SpeleoWorm

Thanks Keith! I will look for what you are talking about, but I am not sure what you are referring to when you say "create or open it up"? Is there a way to open up the custom materials from another place? I included a screenshot of the available options, but "Copy" only creates a copy of it in the Plan Materials list, not in the User Catalog, and when I edit the material there don't appear to be any additional options available. That is a good point...if you open a plan and simply delete everything out of it you basically get your own template, and then the items in the Plan Materials list almost become a hidden user catalog. Unfortunately my Plan Materials list seems to be a bit out-of-control at the moment (tons of duplicates and unnamed items - see screenshots below) so I was hoping to clean thing up in my next plan by not copying the current one (which is currently 75 MB in size). The user catalog seems like it would be a good place to store and reuse things, but I just can't figure out how to export/copy/save my existing custom materials there.

Thanks, but I wasn't looking for a response from the company, I was asking to see if I was missing something since this is one of those things that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I thought that someone might know something that I don't. I will reach out to them if I am unable to get help in the user forum.

Eric, I am not sure what you are referring to...I didn't say that the product is broken or that there is a bug? I said that I thought they may have "forgot to add a few of the materials that they expect all of their Home Designer users to use in any of their catalogs" because those materials are included in their default styles but not in their libraries. Does it make sense to you? I also don't understand your comment about Chief Architect since this has nothing to do with that product. I am referring to materials that are included in the default style templates in Home Designer.

Does anyone know why the 90 catalogs listed below are not for sale for Home Designer software users? Is our money no good? There is no "SSA" for Home Designer, and even if you buy an upgrade to every release of their software each year you are still not able to access any of those catalogs. I understand making some of them free and others for sale, but I don't understand blocking a good percentage of your users from even buying catalogs that you have already made. I am guessing that many of the manufacturers are providing the symbol libraries for free, but they may not know that lots of users are blocked from being able to use them. And the catalogs regarding things like plants (see screenshot below) don't seem like a "Chief Architect"-only type of feature...they are basic and simple and needed by home users and professional users, so why prevent all Home Designer users from being able to access them? I can think of a lot of people who would drop a few bucks to buy a catalog that they need, but not a few thousand for a program they don't really need...in this situation they are not getting money in either case, so it doesn't make any sense. Please let me know if I am missing something, and if there is a way to access the "SSA Only" catalogs as a Home Designer user. Thanks! 3D Moldings 3D Plants 3D Text American Woodmark Andersen® Windows Arcways® Stairs Aristokraft® Cabinetry Armstrong® Aspire Cabinetry™ Atlantis Outdoor Kitchens Barker Cabinets Beams Bellmont Cabinet Co. Bishop Cabinets BMW Bridgewood Custom Cabinetry BROSCO® Cabico® Custom Cabinetry CAD Blocks and Details Craft-Maid® Crestwood Crystal Cabinet Works Custom Wood Products® - Visit... Danver Stainless Outdoor Kitch... Decor Cabinet Company Decorá Cabinetry Diamond® Dura Supreme Estate Custom Collection Executive Cabinetry Federal Brace Fieldstone Cabinetry Greenfield Cabinetry Home Concepts Homecrest® Cabinetry HVAC No.2 Spiral Ducting Image CAD Blocks J & K Cabinetry © Kemper Cabinets Kitchen Craft® Cabinetry Kitchen Design Styles KraftMaid® Landscaping CAD Blocks Legacy Crafted Cabinets Log Truss Template Mastercraft Cabinets Medallion® Cabinetry Merillat® Mid Continent® Cabinetry Mouser Omega Cabinetry Osborne Wood Products Pella® Windows Pennville Custom Cabinetry Plants - Annuals Plants - Aquatic Plants - Bulbs Plants - Cacti & Succulents Plants - Climbers Plants - Kitchen Garden Plants - Perennials & Biennials Plants - Shrubs Plants - Trees Plants - Tropical Plato Woodwork, Inc. Porch Millwork Potted Plants Quality Cabinets Rev-A-Shelf Ridge Caps Schrock Cabinetry Showplace Wood Products Simpson® Strong Tie Siteline™ Cabinetry Sorrento Custom Cabinetry Space Planning Blocks StarMark Cabinetry Style Palettes Talora by Decor Tedd Wood Fine Cabinetry Timberlake Cabinetry Wall Types Waypoint Living Spaces Wellborn Closets™ Wellborn® White River Hardwoods Wolf Home Products Woodland Cabinetry YesterTec® Kitchen Designs Yorktowne™ Cabinetry

