Jo_Ann

P.S. In a prior post, you said you wanted 3' lower walls of stone, and DJP advised you to use soffits, too. It doesn't look like you've done that yet.

What is a 'barely-attached' garage? Maybe you should post a pic of your floor plan. Also, your numbers don't seen to be realistic. Remeasure. Also, when building the foundation remember to account for the default height of the footers,and add some extra height to allow them to be below ground level. The steps you listed are correct, but it doesn't sound like you followed them.

There is a wealth of information (with pictures) in the knowledge base. http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-01197/52/Home-Designer/Roofs/Creating-a-Prow-Roof.html

Add soffit as shown in the shaded area.

Referring to the thread Kbird mentioned, has Suite now included pony walls? If not, you can still mimic the 3D look that you want by overlaying some of the exterior walls with thin soffits (with different heights, making them appear to be stepped). The pink walls in the example are soffits.

Unless 'sloped soffits' was added to Suite 2014, that has never been an option for HD Suite.

Who sez you can't use more than 1 soffit (smaller)?? If Suite 14 has shapes in the library, use a wedge (made small & thin) up where the ceiling begins to slope.

I'm just guessing, but from what I see I think your only option is to cover the upper wall with a very thin soffit.

This example has 107 5/8" default ceiling heights and a 4/12 pitch roof with the overhang eaves reduced to 2". The front porch room has the finished ceiling lowered to 101" and the garage has the ceiling lowered to 113". This example has a overhang on the front porch wall (as you stated). Because the overhang has been almost eliminated in the roof build dialog, you have to create one. That was done with an invisible room (which builds a roof over it) thereby creating an overhang. My invisible room is 12" deep. Floor c has been dropped to -24" to bury the floor structure. The ceiling is set to 118 5/8. Once you have the roof looking correct, turn OFF 'auto rebuild' roof. You can then raise the garage ceiling (so that you don't bump your head trying to enter the kitchen!)

What is your default 'finished ceiling height' and what is the roof pitch?

Or does the roof look like this?

Mick... I originally did the basement with 12' walls and set the ceiling to 8'. But the only way to step the footing (with HDA10) was to make rooms, to be able to alter each stem wall height (below the slab). However, those 'rooms' wreaked havoc on any attempt to divide the basement up into any other desired room arrangement. Then I followed your chieftalk link, and got the idea from that thread to reassign the room level so that a seperate 4' basement could be added below the real basement. The 'rooms' down below don't affect the real basement above, and the 'room' walls don't show in the real basement 2d plan. Yep. I saw your previous post about the version 10 content going away, so I made sure that I had everything I wanted. I don't remember where I got the avatar because it was quite a while ago. It is really an animated GIF, and when displayed as such, her eyes blink and she scrunches her lips! You really need to find an avatar soon, because you look really colorless! Rich... Yep...I am more radiant than I realized!

Does Suite2014 have some kind of 'auto rebuild foundation' setting that needs to be turned off? You should be able to manually draw in the foundation walls below the window without affecting the rest of the basement.

Geez! You went all-out! *NICE!* So, you are saying that you can manipulate the ponywall footing height (the step) while keeping the interior floor correct, with Pro? HDA10 wouldn't let me do that, because I did try. HDA10 doesn't have vertical footers either. Those look nice. I would have to do a work-around to simulate that. Where's YOUR avatar???

Mick... I checked the knowledge base to see that option (insert floor) for Pro. It sounds as if it might work, thereby avoiding all the new plan copy/paste hassle! What are you waiting for?! Get cracking and let us know if that actually works!!!

P.S. The pic you posted doesn't show stepped walls above the terrain level. If these are not to be stepped, then the side walls on new level 1 do not need to be pony walls.

To do this, you need to change the floor level designations of your house plan. The main house floor needs to become floor level 2, and the main basement will become level 1. This allows you to build a 48" height foundation level 0 below the new level 1 basement. You need to start from scratch in a new plan. OR if you have already done extensive work in the old plan, you need to study how to use the 'edit area' tool located in the toolbar under Edit. This can be used to 'copy/paste hold position' an ENTIRE floor to a new plan, thereby making the basement the new floor level 1, and keeping the work you already did to those floors. NEW PLAN (with new level 1 basement created): Open the 3d full overview, and tile the window vertically so that you can see what is changing as you work in the 2d window. LEVEL 1 (the new basement level): Open the floor 1 room spec structure tab and set the finished ceiling height to 96". The 2 side walls need to be pony walls. In the pony wall spec box / foundation tab, check 'specify foundation.' Uncheck 'footers'. In the 'wall type' tab, choose the lower wall type that you want to display. BUILD the foundation (level 0). When the default build room box pops up. change the height to 48". To step the bottom of the foundation side walls: LEVEL 0: Draw walls in level 0 to create rooms (which allow you to manipulate floor height). In the top room spec (front wall) I set the stem wall to 6". In the bottom room (walkout wall) spec the stem wall should be 48". Do the same to the other 2 rooms (or how many you have) so that you have evenly raised 'steps'. Create the terrain perimeter. Select and open the terrain and uncheck 'flatten pad' and 'auto calculate elevation'. Under the toolbar terrain, go to 'elevation data/ flat region'. Draw out a flat region that covers from the top terrain line, to just inside the front house wall. Open the flat region spec box and set the elevation to about 60". This setting appears to expose about 4' of the front wall foundation. Draw another 'flat region' from just inside the walkout wall to the bottom line of the terrain. Open this and set the elevation to about 10". This seems to set the ground to an appropriate step down height from the walk out wall. You should now have a nice slope from front to back, exposing the walkout wall. Create the pony wall steps that show above the sloping terrain LEVEL 1 (the main basement): Put wall breaks on the side walls where the invisible walls (below) intersect them (floor reference display tool ON). In the 3d active window, (OR a cross section elevation view) select a section of the wall. Hit the tab key on your keyboard to split the pony wall. You can now grab a handle and pull the bottom half of the wall up. Do this with each section until it looks correctly 'stepped '. Hope this helps!

That's funny, Rich, that you couldn't find that thread... considering that it was YOUR post! http://hometalk.homedesignersoftware.com/showthread.php?19026-No-Shadows-in-quot-Final-View-with-Shadows-quot In case this link doesn't work, it's on page 15.