DaveRegis

Wow -- It was right there in my screenshot, and I'd read over those settings several times. I'm rather embarrassed I didn't catch this with Solver's suggestion... I guess I was just looking at settings going only one direction. Thanks you Solver and y-g-m-n for the help!

I screen clipped the listings top-to-bottom for both plan sets and compared them closely. There were five non-wall-related layers that were hidden, so I re-enabled those and still didn't get the wall layers display. Next, I did a Select All and toggled the Display option box ensuring it enabled all layers and accepted the dialog -- I got a ton more stuff displayed on my plan view that I didn't need, but still didn't get the detailed wall layers.

Another tip -- depending on your roof design, automatic roofs can fight you every step of the way. In my case, every roof section was manually drawn out... it's a bit tedious and fiddly at first, but it gets easier with practice and it lets you get the results you want. Luckily, the gable roofs were consistent in pitch and the overhangs. The flatroof sections were the trickiest and involved quite a bit of editing to get all the eaves proper.

The approach I used may not be the right way to do it, but it's the only way I could figure out how to make it work... For the rooms/areas with the gable roofs (shown below), I added a second floor. For the garage (green) and two bedrooms (red and magenta), the floor heights were only 6" and I marked them as open below so the actual room ceilings could be vaulted. For the great room (blue), the floor heights were 48" to get the clerestory with windows. Initially, I just tried to change the ceiling heights of the specific rooms without adding a second floor, and I ran into two issues: The software didn't properly finish the exterior walls where the gable ends met the flat roof areas The gable roof over the front bedroom (red) didn't cleanly cover just a room ... it also extended over closets, bathroom, hallway and partway into another space. Regardless, using the approach of using second floors where different roof sections were needed, it provided a lot more control and flexibility Hope this helps

Ok... at some point turned off the display of detailed wall layers for one of my plans (this appears to be a plan-specific setting). I've gone through the display settings, and I can't figure out how to turn them back on... OFF: ON: I've got all the wall-related display settings enabled, and I've gone through others as well and they don't seem to affect the wall layers: Help? Dave

Did you upgrade from the 2024 version... or a lower tier? If so, check the equivalent folders for those products for your textures. For example, if you'd upgraded from 2024, look in ...\Documents\Home Designer Pro 2024\Textures If you can find them, just copy them over to the folder for the 2025 version

What version of the software are you using? My project involved a single structure with several roof sections and types, and Home Designer Pro was able to do what I needed. The house features multiple gable roof sections and some flat-roof area between them. Additionally, the main part of the structure featured a clerestory level.

Yes! Solver's tip works great ... and its less fiddly than deleting and re-adding the door!

Thanks for the tip -- I somehow didn't see that additional option you'd pointed out. Regarding my signature, I've already updated it but it seems to be carrying my old signature thru this thread. Again, thanks!

It does -- and that was the root issue for me. I'd placed the door before I'd defined the patio as patio, so the door was spec'ed as "Interior Door". My fix was to remove the errant "Interior Door" and place a new door. Doing that way, the door was properly attributed as an "Exterior Door".

Erm ... in the process of creating a simple plan to illustrate the issue, I determined what I'm seeing can happen. Here's what I see happening: Create a simple two room structure and define the rooms as some interior space (bedroom, great, etc) Add a door (slider or hinged) connecting the two rooms Observe that the door only has interior casing controls -- both sides of the doors are considered to be interior The above is all good! Now... Change one of the spaces to patio Examine the door and observe the casing controls are only enabled for interior spaces That's what I'm seeing because as I was creating the space, I'd added the hinged/swing door before setting the room type for the porch. The slider was added after, so it has both interior and exterior case options enabled. NOTE: the edit dialog title inidicates "Interior Door" or "Exterior Door" denoting the sub-type, but I don't see anyway to change that. So, the moral of the story is only add doors after defining the room types if one side might be considered an outdoor space As a bonus, if you have two interior spaces where you want independent casing controls, simply temporarily define room one as an outdoor space, place your doors, then change the room back to the interior room-type -- the doors will now have separate interior and exterior casing controls.

This was observed using HD Pro 2025 I just stumbled across an odd behavior (bug?) -- inconsistent casing controls between door types. The scenario is door connecting an indoor room type to a patio: A sliding door will have separate control of door casings for interior and exterior, but a swing door will only have controls for the interior casing. It's like for swing doors, it's considering a patio to be an indoor space. In my particular case, there are casings around the interior side of doors, but not the exterior. To work-around this, I have to construct casings (using 3D shapes) to the interior swing doors that open onto patios

Thanks for the reply! Not the answer I was hoping for -- still, I'm continually impressed at the capabilities that are available in the non-Chief line-up.