I find this very strange...if a material/symbol/profile is part of their "default" collection, why wouldn't it be included in any of their libraries? And why can't you save materials from the Plan Materials list (including ones that you have custom created) to the User Catalog? It sounds more plausible that they missed this minor detail and forgot to add a few of the materials that they expect all of their Home Design users to use in any of their catalogs. I guess I will report this to support as well.

Thanks Eric & David! Sounds like a bug to me since they allow you to change the sheathing but it doesn't respect the material depth dimension that you have selected. If they didn't allow you to change the sheathing material I could see that it would be a feature request, but this just appears to be a broken feature. I will open a support case to see if they can fix it.

I was able to change the roof sheathing material from the default "OSB Horizontal" to a custom 2" Zip System R-9 Insulated Panel (which I created by copying OSB and changing the thickness as well as the texture and color), but the depth is not updated in the list of components, and it is not reflected in a cross section/elevation. Is this a bug in the software that doesn't update the depth of the roof sheathing when you select a thicker material?

FYI, I started a support case last Wednesday, but so far they have not been able to figure out why Home Designer is auto-creating different foundation structures on either side of the house. Initially they thought it was an alignment issue, but we lined everything up and it still doesn't work. I will let you know if they figure it out, or if it is a bug in the software.

I created a bunch of custom materials by copying existing materials and then changing their name, dimensions, color, texture, scale, etc., but now I am unable to reuse them since they only exist in the Plan Materials list, not in the User Catalog or any of the other libraries. Is there a way to copy/save the custom materials which I created to the User Catalog so that I can use them in the future, or do I have to recreate all of those materials again?

I have found that some of the items used in the default plan styles provided by Home Designer are not included in the core, bonus or manufacturer catalogs. For example, in the "Today's Traditional" style you can see that they are using the CA-32 crown molding as a default, but CA-32 doesn't exist in the library, so you can't use it in other places (either in another plan or even in the same plan since you are only allowed to select molding profiles from the library, not from the existing list of Plan Materials). Why are these "default" materials/symbols/profiles not included in any of the libraries? Is there a way to save them to the User Catalog so that you can reuse them in the future?

I understand...it is just a big pain when you have to do it 15 times and everything runs really slowly because the app doesn't do well with multi-home plans (any change can take 30-60 seconds, even with no 3D, limited items displayed, and things super optimized). I started a support case and will see what they say. Thanks again!

I was afraid of that, and hoping it wasn't the case...I have to copy this house 15 times onto a varied terrain plot, so there is a lot of adjusting when you have to place houses at different elevations, and it is easier to do with auto-foundations enabled. What I thought was weird was that Home Designer auto generated a different size room for the porch on the foundation level (under the same size room on the 1st floor level). I thought that might help me figure out why it was happening, but it just left me more confused. Thanks for your help!

I had to zip it up because it is too big to post. I think I would prefer no step so that there would be more room for the trash cans in the very small two car garage, but to be honest with you, I would be happy with it either way as long as I could get them to match

I have spent a long time trying to figure this one out, but after recreating the walls, changing the room types, rebuilding the foundation, etc. many times, it still shows up different on one side of the building than the other. This is a standard duplex layout with two garages in the center and entry porches on either side. In one of the units it makes the wall between the porch and the garage flush, while on the other side it is stepped (see highlighted are below). I am using auto-build foundations, and everything else is great. Below is the same image with the reference display turned on so that you can see how it is lining up the walls. In the image below you can see that the porches are the same size, but the auto-created rooms in the foundation level (above) are not the same size. I know it is probably something tiny that I am missing, but I can't figure it out. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!