CA for future home builder/owner

[ivancyr]

Hi Preston,

Just want to encourage you to dive in and have fun. I literally fell into CA. I trained to design GPS approaches for airports and I studied to utilize the full Adobe suite to layer, our engineering data, mapping, and print. I completed this without formal training and on my own time. I unfortunately was transferred after our shop (at the real job) was closed up. Seven years later, and a move across the country I utilized those skills to solve some problems for my brother-in-law who had 3 nagging problems. I did this in about 3 hrs of work enjoying his company watching a hockey game. About a week later he asked me if I could fix another problem and suggested I use CA X4. I dove into it full throttle, spent 3 wks with 2-3 hrs sleep a night (plus kids, plus full time job) and was able to get "product" out to a developer after 3wks that he was happy with. I DO NOT do architecture...I simply use CA as a 3D modelling tool. You can see some of my latest work 6 months later (I did start with HD Pro 2012 and upgraded 3 months later after HD couldn't handle the file sizes and was limited in its export functions) on an earlier thread today.

Which brings me to the only advice I can give. Go through all the tutorials and work from there. Ask all the dumbest questions you want on this forum....people are great...and there are a few champions (Like Lew B. and others) who go over and above for you.

A suggested Order of manufacture:

1. External Walls.
2. Internal Walls that define different floor and ceiling heights.
3. Set those heights in 2 above along with roof zones (and internal walls if required).
4. Remainder of Internal walls.
5. Roof
6. Windows, doors, etc.

...and go from there. Others may have a better idea or suggestions though....most of us here are constantly learning better and more efficient ways.

....and from the #10 motto from Lego Robotics First Lego League (my son loves it)....

HAVE FUN!