Auto Dormer Frustration!

[lgswe]

Can anyone tell me what's going on with my auto dormer walls? (attachments) When you take a render camera view from the outside, part of the side wall on each side of the dormer is missing, but a view from the inside of this dormer you can't see out. As I move the knee wall connecting to the dormer (plan view), the partial missing wall on the exterior of the dormer on the side of the moving knee wall changes with the location of the knee wall. I've played around trying different things, but to no avail and way too much coffee. I thought about just building a dormer from scratch but there must be something simple I'm missing. Does anyone have any ideas? Oh, by the way, I'm using 10.8. Thank you all for your help ahead of time.

[louis]

Try hitting F-12 and then look.

[Rusty]

It looks the knee wall is causing the problem. It shouldn't be cutting the rake wall like that. Try fixing that connection.

[louis]

Try defining the front 2 small area as attic and then hit F-12 and look.

[lgswe]

Louis- I've hit F-12 many times and the areas have been defined as attic space.
Rusty-- Sorry, but I'm not sure what you are talking about.

[spencerdesign]

Hi Larry,

Post your plan so we can have a look.

[lgswe]

Sam
I never posted a plan before, so I hope I did it correctly. I exploded the dormer, worked with it for awhile, then deleted the entire dormer and started over again building it manually. I still ended up with the same problem. This is an addition I'm working on for a exisiting home. The cad line running through the kitchen is where the original back wall is located if you're wondering. As you look the plan over you will come accross some other "issues" I have to work out also. There are certain exterior wall areas that are shown as having sheetrock on them in renderview, even though in the plan view they are correctly displayed as having siding on the exterior. When I take the eyedropper and try to change the material to siding, it makes many interior walls change to siding also. I've had this happen to me before and it's one of those questions I haven't figured out yet.
Another area is after going through the door at the top of the back stairs. To the right there is a partial wall that extends from the knee wall toward the closet wall. I've tried to get the roof to cut it off so the area from the knee wall accross to the closet wall is completely open between the two rooms. It seems that this knee wall is what's giving me my problems with the dormer and the wall I've just talked about. But why? I'm very appreciative that you are taking time to look at this and I hope I'm not "laying" too much out there for you or anyone else that can give me advice on what's happening. There's plenty of things I don't understand about this program because I don't do it full time and I'm still using CA10.8a. Thank you and I hope I've explained my problems clear enough for everyone to understand

[Rusty]

Hopefully this helps.

[lgswe]

Rusty
These are approx. 4' knee walls for the bedroom. I need the break line in the dormer sidewalls. The dormer walls that are on the bedroom side of the knee walls are marked to have the roof cut the wall in the wall specification dbx. roof section. I thought that was the correct way to do it so that portion of the wall would not go to the floor.

[Rusty]

It appears the use of the material painter has caused alot of the problems. Open walls that are displaying incorrectly, materials, plan material, click use default.

Check your roof opening. It was off. I highlighted the correct config in pink.

[lgswe]

Rusty
Going into the Plan Material dbx. did the trick for my interior/exterior wall problem. Lesson well learned! Thank you!
I made the cutout in the roof for the dormer like you show and from the outside the dormer looks great. Your dormer side walls, in plan view, look like they don't have a break in them. Without the wall break at the knee wall, the side walls of the dormer are cut off at the roof all the way to the front dormer wall. ("Inside dormer view 2 " attachment) This is what's happening for me anyway. When I put a "break wall" at the intersection of the knee wall and the side dormer wall and change the wall that is between the knee wall and the front dormer wall not to be cut off at the roof and rest of the side wall to be cut off at the roof in the "roof section" of the Wall Specification dbx. My side wall area below the knee wall (toward the dormer front) goes to the floor correctly, but above the knee wall on the outside of the dormer the wall disappears, but from the inside it looks correct. --Whew, that was a mouth full!! Does this happen for you or once again am I doing something wrong? Thank you so much for you patience.

[spencerdesign]

Here is another approach.

[lgswe]

Sam
Okay--you got my attention. I thought I did everything you did but I'm not getting the same results. Then when I deleted one of the side walls in plan view on the dormer you made I noticed in render view the side wall was still there on the exterior and on the interior there was still an upper pie shaped surface. This led me to believe you added very thin surfaces to the inside and outside sidewalls of the dormer to cover the hole, but nothing shows up.
May I ask how you did this dormer? I'm a student waiting for the teacher to teach. Thankyou.

[Rusty]

Take a cross section inside looking at the dormer wall. Place a wall break (in 3d) and shape the wall as necessary. Then it will be beautiful inside and out.

[lgswe]

Rusty----Thank you. That did the job! The student once again learned a valuable lesson for the Teacher! The thing I don't understand is that I built the dormer exactly how the training video said to do it, both as a "auto dormer" and then manually, and they both were giving me the same problematic problems. This "work-a-round" and I'm assuming that is what it is anyway, is it a problem in CA10.8a, is it somthing I'm doing, or is it my setup? Maybe you can't answer that, but thank you again for your time and help.

Sam----Even though Rusty's way of solving my problem worked for me, I'm still very curious how you came about "the fix" you sent me.

Once again to all, I'm very appreciative to everyone who took time to help me and thank God for ChiefTalk!