Design Options w/Facade

[ford347]

I have some model homes which I have used some stacked walls on the exterior for the thin brick wainscot. These walls are part of some interior design options for an interior layout change and they will also become part of some exterior elevation sets, all permanent. My question is...should I just use a 'thin brick' wall, by that I mean just the thinbrick as the core layer and apply that around my perimeter where I need it per each option? I would assume this would be the easiest way for changing the facade around, especially with multiple elevation changes etc., that way I don't have to manipulate the whole wall that may be part of other design options and go through copying etc., and just simply draw my facade where I need it. I'm going to have to break up my stacked walls, delete my lower side of the stack, modify the upper wall, then draw the thin-brick walls where I need them....so I'm just hoping someone can say yeah, that's probably the way you should do it so I will quit dragging my feet!;) I'm just trying to head-off any problems with design options by keeping it simple, that's all.

Josh

[dbaldacchino]

Keep anything that's common in your main model. Anything that's unique needs to be in the design option. If a room bounding wall needs to be in a design option, set it to non-bounding, put it in the design option and close the room with a room separation line instead. This way you eliminate having to place multiple rooms in different design options.

[ford347]

Thanks David, never thought to use the room sep line instead, I've must been placing rooms in my diff. options.
I finally got the options done, or at least I hope so. What I have is a residential home that has a 3 car garage. There are two options availiable to convert the smaller bay of the garage to a study/storage and a study/bonus room. So there are two options for the interior. These are the ones that I set up first. The garage door obviously had to go away, so the exterior facade was affected here and attached to these options. Later (yesterday), I started to tackle the exterior facade. So I made the roofs, and my bottom thinbrick walls part of the option so these elements could change between each option. The only problem was this wall that was part of the interior options. I basically had to keep it the same and use a thin wall representing the thin brick to face over it since I could not have this wall become part of my new exterior facade option sets, if that makes sense. I couldn't see how I was suppose to have this wall not show up in my exterior facade options and copy those walls into my set of ext. facade options, especially since this particular wall was a double wall for build-out and I alread had a hard enough time with wall joins between the design option walls and the main model walls when I first created the int. options. Like I said, I think I got it to work and I think it will document ok, but I wish I could make some items part of diff. options sets part of other options sets.

Could I have somehow copied the wall(s) from the interior option set and got them into my ext. option set, but not have the int. option walls show up in my ext. options? I just don't see how to do that.

Josh

[dbaldacchino]

It's a bit hard to comment without seeing exactly what's going on, but basically you end up having to do a lot of duplication to achieve the desired result sometimes. Otherwise, you typically have to think about differently in how you model. For example if you had a stud wall with a brick veneer and the same stud wall but with a stucco finish, you have two ways of working this out: You can create and place each wall in each design option. But then you might have "interior" design options where you want the same wall to keep showing up. Well, in this case you might have to slice you wall even further into a separate stud wall for the interior option and then treat just the veneer as a separate wall for the exterior options.