Linked Ceilings

[Jarom05]

Ok I have asked this question before, and true to form Autodesk has not answered or they have no answer. How do I insert recessed light fixtures that are ceiling based to linked ceiling plans. How has Autodesk addressed the issue of cuting openings on these linked objects?

[margaretwiggins]

You can't. You can use a face based family that will mount to the ceiling and move with the ceiling but it will not cut the ceiling. We use a mask in the family to mask the grid.

[Jarom05]

Doesn't anyone else see this as a flaw? I have been requesting this to be addressed for over a year and a half. Still nothing has been done. I can see the that it COULD be helpful to import walls and floors. But it is CRITICAL to has a ceiling that you can work with.

[Jarom05]

Doesn't anyone else see this as a flaw? I have been requesting this to be addressed for over a year and a half. Still nothing has been done. I can see the that it COULD be helpful to import walls and floors. But it is CRITICAL to has a ceiling that you can work with.

[arcticad]

Can you explain how to make a mask in the ceiling?

[KyleB_Autodesk]

Jarom,
Do you honestly think that your continued negativity and cynicism will get you responses on such issues?

We have discussed this point numerous times so far in the forums, please use the seach button before posting yet another rant.

Just last week
Again
Again

Again

What exactly are you trying to accomplish here, beyond ceiling cutting, that cannot be accomplished using Face-Hosted Families. As an MEP guy, does the Architect allow you to manipulate the Ceiling in any way?

Cutting would require a level of interaction between Linked Projects that's just not supported today. It really opens a pandora's box of issues, so we are purposely taking our time with implementing a solution that does not fully solve this, among other such Multi-Discipline Workflow issues.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Sustainable Design Product Manager

[tmclachlan]

Kyle,

Don't you understand why we act this way? If you had to use this program all day everyday because people think this program is up to speed and should work great, you would act this way also. But it doesn't work like it should and things are slow to get them fixed. You know the problems so i will not tell you them again. It just seems to everyone (i think) that Autodesk isn't spending the time and people it needs to fix the program.

And yes I think that the negativity is getting responses. Because you want to prove to Jarom and everyone that the program is better then we make it sound.

So prove us wrong, I want you too. We want you too.

Right?

[margaretwiggins]

In your light family put a reference plane 1/8" above the ref level. Draw a masking region, align and lock to your symbolic lines (if parameteric). Load into your project. You will not see the mask in your project. Have the architect reload your model and the grid should be masked out in situations where you have a 2x4 in a 2x2 grid.

[KyleB_Autodesk]

I can comptely understand your frustration. Go search for "kyle bernhardt" on the AutoCAD MEP forum and you'll see my posts from when I was a customer.

I am not here to "prove folks wrong", far from it. I try to provide insight where appropriate, a solution if possible, and an honest response in all cases.

I'm simply saying that if your goal is to convey feedback on your experience, or get a technical issue resolved; a constructive, well-thought post will get a better response than a rant. Even better, do a search for previous threads on subjects before you post a new thread, you'll be surprised what you find.

If your goal is to express your anger with the program, rant away my friend...rant away. I can't think of a better way to express it...not sure what it accomplishes, but I can't fault you for it.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Sustainable Design Product Manager

[tmclachlan]

Well i haven't had you or anyone at Autodesk give me any feedback on any of my posts. Which fuels the fire. I also searched and didn't come up with much. Is there another route that i should go to get answers?

I can tell that you and you alone have been working hard on Revit, so sorry if all of this is directed at you it is meant for the Revit depatment at Autodesk but you seam to be the only one that cares.

[Jarom05]

Actually, yes, some, even most architect do give us control of light positions in the ceilings. That is why they hire a "Lighting Designer" as a subcontractor. we do the lighting calulation just as we would the the electrical calculations. They give us a criteria and we make sure it works. The is the whole idea of subcontractors, Otherwise the architects would do it all themsevles, the Lighting, the Electrical, the Mechanical, the Civil, the Structural.....

As for the continued persistance on the the forum, if you would if Autodesk would answer questions rather than say nothing at all we might have a better apprciation. I am not the only one that feels let out in the rain to deal with problems. Incase you have not read the forum there are others that feel the way I do. Autdesk did a great marketing job on selling the software. Oh it is so great you can do everything with it. But when ther is a problem or the need for training it is a scavenger hunt to find the answers and if we are not told that it can not be done, then we are mostly ignored. And when we ,the consumer (you know the ones that gave you money for goods and service) finally complain enough to get your attention, after we are irrate, then we are told, well it was talked about on this other page or website. Why do we need to go someplace other thatn the source to find the information and help that we need.

Show some love man. I would respond better if you cared. We all would, then we would tell are companies and co-worker that this stuff is great. As it is I am getting my chewed out for having my company invest in a product that is not working. Dumping thousand of dollars into. Hey I am fighting pretty damn hard to keep this program in our company. Who has go my back. I post stuff all the time and it would be nice to know that you guys are looking into it. Just simple line to some of our sugestions, "Great idea we are looking into that." would be nice. Or "we tried that and we couldn't get it to work". Somthing to show that you are taking us serious.

