of scanned images of plot plans which are commonly scaled down to fit a piece of printed paper (1" = 20", 1" = 50' etc.) DJP

I did a You Tube look over video I couldn't fit everything into the video and could not tell just from your posted photographs the following: 1. You did not carefully set Ceiling heights in "Edit Default settings per floor" that is why your initial try's at auto roof generation failed. 2. once you have preset all relevant Default Settings only then would you then start creating (drawing) the house model. 3. Presetting certain walls - roof tabs to guide the roof generator was probably not done or at least not done successfully You set your defaults, then draw the exterior walls, create the second floor and line up its exterior walls, floor to floor. Then check to make sure all room specification floor and ceiling settings are properly pre set, then all wall-roof tab settings are properly set for the outcome you want, only then would I autobuild roofs. The last step is to check over, evaluate what the auto roof generator did to see what you must then clean up manually. Roughly that is the sequence of events in creating any structure model. In order to figure out what roof pitches to use you really must climb on the roof and measure them to determine their pitch. Only true, accurate data applied to your model will get you a useable result. https://youtu.be/Ts-XVGBDmxE DJP

Here is a short You Tube video of me fixing your plan: https://youtu.be/Vu4ctdz9enQ DJP

I checked your claims in my copy of Home Designer Suite using the sofa you indicated. I found nothing at all wrong. You mentioned ".jpg and .gif swatches..." , were those custom materials that you imported? The standard Library Browser fabric materials work fine, so that must be a problem in how you imported, named and programmed your custom materials is what I think. What did you actually do, step by step? DJP

Post a copy of your problem plan (is this a problem in all plans or just this one?). Otherwise all we can do is guess and make suppositions. DJP

This is not a true statement, only you are responsible for any outcomes good or bad. When you have taken full responsibility for learning the software then you will have fewer problems that only you and your ignorance are causing. Please do not take this personally , all new users do as you have done. You will save yourself a lot of grief to not guess what to do but rather find out what to do and not do so the software then becomes an ally and you become competent with it. Part of the learning curve is finding out what the software can and can't do. DJP

Depending upon what software you have "Display Options" while in plan view DJP

Post a copy of your plan please, let others take a look. DJP

What software title and version are you using? What did you actually do to create the deck? Please post a copy of your troublesome plan file. DJP

You have the right idea, be sure your "save-as" name can be clearly understood later. DJP

"Home Designer" is too generalized to be useful as Eric pointed out. Home Designer Pro, Architectural and Suite all have the ability to "slope soffits". That ability is vital to arriving at the look of vaulted ceiling beams. If you do not have one of these programs you will have to upgrade in order to do as you wish. DJP

The auto roof planes generator first "reads" the ceiling height settings of each room specification dialog, so if you result in varying fascia heights the tool is reading varying ceiling heights, reacting accordingly. So if you are manually repairing this you first must make sure that adjoining roof planes match in their Roof plan Specification dialogs have matching values for " Fascia Top, Baseline height and pitch". When you have achieved in all adjacent roof planes you can then easily join them using the "Join Roof Planes tool". There are several video tutorials on my You Tube site demonstrating the above, look for them. DJP