ACA: Wall basics Video Lecture | Become a Pro: Autocad Architecture Tutorial - Design Softwares

this video is an intro to using the wall
tools in AutoCAD architecture now in my
intro video I went through using the
tool palette and using the ribbon and
how you can get to the tools in either
way keep in mind the generic wall tool
which simply says wall works fine but it
is a generic construction meaning it's
not going to be specific to concrete
block or brick or stud or something like
that it might be a good option for when
you're drawing existing walls especially
when you're not sure exactly what the
construction of those walls are so I'm
going to start with that and then we'll
talk about specific tools on the walls
tab and how those are different than the
generic tool so I want to click my wall
tool here on the toolbar point and then
an endpoint in that sense it's the same
as drawing a line so during that process
I could have typed in a distance that I
wanted the line to go or the wall to go
so I can guide my mouse in the direction
and type in my 20 feet for example if I
want that wall to be 20 feet long and
then I can continue around you know in
whatever shape I want and just like with
lines if I want to close the loop I can
also type c4 close and then that will
finish the loop meaning the building is
now a closed perimeter so in that sense
it's the same as drawing a line in the
general basic process osnaps polar ortho
all those things work exactly the same
way so what's different about a wall if
you select one that you've already drawn
now let's talk about the grips for a
minute you'll notice there's a lot more
grips than what you have online there's
two grips at each end the triangle grip
at the end allows you to lengthen or
shorten the wall without changing the
angle and many times that's very handy
for example if I want the end of this
wall to be vertically aligned with the
end of the corner down here all I need
to do is grab that triangle grip and
then pick the Osnap of the corner and it
will immediately align and there was no
way for me to screw up the angle because
I use the triangle grip which only will
lengthen or shorten
now on the other hand the square grip at
the end works the same as the grip on
the end of the line it allows me to
change the angle or the length so I can
now put that endpoint anywhere that I
want so I can put it back there if I
want to put it back where it was
originally so that's the same on the
other end as well then we have three
grips at the midpoint of the wall the
the arrow grip will flip the walls
control edge back and forth and I'll
talk about what that is in a few minutes
the square grip at the midpoint allows
you to actually move the wall and one
thing you'll notice as you move this
especially if you move it in the
direction like what I'm doing is the
walls understand that you want them to
be clean corners so first you'll notice
that the corners look pretty good from
when I drew it the first time and I
didn't do anything do that that was
automatic but now as I move that wall up
and down it's automatically pulling the
endpoints of the other walls so that
they stay in a nice clean corner
configuration so the walls are a little
more intelligent in that way now the
little triangle grip there at the
midpoint allows you to change the
thickness of the wall and you can also
type in distances as you do this so if I
grab that grip and pull it down and I
know that I want to add six inches to
the thickness I can type that and now
I've added six inches to the thickness
but in general that's your thickness
grip now this is true only for specific
types of walls that are not tied to
specific construction methods and
materials in other words if I use one of
those walls that is 8 inch CMU then the
thickness is driven by how that wall is
constructed so then I don't have the
grip it doesn't show up but this is kind
of the generic wall so it gives me the
grip and allows me to change the
thickness now because of the complexity
of walls your properties palette is
going to be much more valuable now than
what it was in regular AutoCAD so let's
look at that for a minute first thing
you'll notice is that the wall is
already on a layer and that layer is
called a wall so intelligent objects and
AutoCAD architecture you use what are
called layer keys to automatically
assign
layers so that as you draw you don't
have to worry about it and compared to
regular autocad that's a great thing
right one less thing to think about so
the layers usually are named kind of
with a standard procedure of a prefix
for the discipline like a for
architecture and then after that a more
specific suffix for what the object is
so you'll have a door a glazing a wall
etc the style that's listed there is the
specific type of wall that was used when
I use that generic tool so just like
with dimension style text style etc the
style is what's dictating the graphics
of the wall and the behavior of the wall
so the standard style means that it's
the generic tool the other important
things that I'll talk about now are the
width like I said this one has flexible
width so I can type in something here
and that's the same as using the grip
but there are times when this is easier
because I may not be sure what the width
is assigned without coming over here to
look at it so that's an easy thing to
change right there and the other thing
is the height so you have to keep in
mind that you are drawing in 3d this is
a three dimensional wall that I have
selected here so that height then is the
Z direction it's 10 feet high kind of
coming out of the screen at me so if I
go to an isometric view on my view cube
there then you can see there are my
three dimensional walls the other thing
you'll notice is that your ribbon is
context sensitive so as long as you have
a wall selected then it's going to show
you options for the wall and what you
can do with it
that's true for a lot of the other
objects in AutoCAD architecture as well
so those are some of the basic important
things here in the properties palette
you will also notice a little lower that
there's rotation so just like with a
line that tells you the angle and the
elevation is the height of the bottom of
the wall off the ground basically or
your zero in the Z direction so the fact
that that says zero means that it's
drawn at the first floor and on the zero
point
in my z-axis is to the where the base of
the wall is sitting right now so those
are some important fundamental ideas of
drawing walls with that generic tool now
there's one more very important thing to
talk about with that and that is how do
we control where the thickness goes
because you didn't have to worry about
this as much when you're drawing with a
regular line right but if you are
drawing a plan and this wall has
thickness you have to keep in mind what
side of your mouse cursor that thickness
is going so if I draw the wall in a
direction going up on the screen you can
