Home Designer Pro Chief Architect
Hasan Fogg
Chief Architect Software is a leading developer and publisher of 3D home design software for architects, builders, designers and DIY home enthusiasts. For professionals, we publish the Chief Architect software line: the most popular product for residential home design. And, for the DIY home design market, we publish the top-rated Home Designer software line. The two software lines are compatible, enabling professional designers and homeowners to easily communicate and share ideas. Learn more at HomeDesignerSoftware.com.
All Home Designer software products have an upgrade discount to Chief Architect software. For example, a $500 discount is available to upgrade from Home Designer Pro to Chief Architect Premier. Learn more and compare Chief Architect software to Home Designer Pro.
I have a plan file that was created in Chief Architect version 9 that I want to edit in Home Designer Suite 2021. I contacted User Support for help and was provided the guidance below. I've already completed the first step to change the file type from *.pl1 to *.plan. Now I need help from a current Chief Architect user to change the file properties to make it editable in Home Designer 2021.
This is where I need your help - Once you have converted your file to a .plan file, we suggest using Chief Talk to post a request for someone to open the file in their Chief Architect software and make the necessary changes for the file to be editable in Home Designer. Here is an online article that describes the process the Chief Architect user will need to go through to do this for you: -00516/sharing-a-plan-file-with-a-home-designer-user.html
Version Number 9 was the last version to use the " .pl-.ca" file formats. the " .plan" started with version 11 or X1 long ago. It is true that once saved to " .plan" file format, one must also reprogram that file for use in "Home Designer titles", this must be done by a current Chief Premier user and the command is to be found in "General Plan Defaults".
That usually means that you attached the file while open in Home Designer which always results in a zero kilobytes product. What you need to do is to close Home Designer and then attach the file for uploading here or you can use the provided "File - Back up entire pan" tool and then upload that here or for attaching to an email to share with another user.
Home Designer products (made by Chief Architect) is a DIY homeowner product. Although the Home Designer Pro has a lot of functions (more than the other two HD products) and can do most basic work it is still made for DIY users.
Chief Architect Premier and Interiors is a professional grade product for Architectural Designers, Architects, Engineers, Interior Designers, Kitchen & Bath designers, and are made to be used for professional users.
In HD Pro you have NO layers sets, one layout file for EACH printed layout page and fewer choices and tools (as one should expect). a lot of the fancier, customization tools are left out and are only resident in Chief Premier.
if you are doing construction documents all the time, I think you would spend more time in HD Pro fiddling around than what if would cost for premier, where Premier you can setup the templates predone with elevations, floor plans, details. I do a lot of the same form factor, and can "redo" a new floor plan in a couple hours with a complete layout set
I'm an amateur home designer. I have no ambition to go professional but I enjoy creating designs for my own edification and I actually find it relaxing (is that strange?). My goal is to one day come up with the perfect design for my wife and I as we contemplate retirement living. I'm currently fascinated by the resurgence of 70's Ranch style designs with modern twists - but that isn't relevant to my question :) I've been using Home Designer Pro since 2019 and for the most part this product meets my needs as an amateur. I find some aspects of it a little strange including some of the choices it makes for attic walls and I find building roofs hard but that is likely a lack of my architectural knowledge more so than a fault of the product. As I look at professional designs on sites like Cool House Plans and House Plans .COM I see a standard of photo realistic rendering of things like grass and surface textures that are infinitely superior to those that I can obtain with Home Designer Pro (even with the improvements in the 2022 version). So my question is this (finally!). Is professional grade photo realistic rendering a feature of the superior Chief Architect product or do professionals use another product / technique to achieve realistic renderings?
Thanks in advance for any insight you are willing to share!
Anything that you enjoy cannot be "strange", just enjoy what you enjoy! Many dedicated, hard-working Chief Users can and do photo-realistic renderings as part of their business model and services. It involves having a 3D modeling software (Chief, Home Designer, Revit, Sketch Up etc.) to have something to render. Many users obtain professional grade renderings just with Home Designer Pro or Chief Premier or Interiors and some few others use a third party rendering software like Luminon, Twin Motion and others to take it a step further. for what you are trying to do for yourself I think Home Designer Pro's Physically Based Rendering Engine should be just fine for your purposes, you just cannot expect that "clicking a button" will obtain the results you desire. It takes tweaking lighting, materials and backdrop until you get just the look you are after. Nothing really worthwhile comes "easy".
You can produce some really nice renderings in Chief but you'll need to upgrade from HD Pro to Chief to get the ray trace feature.There are some excellent video tutorials in the knowledge base which are a good place to start. From there, it's a matter of learning the various features and techniques described through experimentation. Here are a couple of scenes I rendered in Chief (with some symbols and materials brought in from outside sources)...
There are other rendering programs that can produce really outstanding results but that requires investing in more software and also learning it. I guess it's all a matter of how much time and money you're willing to invest and for what type of result.
Everyone what do you think of Revit, Sketchup, and Autocad? And how do you think they compare to Chief Architect for traditional conceptual home design, custom complicated modern home design, and detailed construction home drawings?
Revit...more expensive for full version, way overkill and much slower for average residential projects. More powerful though if you are doing a lot of commercial or complex/highly "modern"/free form residential.
Sketchup...cheaper, maybe slightly easier to use for some things, but requires a crapload of plugins and add-ons to do what Chief can do OOB. Also slower IMO when comparing completed 3D models and 2D output apples to apples.
AutoCAD...Really a 2D CAD app even though there's a 3D version. Kinda spendy for what you get but it still seems to be the standard for a lot of drafting shops. I think this is slowly dying though and unless you're already heavily invested in it or working for a company that requires it, I see no reason to start down that road.
A lot of us use one or more of the above in addition to Chief to either supplement capabilities or for different projects. Chief is a good program though and I personally think its probably the best software out there for average to mid range higher end residential. Especially for smaller shops. And although a lot of guys use multiple software platforms, I think Chief really can do just about all of it.
On the other hand collaboration is necessary on these other programs because I don't think you can effectively and productively work alone in these other programs seeing how much leg work goes into setting things up to be as efficient as Chief out of the box.
CONSULTANTS USED - exchange of information
For your likely building types, what degree of exchange of documentation do you
anticipate with your consultants? (Structural, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing etc)
Now consider the rapid changes that are now evolving in software and its applications to the CLOUD use
and to BIM (Built Information Modelling). Will the software you choose be able to exchange data and take
YOUR AGE DETERMINES THE USEFUL SHELF LIFE OF YOUR FIRM / PRACTICE
Depending on your age bracket and expected practice life the above factors change accordingly.
The younger you are the harder it will be to pick a winner.
The suite of SketchUp apps available to complement Chief Architect are:
1. mySketchUp - free (browser use only on the WEB)
2. SketchUp Make - free (capable of using extensions and plugins) from a selection of over 800 to do specific focused tasks.
3. SketchUp Pro.
I have Revit in the office three seats. I could write a book about the money and time wasted in leaning and implementing Revit. We used it for one project. It would have been better to buy a nice boat. I have one word to say about this. Chief... Chief Chief... oops that is three words. If you have no money go to Sketch Up Pro but be prepared for a boat load of plugins that will be more expensive than Chief.
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