DavidJPotter

It may be that you can emulate this roof in Home Designer Architectural. Since I have a choice, I would prefer to tackle such a design with at least Home Designer Pro. It IS more money than Architectural and does require that one learn its more professional grade tools but at least you are no longer dependant upon a perfect series of pre-settings to achieve an intended product. There are users here who are veteran Architectural, Suite, Essentials and Interiors who could probably get your roofs done with what they have. If you intend to stay with Architectural you will need to STOP, as you say "playing around" hoping to, by trial and error obtain an acceptable result. Architectural and other such titles require precise pre-settings to obtain a result (not guessing and hoping). This requires intense study and practice which develops within you, competence and personal certainty. I am not saying that users of Pro or Chief Premier are lazy, I am saying that those applications provide more certain tools for direct manipulation of roof planes making the process of roof design potentially easier and more certain than pre-settings and then depending upon pre-programmed responses of a mechanical device (Architectural). Eric said to you: ?"The key is to experiment with simple plans to gain an understanding of how the program works." I would add after you have carefully studied all relative data in your Reference Guide about creating roofs and dormers. Your plan is a challenge for Architectural to create, requiring knowledge and competence, not luck or randomness. On inspecting your posted plan, the first thing I noticed is that your plan does not match the Architect's plan. That being the case it is no mystery why you are not getting your intended results. Roof building in Architectural, Suite, Interiors, and Essentials is predicated on the location of walls and then settings you create in those walls along with proper settings as to "Ceiling height" in applicable Room Specification Dialogs. These factors must be correct to obtain acceptable results. DJP

Welcome to the forum. There is no such software with the name "Home Architect Pro". Do you have Home Designer Pro 2018? or do you have Home Designer Architectural 2018? it is one or the other. I do not understand your question no matter what software you have, I mean you select the "Wall Tool" and then select what kind of wall type you intend to draw and then left-click-drag to create the selected wall type. If you mean something else, then please say more to explain. DJP

I assume you have Home Designer Pro. From your posted images it appears that you have not turned off the flat ceilings on the second floor of the intended vaulted area. The trusses are programmed to follow as a matter of priority flat ceilings first and ceiling planes secondarily. It appears this is the case based upon the two offered images, which leaves LOTS of room for error just on that scanty evidence. If you were to post a copy of your plan as a .zip archive file then others could give your plan a comprehensive look to determine the cause instead of mere guesses. DJP

I do not think so but to be sure you should call Chief Architect Inc Tech Support or Sales and ask the people would know if this is possible. DJP

I am sorry but no Home Designer Product has the ability to accept custom named layers nor do they have the ability to create custom, named object layers like Chief Premier does. This symbol might function in Premier but Not otherwise, sorry. DJP

In my twenty plus years of professional drafting and design, I have NEVER found a State Licensed Structural Engineer who used anything other than AutoCAD. I suppose there probably are some that use Chief Architect but I do not know of anyone. Another consideration is that your permit authority will probably ONLY accept Engineer Stamped drawings from an Engineer who is licensed in YOUR state, that is the way most permit authorities operate in my experience. Otherwise, I wish you good luck. DJP

Depending upon what software title and version you have you might be able to "Lock" a layer including "Walls Normal" and others by opening "Display Options" while in a plan view and checking "Lock" in the column found there for any named object layer. Thereafter such locked layers cannot, while so locked be selected or deleted. That is the only method I know of locking objects in place. New users ask about this but as you become more experienced it becomes less of an issue. I often temporarily lock layers to make other tasks easier but not just to "protect" walls. DJP

And perhaps this one done in Pro: DJP

This may help you DJP

Yes. DJP

DJP

I think no one has chimed in because you already know about the main sources of symbols we all use: Home Designer website and 3D Warehouse. You might communicate with these persons who make symbols for Chief Premier users for sale: https://phdds3dclub.wildapricot.org/3d-models-updates http://www.chiefsymbols.com/ https://www.chieftutor.net/ https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00640/locating-3d-symbols-to-import-into-chief-architect.html There are others that can be found on the web via searchs DJP

DJP

Answer Eric's suggestion, above, I was making a generalized guess. Once I KNOW what software you actually have, I and others can then be a little more helpful, helping you. DJP

What you need is what I do as part of my business model. Please visit my website for more information. DJP

DJP

Exterior wall default is set in "Edit - Default Settings - Wall - Exterior Wall". It material can be set via it Wall specification Dialog-Define Wall Type Dialog and also in "Edit - Default Settings - Materials - Exterior Wall", take a look please. DJP

I looked in my copy of Suite 2019 and could not find "Electrical Defaults" either. I am just guessing that Suite does not have "Electrical Defaults" like Home Designer Pro and Premier does. It may be that you were reading something intended for Pro and not for Suite. I do know what you are speaking of in terms of legacy plans symbols. What you can do is to open the dialog box of an electrical object and if you do not see an image of the object in its own dialog, you can then be sure it is one of the objects the software is complaining of. Then delete the offending object and replace it with one from your "Library Browser". Having to check each electrical object may be tedious but that method will work to eliminate the error message, once you have found them all. DJP

It took me a full year to learn how to use this software, years ago. I was supporting a family of five while doing so. Software, any software is merely a mechanical device, not a friend and not a Dutch Uncle, just a mechanical device. You supply the knowledge to guide it to acceptable results through lots of study and practice. It has a built-in Reference Manual, Help files, links to introductory videos to help you get started but it is you and only you who is responsible for any results, good or bad. If you want to get good results, put in the study and practice time to learn how to guide it to acceptable results. If you cannot develop the self-discipline to do so request a refund within the trial period. DJP

Display Options just visually turns off framing and other objects, it does NOT delete it, Once roofs and the design are just right only then order framing to be built. The auto Framing just follows how you create the walls, ceilings and roof planes, so I always leave that till last. DJP

DJP

Number one: What software are you using: Version and Title name (Essentials, Interiors, Architectural, or Pro?) Number two: what is the pitch of the roofs of your actual house (not the virtual one in the plan file) Number three: do you have any photos of the existing house or a postal address so others can look at the actual house to be sure what it looks like? Number four: what framing, where, please? Framing like all visible objects in this software are on alphabetically named layers in "Display Options" and so can be turned on or off at will. DJP

Number one: What software are you using: Version and Title name (Essentials, Interiors, Architectural, or Pro?) Number two: what is the pitch of the roofs of your actual house (not the virtual one in the plan file) Number three: do you have any photos of the existing house or a postal address so others can look at the actual house to be sure what it looks like? DJP

DJP

Vector view camera views are composed only of lines and color fills. Walls are defined in 3D views by Wall-poly-lines. You can see this when a wall is selected in a camera view (Like in Eric's image above, is a perfect example). So it is quite "normal" for vector views to show the edge lines of individual wall poly lines especially in vector views and other line-based camera views. One can reduce such lines by minimizing manual edits of wall polylines which is sometimes necessary to straighten out elevation views. There is no "rule" for this, you just have to develop judgment as to what works and what makes things worse. I am spoiled by Chief Architect Premier due to the presence of a tool to select and delete such unwanted lines. One can also draw in missing lines with this tool, it is one of the many perks one obtains when upgrading to Premier. When you find a manually edited wall polyline it will show up on the "Structure Tab" of the "Wall Specification dialog box - Structure Tab-Default "Wall Heights" checkboxes, if you see one of these unchecked, place a check there and see if that lessens the presence of unwanted lines. Manual wall editing of wall polylines is "permanent" until or unless you then undo the manual edit using the method above addressing the Structure Tab- Wall Heights checkboxes. DJP