If you create a new "Pony Wall", it includes a pony wall cap -- a molding which sits atop the pony wall. If you edit an existing (regular) wall, and check the "Pony Wall" box in Wall Types, it allows you to specify the lower wall type and other attributes as expected. However, it doesn't add a pony wall cap -- and I don't see any way to specify one. It seems like this would be specified in Moldings, but that specification category isn't available. So, there are two issues I'm up against: Conversion of existing normal walls to pony walls mostly works, but I don't see a way to add a cap When creating a new pony wall, I don't see any way to change the cap molding size or style Am I missing something?

Take a look at the "What's New Summary" for 2025 -- it lists the features you get based on the version of software you have (Suite, Architectural or Professional). If there are new features that look interesting, you can always download a free trial of 2025 to see if the features do what you need and if they're worth the upgrade fee. https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/whats-new/#whats-new-summary

Thanks again!

I'd tried that as well, but that didn't help. For this test, I used a very distinctive material for the rails/stiles, and the panel material is entirely different. This is really baffling me because the basic 'Framed' doors/drawers work fine. The only thing that stands out is that the default material for the style I'm trying to use is 'Color - Snow White' ... while the material applies correctly in HomeDesigner, perhaps the models are missing a flag to preserve the UVs for the rails/stiles during export. Of course, that's pure speculation ... I have no idea what data-structures are like for their models or how they transform things for export. I guess I can create a texture in Lumion that has the same tone/tint as the panel, but no graining and use that for the frames. Thank you for your response! Below: HomeDesigner (Left) and Lumion (Right) via DAE export/import.

I'm using Home Designer Pro 2024 with the Cabinet Doors No.2 bonus catalog. I'm trying to utilize some of the Shaker variants from that catalog, but on export, the textures on the frame portion of the doors/drawers is incorrect... all four sides of the frame export with the same texture orientation. Normal framed doors/drawers export fine. Minor correction: the Micro-Shaker style appears to be part of the cabinet styles found in the Core Catalogs -- but it does share the same issue as the Slim- and Skinny-Shaker found in the Bonus Catalog. I export the file to DAE format and import the DAE into other various rendering tools (Lumion, TwinMotion and Blender). The result is consistently incorrect, and Blender shows the frame as a single object (rather than four distinct pieces). The standard Framed doors/drawer don't seem to have this issue ... the frame portion is exported as distinct pieces with the correct texture orientation. The screencaps below show the issue I'm having -- HomeDesigner (Left) and Lumion (Right) via DAE export/import.

I just ugpraded Home Designer Professional 2023 to 2024, and it mostly went well. The libraries I'd downloaded and installed all migrated, and all my plans were able to load. However, it doesn't look like anything in my "User Catalog" migrated. Is there a way to get that over to the 2024 version as well? Possible Solution / Work-Around: In Pro 2023, I used the Export function on the User Catalog, and that created a .calibz file -- I then used that file to add that library to Pro 2024.

LOL ... awesome help, so many ways to skin the cat, as they say. I ended up using Solver's initial idea, and I'm quite happy with the results. It was fairly simple to implement, though I can see where it could be a pain if there were structural outline or wall changes. I didn't see a way to have ceilings but no roofs, so I had to use two objects sandwiched together to represent the ceiling and roof. I like all the automatic features, but sometimes they're too automatic. I spent 3-4 hours figuring out how to get the different roof elements work (somewhat) and then another hour or so re-implementing using geometric shapes. Starting fresh with all this knowledge, I'm sure I could've done it all in less than an hour.

Thanks for the replies -- I've been considering the next level upgrade and might end up getting it, but I'll try Solver's idea first.

I'm using Home Designer Architectural 2023, and I'm working on a house plan that features multiple roof types (gable and flat). Accurate structural details are not required as this is only for visual representation. Using a combination of information from the forums, knowledge base and sample plans, I've come real close to getting a good representation. The gable roofs are to be metal standing-seam and the flat roof sections are to be membrane. As far as I can tell, the software only supports having one type of roof material per plan. If I change any roof section material, they all change. Is there a way to override this? I considered using soffits to represent the flat roof portions, but they would interfere with the dollhouse view (soffits are used extensively through the floorplan, so I'd like them to be otherwise present). I can provide a cloud-link to the plan if it'd help. thanks, Dave