DavidJPotter

Vaulted ceilings are done in one of two ways: 1. simply turn off the "Flat Ceiling over this room" on the "Structure Tab" of the room you wish to vault. This gives you a "Common Rafter Vault" where the underside of the roof planes become the "ceiling". or 2. You turn off the flat ceiling and then add "Ceiling Planes" that you can manually adjust to emulate the interior vault (found under "Build - Roof - Ceiling Plane" "3. Some of the exterior walls extend bricked into the Attic. I redrew them but can't get it to stop doing that." The software is programmed to add attic walls you can delete them but the program will merely add them back, or you can make them invisible as you wish "4. On the roof over the front of the house which faces south, I will be installing Solar Panels which will be used to power the house. I plan on using LiFePo4 Batteries and wanted an on grade slab floor room behind the Auxiliary Garage. But I couldn't figure out how to put a 3 sided room against the back wall of the Aux Garage. " There are solar panel symbols available from the Home Designer Website for downloading and application. "5. I grew up in a house in California in the 50's that was built built in the 30's that had a stepped ceiling with 2 steps around the outside of the ceilings of the rooms. only for the rooms that are not vaulted. I would like to do the same but haven't got a clue how to accomplish this." Home Designer software has no trey ceiling tool like Chief Premier does so such a condition is created manually using the tools you do have. You use invisible railing walls to create a room within a room, each with differing ceiling heights to achieve the trey ceiling appearance. DJP

DJP without knowing what software you have we do not know what capabilities what you have, has.

With Suite and Architectural, all the instructions you need are to be found in the "Main Toolbar - Build - Build Roof - Roof Styles Tab" where how to preprogram the walls-Roof Tab and Build Roof Dialog to then obtain the type of roof Suite is capable of building, please take a careful look, study and then practice. DJP

Call Customer Service for the straight infomation, is my advice. DJP

3D software is by default not easily worked by older versions to new versions. In other words a newer version can open, view and edit older version plan and layout files but older versions cannot open, view or edit newer versions of ".plan & .layout" files even though they are both made by the same company. I am not familiar with what "Solid Works" will import into it but each type of CAD software does have their own restrictions as to what it will export or import in terms of file types. Find out what Solid works allows as file type imports and check that against what Home Designer Pro offers as file type exports to see if there is any chance of two-way communication between your HDP and Solidworks. DJP

I found lots of incorrect settings, the worst was rooms marked "Floor Supplied by Foundation below" on their "Structure" tabs, this was causing the strange behavior (I never use and almost never use this setting because it is SO Problematic. Take a look at the attached plan file, please. DJP Hicks.zip

The default floor height in a plan file for the majority of first floor rooms should aways be "0" inches (Edit - Default Settings - Floors and Rooms - First Floor). Only exception rooms should be set higher or lower than the default. DJP

The "wall elevation" camera is programmed to exclude everything that is not in the space that the camera view was created. In order to include the "Room" you created in making your custom fireplace, you will need to use the "Back Clip Cross Section" camera that is programmed to include all in front of its viewpoint to where you release the mouse. Check it out! DJP

go to https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search/models?order=popularity&direction=desc&q=Mannequins (Sketch Up-3D Warehouse site-the link I just posted may not work until you create your free account there), create a free account to access their many free ,downloadable, import .skp files as new custom symbols into Home Designer and Chief Premier software. DJP

The Large advantage of Pro in terms of roofs is the ability directly select, edit, raise, lower with precision Roof Planes and many other provided valuable tools and abilities. It is the junior version of Chief Architect Premier. DJP

DJP 3Season.zip

I agree with Rookie65 in that you can use a fixed window placed above an awning window to emulate your window unit. DJP

Edit-Default Settings - Dimensions - Locate Objects DJP

Roof plate heights follow what YOU set in Room Dialog boxes-Ceiling Height. DJP

DJP

Please state what software and version you are using and post a copy of your plan so we can better understand your problem. DJP

djp 974584262_OrrinsLnExisting.plan

I am not sure from what you have posted, what you want done or what software you need done in? DJP

"Edit-Default Settings- Framing" see image

A solid wall railing has no "Newell" post visibly, it does have a wall cap. Need more data from you to comment further. Please post a screen capture of what you are seeing and the Settings dialog you are using, please. DJP

Call Customer Support to straighten this out and in the future make sure you do not buy any library files that are not made for YOUR version and title. DJP

Sorry, you can align ceiling lights using manual dimensions and what I also use is the "centering tool" you will find in the "Edit toolbar" when you select a light in plan view. I often center the first light and then center the other lights, one at a time to the one I just places where I wanted it. You can "marquee-select" a group of lights in plan view to move them all at once (all the above you can also do in many versions of Pro), I have been a Chief user since 1994, a teacher since 1999 and I know of nothing like you said Chief could do, Sorry. DJP

Yes, that is correct. No sorry. The reason Pro costs what it does is because of all the ability taken out from Premier. Pro is quite functional and able but you have a lot of missing ability and speed of action from Premier; that is due to the greater ability and speed available with Premier. DJP

The software is programed to auto-generate via that built in routine but one can go to the attic level and manually draw any walls that do not make sense. But when doing so, you also have to open the Wall Specification dialog of each manually drawn wall and set the checkboxes "Attic Wall", "No Room Define" & "No Locate" like auto-generated walls. On the other issue what is showing on the foundation is NOT an auto-generated wall IMHO. It is probably a wall that needs its Wall Polyline manually adjusted using a back-clip elevation camera created 90 degrees to that offending wall. DJP

Such features can be seen in Home Designer titles created in Chief but NOT edited, thereafter in HD. DJP