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Revit 2013 - Work Flow for Materials

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Message 1 of 6
srobinson
2569 Views, 5 Replies

Revit 2013 - Work Flow for Materials

For a number of years, I have been "making do" with the OOTB materials supplied with Revit.  I am now ready to start creating my own materials to exert a greater level of control on how my projects appear in shaded and rendered views.  Autodesk seemingly has outdone themselves in making this a complicated and opaque process...and help does not really provide much help.  Revit behaves very oddly/illogically once I try to step out of the basic steps in WikiHelp. 

 

I am focusing on the appearance and graphics assets of materials, how to create my own libraries, how to use the asset editor, etc....all with an intent to getting beyond what simply ships with the software.

 

My question is this...I can't find anything that really shows the work flow for making custom material libraries and the logic behind them.  There is lots of information on clicking buttons and selecting things, but once beyond that, help doesn't really help.  Can anyone direct me to a resource that maps the workflow, logic and interrelationships between Material Browser, Material Editor and Asset Browser/Editor?

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Message 2 of 6
vector2
in reply to: srobinson

srobinson wrote:

"I have been "making do" with the OOTB materials supplied with Revit.  I am now ready to start creating my own materials"

 

"There is lots of information on clicking buttons and selecting things, but once beyond that, help doesn't really help"

 

 

Okay great, you just need theory and logic.

 

Here's some theory about creating custom materials.

If you find the most amazing rock wall in your town 

and you would like to have that on your Revit models,

do this:

 

1. Get a digial camera with a really good lens.

 

2. Put the camera on a tripod at a far distance

from the wall, like across the street. (You don't 

want the wide-angle view, you want the flat view.)

 

3. Download the image from your camera to your

computer.

 

4. Go into the materials dialog and duplicate any

material and give it a new name for your wall.

 

5. Then just do your "lots of information on clicking

buttons and selecting things" and render your model

with your new rock wall.

 

Be a super-custom super-user.

 

Message 3 of 6
vector2
in reply to: vector2

I need to mention something here about materials where

an Autodesk employee previously pointed out my failure

to do so.

 

There are many ways to configure those OOTB materials.

Colors can often times be changed, bump maps can be

changed etc etc. The high res OOTB images are second

to none for quality. They are all highly useful if any of them

are what you need.

 

 

Message 4 of 6
ryanh
in reply to: srobinson

To start off i would like to say that i believe you missunderstood the question Vector.  Before 2013's rediculious addition of more "options" to the materials browser creating your own material was clean and easy.  I am having trouble understanding the structure which is used to create the new materials- to me it seems that the material editior now has a duplicate material editior within it which makes no sense at all!  we now have to name a material in the (in document materials) material list as well as create another new material within the material for its appearance.. anyone that can explain this?  would be greatly appreciated.  (i am looking for an explanation which clearly states the advantage of having materials that have materials with material properties within them)so confusing but thats how it is set-up.  I can now create a duplicate material from the main materials browser but when i go to edit this material to give it its own properties it changes the properties of the material i duplicated... why??

Message 5 of 6
vector2
in reply to: ryanh


@ryanh wrote:

I believe you missunderstood the question Vector. 



I did read the question again and it still looks to me like they wanted

to know how to make their own materials as opposed to using OOTB.

 

They did mention that they thought the new materials UI was complicated,

but nothing like your long rant about it.

 

The last time anything changed with Revit rendering and materials was

with the 2009 release, it's still the same.

Message 6 of 6
Eduardo2012
in reply to: srobinson

Hi srobinson. The same happened to me when duplicating a material, I don't understand either why the original material changes. But I found out a workaround. Please check this comment I posted in the wikihelp and you might also find useful the response I got from Kevin Dolley.

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2013/Help/00001-Revit_He0/3032-Customiz3032/3042-Project_3042...

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