DavidJPotter

Yes, but you are better served to create the terrain inside the plan file that you also have created your structure. It is often asked if one turns the structure to fit or orient to the terrain, this is a bad idea and leads to other unwanted and hard to handle problems. You always orient the terrain to the structure, leaving it in the plan view "North is upscreen" orientation, the terrain and elevation objects are rotated as necessary in relation to the structure, a magnetic North Pointer can be added to point at any angle necessary to indicate true magnetic North in relation to the structure. When you copy paste terrain elevation data and a terrain plane, it must be reconverted (after being copied) into a Terrain Plane in the new plan file. In my opinion it is a waste of time and merely makes it easier to allow mistakes to enter into the process. You can and I am sure you will do as you think best, I am merely sharing my opinion based upon using this software since 1994, you are free to find out for yourself what is and is not workable. DJP

Here is a short You Tube video done in Pro 2014 doing these jobs: https://youtu.be/OFZlotfdYlQ DJP

https://youtu.be/vwKOBPYGSPQ Additional thoughts about this design. Detach the garages from the house. Unless your son has no intention of ever reselling this home, it needs to be redesigned for resale in mind and not so ultra specialized design that no one but your son would like. Unless your son is made of money so sanity must also be applied with the future in mind. Build a free standing barn for the equipment and not as a growth on the home. DJP

Anything is "possible" but in the case of your house design, the presence of varying ceiling heights and asymmetric floor plan make the possibility of an Architecturally correct roof system, unlikely. If you really want to simplify the roof lines, then redesign the floor plan so it is more symmetric which will then produce symmetric roof lines. Why on Earth are the garage ceilings set to 14' and 18'??? Are you going to house the space shuttle? The house is set to have 9' ceilings, so a major problem, roof wise are the crazy garage ceilings. I never bother to build framing until my client or buyers is done changing their minds, it is just a waste of clicks (time) to build framing based on an unfinished design. You could smooth out your ceiling heights and by varying your pitches, smooth out the resulting ridge but you would also end up with an ugly, asymmetric house. DJP

My advice is to merely replace the missing symbols that reside in your current Library Browser. That is what I have always done on old legacy plans and that has always worked well. When you have replaced the old symbols, the error messages will also disappear. DJP

Nothing unusual here at all. The point is if the end user takes the time to study and then practice what was studied in the Reference Manual, it makes the difference between "luck" and just being competent, the variable is not in the software but rather in the user of that software. DJP

Here is a You Tube video of me working on your plan: https://youtu.be/9htZvf9ChVY DJP

When a State Licensed Structural Engineer who is consulting on my project and that person requires the annotation, I commonly create a wall typical that denotes what the consulting Engineer requires. In thirty years of such work, I have yet to work with a Structural Engineer that wanted them shown in plan views. The majority require certain 2D details that show specifics, annotated with text and arrows. DJP

After you upload a file you must also click on "Attach File", otherwise nothing, useful then happens. DJP

See if this does not help please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6mra1PpSL8 DJP

Yes, you can create a soffit to emulate a shower curb and then control-key-drag it into place placing tile material on it, You can also add a shower pan object that might serve as both a pan and curb, give it a try. DJP

What OS do you have? DJP

I downloaded your file and then made a You Tube video of me looking around and solving your issue: https://youtu.be/urHU8K_DHzI DJP

This is there first year having a Mac version, so there is little "track record" by long time users like us on the PC. Be sure to report things to Tech Support so bug fixes can be tabulated and fixed for all. DJP

Some titles (that cost more than Suite) have additional tools and ways to do what you want to do. In Suite, you mainly have "Soffits" (found under cabinet tools). These can be shaped thin and used to cover parts of interior or exterior walls and will carry whatever material you assign to them. Additional library catalogs can be chosen and downloaded for Suite at the Home Designer Website. DJP

I believe what Eric meant is that default results can be considered the "default result or condition". Anyone who will study and practice with Pro can make precise details in either 2D or 3D once they learn how to manipulate things to a desired result. How to do this is documented in the Reference Manual. It is your earned skill and not the software that creates preciseness. DJP

Robert, part of learning something new, especially software, involves trial and error practice. Doing it wrong is what you do until by study followed by practice you get a desired result. We all got it wrong until we got it right, the way out is the way through something. DJP

Edit - Default Settings - Framing - Wall Framing, that is if you have Home Designer Pro, if you do not, you are out of software. DJP

Draw the missing wall using your wall tool. DJP

You have Home Designer Pro, so the thing to do, if you require a roof, is to manually draw one. Get over the notion that the software does things for you. The truth is you use its tools to acquire the results you need and want. DJP

I do not understand your comment " the roof line does not match the sketch." (There are no "roof lines" in the attached sketch images). When I examined your plan file, it looks like one would expect to see for a gambrel roof. DJP

Space under the floor surface is controlled in the room dialog box locally, globally per floor is controlled in Edit - Default Settings - Floor - Structure tab. Posting a copy of the plan or expose image will help clarify the situation for those who wish to help DJP

The key to any roof design you desire rests on two fundamentals: Basic styles are accomplished by "settings" described in detail in your software found in the Build Roof Dialog - Roof Styles Tab and secondly, learning how to use Home Designer Pro's manual roof tools; this requires study and lots of practice to learn. DJP

Home Designer Pro comes with some basic "Atrium Window" symbols which can be fitted together. I have used Chief Architect Premier to design numerous sun room additions for a firm here in Austin so it can be done. Is it "easy"? No the software is merely a tool and must be learned to produce anything really useful, it is up to you. DJP

Like Eric said or indicated and I underline, the software does NOTHING in and of itself, it is you, controlling it via settings and manual editing which then causes it to arrive at a particular result. You do that, not the software by itslelf. DJP