Chief Architect Furniture Free Download

[Boleslao Drinker]

Hieveryone! I am new to Chief and a student of Environmental Design. I just downloaded the student version a few weeks ago and have only had little time to familiarize myself with it. I downloaded a bunch of catalogs basically almost every single one is downloaded. This summer I am taking Kitchen & Bath Design. We are 5 weeks into the semester and so far I had hand rendered everything. But, everyone else in my class is using chief. Their plans, 3D's and elevations look so good. That is something that even if you are the best at hand rendering a 3D plan just looks more real in chief. So, I started really messing with it last week. I want to at least be able to present one of my rooms on Chief. So far I have half way finished my first floor plan. I have the walls finished and was adding my fixtures. I have the toilet and tub. But, my issue is I was looking for a vanity that was at least close to the one I have picked out for my design. I cant find one. There doesn't seem to be many options on vanities. But maybe I'm just not looking in the right place. My main question though is can we upload a picture or the vanity or add it into the catalog somehow so I will have the exact vanity I have used in all my hand rendered drawings? I just do not know what to do at this point and help would be appreciated! I am basically teaching myself how to do all this.

As Mick states, a picture is not an actual 3D object however depending upon the situation it can be done. In the example below the clients wanted to use a specific Ikea closet organizer, no way was I going to spend the time to model it. I found a decent quality pic of the Ikea closet organizer, cropped it and then applied it as a texture to a plain poly solid box placed inside the closet. Given the quality of the added pic it looks 3D even though it's actually 2D.

- If you can't find what you want in the core libraries that come with the program, you can use the Get Additional Content tool to download more libraries from the Chief website. All of this content has been designer to work well with Chief.

- If you can't find what you want in any of our libraries, you can look online for 3D content that you can import directly into Chief. Please be aware that some online content is going to work better in Chief than others. Some of it may have very high surface counts and could really slow things down in Chief.

- You can build your own objects using a wide variety of the tools within Chief. As noted above, the cabinet tools are very flexible and can be used as a basic building block for many other types of objects. You can also use the 3D primitives, shapes, and molding polylines to create all kinds of other things. I recommend that you design these things in separate plans and then convert them into architectural blocks or symbols that you can then add to your user library for reuse.

- You can build your own objects using other 3D modeling software and then import them into Chief. There are a lot of things that I can design very easily in Chief and other things that I would not bother. For example, although I could design a toilet in Chief, I don't think it would be very easy so I probably wouldn't.

The technique of using an actual image is also used in some of the library models, check out the Miele manufacturer catalog. You will see that the front face details are actually a real pic, they did not model all of the little knobs, buttons or LED indicators.

Here's another example. In this one I created a main vanity box with a blank front face so I could control the counter top, sink placement and taps. I then placed a 1/16" p-solid against the front and applied a pic of a real vanity as a texture to it. I adjusted the main vanity box material to match the front pic wood. If I spent a bit more time I could have photoshopped the knobs out of the original and then used knob symbols to create even more depth.

I'm still a novice with CA but getting better at it thanks to this group. I design a fair amount of custom furniture, primarily conference tables, consoles, benches, sofa and cocktail tables, etc. What I'd like to figure out is if there is a way to model case goods + cabinets, etc without having a room around it. And still to be able to do a 3-D view of it. Or do I just draw a generic room and within the room interior, then design the piece within the space. Anyone else use CA for the custom design of tables and cabinets?

Not quite sure what you mean by case goods, but there is no requirement for you to model within a room. Just make the piece and use the camera views and elevation views as normal. If there is a reason to draw inside a room you can turn off those elements in the layer set display options so they do not show up in your camera view. Another trick is just make all of the room elements a color such as white without any texture, it's there but not seen.

Cabinet modeling in Chief is very strong. However, not even Chief uses Chief for designing furniture in...not a good tool for that sort of stuff. In Chief you cannot differentiate textures per-surface "face", so fabric/wood/etc will run in 1 direction in any given shape.

I think in CA you can accomplish the same thing. Just explode an element and apply your materials to the individual surfaces. Applied textures can be oriented, stretched and shifted via the material properties DBX, when finished just block the item or use create a symbol. Blocking is likely better as you can access the surfaces later on if you desire a change. Maybe not as intuitive as a dedicated program but with a little practice one should be able to develop a fairly productive technique.

This took about 20 seconds to do. Created a cube primitive, exploded it, applied different colours to each face and then converted it to an architectural block. Now I can change the surfaces without having to un-block it.

I'm still a novice with CA but getting better at it thanks to this group. I design a fair amount of custom furniture, primarily conference tables, consoles, benches, sofa and cocktail tables, etc. What I'd like to figure out is if there is a way to model case goods + cabinets, etc without having a room around it. And still to be able to do a 3-D view of it. Or do I just draw a generic room and within the room interior, then design the piece within the space.

What I'd like to figure out is if there is a way to model case goods + cabinets, etc without having a room around it. And still to be able to do a 3-D view of it. Or do I just draw a generic room and within the room interior, then design the piece within the space. Anyone else use CA for the custom design of tables and cabinets?

I have a template just for making symbols. Cabinet defaults are Blank with no separations on all sides with no toe, no counter, separations set to zero. It has a couple of dedicated annosets, and one view that doesn't show walls, floor, ceiling or backdrop.

As Graham points out there are ways. For instance I make door symbol (which can be anything) from different parts, and have different textures on them before converting to a symbol, those parts can have individually applied textures. Export symbol and alter in SU, then import. Plenty of ways to hack existing symbols too.

I also prefer working in a room. The other advantage is that you can now showcase your piece in a real looking environment. You could also create a showroom for your pieces, add lights and everything. That would be a great way to sell your pieces.

Id encourage you to see the rest of that video - since its well beyond the simple cube example*. In furniture design you'd have newels, fabric billows, etc etc which Chief simply doesn't have the ability to refine down to that level and adjust the visuals.

There have been conversations about furniture design in Chief and Chief has themselves come out and said they do most their furniture modeling in 3DS. I mean Chief isn't even anywhere close to providing this sort of detailing IMO.

*Although, I will point out the obvious that this sort of operation you show then precludes further shape solid modeling on that item. Thats a fairly serious limitation if you have to make adjustments to the model.

Johnny - I agree that this is not Chiefs forte and it is certainly not as intuitive as a dedicated 3D modeling program such as 3DS. However, one would be surprised at what can be done if you take the time to learn how to work around Chiefs inadequacy's. For example, you say that I can't go back and change the shape. Yes I can, I just have to un-block the Architectural block and I have full access to every surface plane. Each surface plane is just a polyline and can be fully manipulated on it's own, curved, extruded an so forth. The altered object can then be re-blocked. If I were to have converted it to a symbol I can resize the symbol through the symbol DBX and by using the stretch zones where I can define where the stretching will take place. If I create a tapered leg and the taper is to be fixed at 6" then the stretch zone would be in the area above 6"s. I can then change the height of the leg and the taper will always be 6" high.

I believe are you underestimating the capabilities of Chief. What is really the difference in building a house versus building a piece of furniture other than they have two differing names. All they are is a combination of a few very basic shapes.

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