Creating a Porch

I'm a newbie to Cheif Architect that has been using AutoCAD for about 15 years. This may be an easy issue to resolve, but how do you create something as simple as a porch. Like a front porch with a roof over it with railings? Thanks in advance for the help.

Name?

The tutorials are really good for this stuff - definitely worth the time.

I'm not sure exactly where you are stuck - do you want to change walls to railings? If you double click on the walls to open the dialoge box (dbx) you can change them to railings by checking the railing button on the top left of the general tab.

Then, go to the railing tab in the wall dbx and select post to beam to extend the posts to support the roof.

Then, go to the roof tab in the wall dbx, and fill in what pitch you want, and auto generate the roof. If the roof does not generate automatically, double click on the room you are trying to make into a porch and check "roof over room" in the structure tab.

Or skip all that and draw the roof manually using the roof tool - really good idea to get familiar with roof planes and how to manipulate them manually to avoid future frustrations...

And you can also place posts manually, you'll want to learn how since it can be difficult to control the automatic ones generated as part of a railing. You will find the post tool in the framing set, they won't display on typical default settings, so you'll want to learn about layers and how to turn them on and off...

I don't know, I could go on for hours. Any of this help?

A porch is just another room, with different kinds of walls, floor elevation, and so on.

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A porch is just another room, with different kinds of walls, floor elevation, and so on

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This is sort of true , but a Porch has some special properties, if you call you room a Porch it will enable light to pass in and out.
in this example the room name is important, call th porch a bathroom and you wont get the shadows

Attachment 16937

This is sort of true , but a Porch has some special properties, if you call you room a Porch it will enable light to pass in and out.
in this example the room name is important, call th porch a bathroom and you wont get the shadows

Thanks I do not do much rendering, so I have something to learn there...I was hoping to simplify porch building for a new user, i.e. make a room and then redefine walls, floor structure, ect..


When does the little guy with the hatchet get a rest??