Jo_Ann

Search in the forum and also the knowledge base for "Z" fighting.

Try these settings, exactly, and see if it works for you. The cad lines are used, so that the wall breaks can be exact.

Is this what you want?

Did you check to see if the deck is on floor level 0?

What ever you are looking for, might have been moved to one of the free bonus catalog downloads.

I don't know why you find those instructions to be frustrating. You can skip the wall type clean-up, but the house model will look bad. Just do the dormer settings, the garage west wall roof pitch, and the family room (1st floor) north wall roof pitch. DONE, and simple.

Plans done or corrected in a trial version of the software can not be saved. First thing you need to do, is to clean it up...correct all the wall types on the 2nd floor and the attic level. This will then require re-aligning them with other walls, and also with parallel walls. Next thing I did, was to lower the ceiling in the large room (2nd floor) to 86" (it can always be raised back up AFTER auto-build roof has been turned OFF). I set the west wall roof of the garage to 7.5" and left the east wall at 10" (working on 2nd floor) This closes the ridge gap, but it also leaves the roof a little lop-sided. It is what it is, with auto-build roof, and the current position of the walls. Also, the roof pitch on the north wall of the family room (1st floor) was raised to 11".

This is pretty close to what you want, but I don't even remember how many adjustments I made (lots of them). I had to move some walls, and change some roof pitches on some walls, to get auto roof to behave. This indicates that you really need to re-measure your dimensions. A lot of the walls are set as incorrect wall types. Everything matters. I did find out that the dormer walls that contact the large gable wall (garage side) was messing up the roof build (gable) on that large wall (as shown in your pic). The 2d pic shows a work-around for that problem. The crazy garage ridge line, was tamed by altering the east wall and west wall pitches (back and forth, trial and error)), and neither one of them are the same pitch.

Did you change the roof overhang on the wall?

If you've noticed, when the exterior room is selected, the bathroom is not included? Looking at a doll house view, the bathroom has no floor. The east window wall of the bathroom, needs to be pulled back and allowed to resnap to the living room wall.

If you post the plan file and also a jpeg image of the real house, someone might be better able to help.

Maybe one of your contractor friends can guide you through some of the basics. You haven't shown what the problem is, for anyone on the forum to help.

This alternative is similar to what Eric just showed in his video: Set the rails back to deck rails, and the room type to deck. Open the east wall of floor 1, and set it to be invisible, so that you can see what is happening. Turn on the floor reference display, and go to floor one. Use room divider walls to partition off the area that is the deck above. Open this room (floor 1), and check the wrench symbol that is beside the finished ceiling height (resets the default). Make sure that the default box for finished ceiling is checked (dbx structure tab) , or you might not have a ceiling showing. If you still have a deck support beam showing: In the 3d view, go to tools > display. Scroll down and uncheck framing deck beams. If you don't like seeing the white below the deck boards, place a dark colored thin soffit below the boards, and above the ceiling below.

You need to reread the direction specifics.

I gave you (what I believe to be) the only solution for Suite. You haven't followed the instructions.

To keep the structural framing / ceiling heights correct for the 1st floor: For the deck room, use an interior railing (NOT the deck railing). You can leave the room type as "unspecified", but check "show room label" and type in the room name as "deck". Change the floor material to "deck planking".

It looks like you have used a landing at the top of the stairs, and then maybe another landing to form a catwalk across the room? Instead, delete the landings, and use railing walls to form the top stair floor and catwalk.

Definitely something fishy going on there.

With the 3d the active window, look under 3d > camera view options, and see if "toggle textures" has a check mark. Also, on the tool bar under edit, scroll down to "preferences" > render > video card status. Post a jpg of the card status.

Showing a pic with the elevations, might help someone to understand what you are trying to model. Attaching the pool plan file could also be useful.

You aren't doing it right. You need to add TWO breaks for each step (one for the top, and 1 for the riser).

Like Eric said, get the auto built roof correct, then turn it off. Then go to each railing and set it to be invisible, open with posts, or showing a rail. The rail at the open end of the bays (that was needed to build the roof) can be removed, exposing the bays to the water below.

OR.. You could just lower the deck finished ceiling to 124".

I'm guessing that you have altered some ceiling heights?

Just goes to show...if at 1st you don't succeed, try try again (using a different method!)