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!
