Tray Ceiling Tutorial Problem / Polyline Solids

[bbear]

Happy holidays all!

I'm having a bit of difficulty following the Tray Ceiling guide (<-- click!) on the CA website... This specific example is using the Polyline Solids approach versus the Platform Hole.

Following the guided instructions at the link provided above, the room which contains the tray ceiling doesn't look right. Almost appears as if there's a slab in the middle of the ceiling and the finished ceiling doesn't cover it. Since there was no "here's what it should look like when you finish" photo in the help database on CA's website, I was confused as to whether or not this "ceiling slab" is by design or an error on my part. I'm guessing the latter

I'm attaching the plan I am working from -- please note that I am VERY new to both CA and drafting! My father-in-law has been drafting plans for 20+ years by hand and I've only recently started learning. I figure the best way to learn is to try to start with relatively simple things... build some plans and get my father-in-law to critique and provide guidance along the way.

I am using X5 64 bit (if that makes a difference). Thank you in advance for any guidance or suggestions you may have to offer!!

demoplan1b.zip

[David J. Potter]

Plan or no plan, you need to be a little more forthcoming about what is not right. Can you describe in a little greater detail exactly what the tray profile should look like please? ( post a sketch or a more verbiage so we can tell what is there that shouldn't be or should be there that isn't)

DJP

[bbear]

Thank you for a fast response. I'll try to be more specific about the issue. Please pardon the crude screenshots.



This screenshot shows the intended ceiling heights for relevant rooms within the plan. I've been playing around with the plan more since I made the first post.

In the room definition (Living Room) I have ceiling height defined as 133 1/8". The polyline solid in this room is defined with "Elevation at Top" as 133 1/8" and a thickness of 12".
The polyline solid for the tray ceiling is defined as "Hole in Polyline Solid" -- elevation and thickness are greyed out.

The molding polyline sits at the same position as the "Hole in Polyline" and is defined with a height of 133 1/8".



The image above shows how the living room renders with this configuration. Now -- the ceiling for the Living Room, as I stated, is defined as 11 feet... the height of the highest point in the tray ceiling. I suspect this to have something to do with why the ceilings don't match. (the red circles and arrow on the left of the screenshot that draw attention to the 10 foot ceiling in the foyer and the 10 foot portion of the ceiling in the living room)

Additionally, there's a weird "gap" that appers over the hallway.


SO... as I continued to tinker with the tray ceiling, I adjusted the height of the Living Room down to 121 1/8". Leaving the polyline solid in the shape of the Living Room alone (still set at "Elevation at Top" 133 1/8" with a thickness of 12") which means that the lower surface of the solid polyline should be even with my 10' foot ceiling. Also not moving the molding polyline, whose height is 133 1/8" which reflects the upper boundry of the 11' ceiling.



The screenshot above is how this modification to the room definition's ceiling height is rendered. With the ceiling height for the living room now specified at 10 feet, the ceiling variation between foyer and living room is resolved, as well as the weird gap over the hallway... but the tray ceiling is not visible. The cross section confirms it is there -- however, it's almost as if the "hole in polyline" isn't actually working?

I hope this has shed some light on my intentions in this plan design and what I'm trying to achieve. If you need further explanation or have any questions, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them clearly. This plan is for educational purposes only -- something created based on a low-resolution screenshot I snagged off the web as a learning exercise.

[bbear]

I'm back at it again today trying to figure this beast out. I have learned considerably more, I think, though.

Based on the tutorial/demonstration from the CA website, I believe the "proper" way being described in the example was to set my ceiling height for the living room at 133 1/8" since the highest point in the tray ceiling is 11'.

So this means that the remaining issues are:

1) The 'ceiling' surface of the Polyline Solid doesn't fully line up with its neighboring ceiling surfaces... for example, in the ENTRY room. Is manually compensating for this (by adding 5/8" to the Polyline Solid thickness the correct way to fix? It does appear to fix the alignment issues... but I'm not certain if this is a proper fix. Since the polyline solid is effectively a single object, there's no definition for the ceiling and its finished components (the delta between interior ceiling structures and finished ceiling structure).

2) I'm still faced with two "holes" in my ceiling -- though I think this may have something to do with the way the adjacent walls are defined. See screenshot for an illustration. In both cases of the gaps (and indeed, the misalignment in ceiling surfaces!) happen at points where I have defined invisible walls.



If I make the ceiling height of the living room 10 feet instead of 11, the gap leading into the hallway is corrected... however the gap leading into the dining room is not.


Any wisdom you have to impart is sincerely appreciated!

[David J. Potter]

When you see a mismatch, make the poly-line solid conform to the adjacent ceilings and check with camera views for correctness.

In camera views if you have a mismatch, you address the mismatch, the aparent settings are less important than the end result, don't you agree?

Where adjacent ceilings are radically differing in height to the main room, their ceiling height settings must be forcing the difference, adjust them to suit.

Where you have a missing attic wall due to differing ceiling heights, using an invisible railing wall will help fill in the missing attic wall at the entrance to your Hall from the Living room. Not very "intuitive" but is workable.

DJP

[Tommy Blair]

I have downloaded your plan that you posted and looked at it. If you need more help with your current plan, call me.

[Tommy Blair]

BTW, based off of the plan image you show with the ceiling heights, you don't have your plan set up right. You also have some stuff that's unnecessary. Call me and I'll explain.

[Dave Pitman]

2) I'm still faced with two "holes" in my ceiling -- though I think this may have something to do with the way the adjacent walls are defined. See screenshot for an illustration. In both cases of the gaps (and indeed, the misalignment in ceiling surfaces!) happen at points where I have defined invisible walls.

All of the adjacent rooms have should have a default ceiling height, yes? If yes, the Dining and Entry were set at the raised height. Perhaps this occurred as the result of adding the invisible walls after raising the ceiling ht in which case they would have adopted the higher dimension?

Anyway, I returned them to default height, adjusted you polyline solid to account for the ceiling finish thickness (5/8), and it seems ok now. (check out the attached edited plan)

I did run into an anomaly. After I made all of these adjustments, the ceiling finish in the Living room wanted to display itself at the lower default height, even though it was set to be 12" higher, weird. I simply turned off "ceiling over this room", and added a ceiling plane at the correct height over the polyline solid hole, and it looks fine. However, someone may want to have a look at my edited plan, and see if they can get the default ceiling to behave.
_