see my cursor has the little box there
that shows me the angle and the length
and it says justified left so that's
telling me that my mouse is controlling
the left side of the wall and this is
especially important if you think about
drawing a floorplan kind of in a loop
shape right if I'm controlling the left
side of the wall and I'm trying to match
a plan that has specific dimension so
I'm trying to draw a room that's 20 feet
by 20 feet so if I go this way and do 20
and then I go up and do 20 and then I go
over and do 20 and then I can close now
if I do the distance command and measure
the outside of that plan it's not 20
it's 21 and that's because my wall 6
antistick and I have an additional 6
inches on the top and additional 6
inches on the bottom and that's because
I was controlling the left side which
ended up being the interior face of my
building here so if I'm trying to make
the outside of the building 20 then I
either need to control the opposite side
or I can draw in the opposite direction
in terms of clockwise versus
counterclockwise so this is very
important thing to keep in mind as
you're drawing with the wall tools is
think about where is that thickness
going relative to the dimensions that
I'm drawing at so if I'm drawing up
that's the easiest way to see your
justification because your mouse has
control the left side when your
justification is left now
if I draw to the right it still says
justify left so you have to kind of put
yourself in your mind at the start point
of the wall and look down the wall as
you draw and then you can see you're
still justified on the left and then if
I go even down on the monitor see if you
Glen to the monitor it looks like a
controlling the right side of the wall
but if you put yourself at the start
point and look down the wall as you draw
then it's still the left side so as you
draw you can either draw in the
direction clockwise versus
counterclockwise that will work with
your justification or you can tap the
shift key and that flips you between
left justify:center justify and right
justify so now if I wanted to draw in
this direction then I could do that now
another important thing to keep in mind
is when you're working with walls that
are asymmetrical in terms of the
construction for example a cmu8 with
furring see it if I draw one of these
real quick you can see there's eight
inches of block with a hatch and then I
have space for furring and then I have
gypsum board so I'm going to want to put
the gypsum board on the interior of the
building that's common sense right
construction wise so that's going to be
more specific I have to be more specific
about how I draw with this I can't draw
in this case in a counterclockwise
direction because now I have some board
is on the outside of the building and
that's not good so you have to then
start your command and then I can flip
my justification to the outside and then
now I can draw in a clockwise direction
and my jet board is going to the
interior so you have to get used to
being conscious of which side of the
wall are you controlling in terms of the
justification and in terms of is it a
wall construction that is more important
for you to put one side on the interior
and one side on the exterior because
it's asymmetrical so that's the basics
of drawing with walls the other wall
tools
are all work in the same way if you do
use the specific construction tools here
like cmu8 furring or brick or any of
these just a reminder that there is no
width adjustment it's grayed out and
that's because it's built into the style
so I'll get into editing the style in a
more advanced video this just gives you
the basics of how to draw these wall
tools so a couple other important points
as you draw with these so you can always
tell when you look at the grips of the
wall which side is the justification
edge because that's the side where all
the grips are kind of lined up on it so
if you need to flip a wall you can now
use that arrow to reverse the direction
and you can see how the walls staying in
the same spot but the arrow is flipping
my interior versus my exterior so if you
have a wall that's wrong or needs to be
changed that's an easy fix now on the
other hand in the properties palette you
can go over here and see a justification
left center right in baseline baseline
basically is going to be similar to
either left center or right it depends
on how the wall is constructed in a
style so you can also change this here
the justification so if you go from left
to right notice what happens the grips
are staying in the same location but the
actual thickness of the wall is
flip-flopping from one side to the other
so the grips are staying in the same
spot and the walls thickness is moving
back and forth
so changing the justification and the
properties palette is not exactly the
same as changing it with the grip here
the arrow grip sometimes you want to do
one sometimes you want to do the other
when you use the arrow grip you are
keeping the justification on the same
side of the wall meaning it's on the
block exterior face you can see the
gypsum board is flipping back and forth
but the justification stays on the block
side away from the jib board
when you change it here you're actually
changing if the justification from the
Bloch side to the JIP port side so
there's two different fixes there if you
have to fix the wall depending on what
you want to do most of the time you want
to leave a justification around the
outside because it's a little easier to
get your walls to work well together so
when I say that I mean if you're
connecting walls together you want to
start your wall at the endpoint of a
previous wall so when you select those
two walls you want those square grips to
be stacked one on top of the other
that's the proper way to draft your wall
so then you wouldn't start your wall on
the interior corner right there see it
doesn't clean up properly
you need to stack the square grips and
that means being consistent with your
justification and normally on the
outside now if you have a t-intersection
the same kind of rules apply if I pull
this grip back so that this intersects
with the interior face the walls are
pretty intelligent it doesn't want to go
to the interior face because it kind of
recognizes that that's the wrong way to
do it
but sometimes it's possible to make it
wrong on accident so you want the
endpoint of this horizontal wall to go
all the way the justification edge of
the wall that it's meeting so in this
case if this wall was going to that
direction then you can see how this wall
shortened itself so that the end grip of
the horizontal wall is on the
justification edge of the vertical wall
so when you have t-intersections that's
the proper way to make that intersection
work even if you have I can angle the
corner
you still stack the endpoints if you
have three walls intersecting together
you still want to stack the endpoints if
at all possible