I am having a little trouble with a roof. I have to break the roof into surfaces in order to align & modify it.
However, as soon as I move one of the nodes to stretch/move the section of roof, the soffit disappears. Gone.
Selecting Properties/Details/Soffit, I see that the "Include Soffit" is still checked. I tried changing the Width of the soffit to 10' and it still doesn't do anything. I can't get the soffit to reappear. It allows me to do whatever I want with the gable soffit, but not the eave soffit. Does anybody know why this might be happening and how to bring the soffit back (it's a fairly important part of the roof)?
Thanks
Hi George,
I haven't looked at this yet as I am just replying from my phone, but I just wondered why you had to split the roof into surfaces? Is there something very unusual about it?
Will have a look at it properly at home to see if it happens for me also.
Allan
Hi Allan,
I included a plan view of the roofs. I didn't want to split it into surfaces, but it appeared to be the only way to stretch the left (upper) roof over to join the right (lower roof), while keeping the ridge where it has to stay. I then had to extend the ridge of the right (lower) roof to the left to combine them and form the correct valleys. If there's another way, I'd rather not split into surfaces. I built the roofs on the same location, and then lowered the one roof by 4' (by changing "roof support height").
Again, the problem is: after I split into surfaces and try to move any of the nodes, the soffit disappears.
Thanks for any help
George
Hi George,
I suspect the problem may be the Properties of the roof Surface that you converted it to. When I first tried it I got the same effect but then I looked at the Properties it showed the Facia with no depth. Changed that to 152mm (6") and the soffit reappeared along with the facia. Take note of the surface it converts to and make sure that is set correctly.
Without seeing the model itself it is hard to understand your roof. Generally the roof can be done without using surfaces but then obviously sometimes it can't or they would not have needed to add the Surfaces tool!! If you want me or someone to look at the roof for you, to see if it can be done, attach the BLD file. It becomes a bit messy to deal with as separate surfaces.
Allan
Allan,
Thanks for the response.
I checked the properties again and played around with them; still no soffit.
Do you think I could've drawn this roof without splitting to surfaces? As it's drawn now, the actual roof looks the way it should from above. The house is a split-level, which complicates things a bit.
Hi George,
Yes the roof can be done without using Surfaces. The roof should sit on the walls of the location it belongs to, so you need a roof on your Second Floor with eaves extending 27' over the Entry location.
The second roof can be just inserted on the garage and just drag the edge over the Entry also. If the edge of this roof sticks out through the Entry walls you can use the right click Cut Opening to cut off the corners back to the ridge or insert this roof By Picking Points to make the triangular section over the Entry.
There are several ways to do this roof but this is probably the easiest.
Allan
Allen,
Thanks for the help. Great suggestions. Never thought of extending the roof by making the eave 30' wide. I did that, made the valleys by cutting openings in the roof like you suggested, and adjusted all the overhangs & soffits. How do I remove the soffit that followed the 30' eave overhang? It is now visible in all the interior rooms. There doesn't seem to be any way to delete the soffit while keeping the roof eave/overhang (no place in the hip roof dialog to uncheck "display soffit"). I suppose I could change the appearance of the soffit to something transparent. However, won't that mess up any rendering? Thanks again.
Hi George,
Just change the soffit on that side of the roof to Raked. It will be on Plumb by default. It will then follow the inside of the roof like a ceiling.
Transparent settings can cuase problems sometime in rendering. I have seen a transparent setting on cabinet render as black! No what you want.
Allan
Allan,
Thanks again for the help. Your tips have saved countless additional hours of frustration on top of the ones I've already spent.
Out of curiosity: did you ever figure out why the eave soffit disappeared upon splitting the roof into surfaces & moving a node? I would suppose there could come a time when I or someone would run into this scenario.
Hi George,
Glad you got it sorted out.
I did not have a problem with the soffit in the Surface on mine once the roof Surfaces were set correctly. I found that the facia height on my roof Surfaces were all set to zero. As soon as I set them to the correct facia dimension, the roof would replace correctly and include the soffit as set for that Surface. Remember that when you convert a roof to Surfaces you are really replacing the roof completely with a separate copies of tha same Surface from the elements library. Whatever your roof itself was set to is irrelevant - it is the setting of the Surface that you convert it to that is used.
Presumably there is a bug here in that the facias on the Surfaces should not be preset (as mine all were) to zero. I assume your Surfaces all have the facia set to zero also, which is why the problem occurred. Maybe you can look at each of your Surfaces properties and confirm that this is the case in your catalogue also (Facia = 0 ) and I will report it as a (sort of) bug. It is not a bug really, just an inappropriate default setting.
Allan
Allan,
I messed around with it a little more, tried changing every single setting, and even tried opening a blank new project to see if I could get the soffit to not disappear. No dice.
To answer your question about my catalog: no, the default depth for all the roof surfaces was 6", as it should be. I changed it to 12" and to 0" and everything in between. Fascia works perfectly; gable soffits work perfectly; but eave soffits disappear forever no matter what I change all the settings to.
Oh well.
George,
That is strange - our catalog should be identical other than where we have customised it.
Are you sure you checked the Surfaces Properties not the Roof Properties? - next button I think. You mention eaves and gable soffits but I dont think you have these options on Surfaces as the Surface could be either depending where you use it. I am using a phone at the moment so cant check.
Allan