I appreciate that it is a large program, I understand that fixes are not instantaneous. But don't ignore us. That just makes it worse.

Cheers, whatever.

[KyleB_Autodesk]

Sorry I haven't been able get to your previous posts. The time I spend here is really my own time, and I'm never able to get to everything.

As for additional resources, I'd also highly recommend that you search the Revit MEP AUGI forum, as it's an excellent community for techinical issues. I wish we had only one community for simplicity's sake, but having too much of a customer community sure isn't a bad thing to have!

I'd also recommend that you follow the Revit blogosphere. There are many great blogs out there that cover a lot of valuable topics. My blog is a bit silent these days, as I transition folks into the Revit MEP PM team, but it does have some valuable previous posts with videos. You'll be surprised what you can find with a good Google search.

Cheers,
Kyle B

[KyleB_Autodesk]

Jarom,

It is unrealistic to expect us to respond to every question, especially if it has already been discussed on an existing thread, let's just set realistic expectations here. The whole point of these forums is for the user community to help each other, not have the product team answering every thread. That's just how it's structured here. The time I spend here is not showing up on any performance review, it's a personal decision I make, hell I'm not even working on Revit MEP anymore... The other members of the product team are quite dedicated to making Revit MEP a better product, they just do that internally, rather than here on the forums.

<steering back to the matter at hand>

As for the Ceiling question, yes I get that you guys are placing light fixtures. You can do that with Face-Hosted Families, even snap to Ceiling Grids. Does your architect allow you to modify the Ceiling Grid? If so, how do you manage that with your traditional drafting-based workflow? Do you need to cut the ceilings in order to issue your documentation?

Cheers,
Kyle B
Sustainable Design Product Manager

[tmclachlan]

I can see problems on both sides however i think that it is the Architects responsibility to talk to the owner and decide what kind of ceiling system they will need and want and then it is up to us and the lighting designer to decide what will work best with what we have. Sure the Arch will put the grid in wrong and they usually do but now we will have a reason for not fixing their mistakes, know all you'll have to do is shoot them over a email telling them the problem and to fix it. Sounds like a better practice then how we have been doing it with AutoCAD.

[Jarom05]

When we do the lighting calculations and do the fixture placement it is them sent back to the architect and they adjust their ceiling grids. I is unlikely that an architect has the time or the ability to do all the lighting. They have a design and the type of lighting. When an arcitec renders a room or a space we usually have to either adjust the lighting by adusting the fixture or the number of fixture. Therefore we do need some control of the ceilings to achieve the required lighting and enviroments. Thanks for the responce.

[shelby003]

I'm not Autodesk, thank goodness, but I did find when you go to insert a recessed fixture, on the options bar there is an option to place the fixture on the face; click that and see if your fixture will go into your linked ceiling grid.

[arcticad]

Another issus with the light fixtures is when downloading them from the vendors (If they are available at all) is they are usually cailing based fixtures and not face based fixtures.

Also I don't see how to show the 2d representation of a light if it's hosted on a wall.

They only show up that way if you host them in the ceiling.

If anyone knows an easy way to do this i'd like to know.

[scritz]

For wall based fixtures I used symbolic lines in the elevation view. Its another one of those Revit things that always makes me think that in 10 years from now engineers will be saying, remember that program Revit?

[IanMatthews]

"...hell I'm not even working on Revit MEP anymore..."

Kyle, there are a lot of us that appreciate the time that you spend here, but your comment is an indication as to why there is so much angst out here in Revit-Land. It seems that the only direct contact that we can get with someone from Autodesk who knows anything about this damn software is a guy who doesn't even work on it anymore and spends his own time in trying to help.



Despite having spent many thousands of dollars on Revit (we're talking close to $200k) I still don't expect someone from Autodesk being available every time I pick up the phone with a minor problem. However, I would expect Autodesk to have someone available who would read this Discussion Group and respond accordingly, even if it's just to say, as Jarom suggested: "Great idea we are looking into that" or "we tried that and we couldn't get it to work".


I wouldn't expect direct answers to a post in AUGI - it is, by definition, a users forum, but this is an Autodesk site f'chrissakes and I'm totally bemused by the lack of input from your company. There is zero official feedback. Isn't it apparent that almost any response at all would go some way to relieving the frustration that so many of us are going through?


When 2009 came out there was a certain degree of enthusiasm around the traps, certainly in my neck of the woods. The figures for the uptake of Revit in Australasia are impressive. But many people are now putting Revit MEP on the back burner and the bar room talk (as opposed to 'on the record' company policy) is that it just ain't ready. It's simply too hard to use as a commercial alternative to what we're already using.


I believe that the biggest challenge that all we users have to face is the skinny knowledge base and until it builds up enough so that the we can get some sort of roll on I would sugggest that Autodesk spend a LOT more effort into helping us through these initial stages. In any case, if I were you I'd be banging on someone's office door asking why the hell you have to spend so much of your own time trying to help out. Please don't tell me that Autodesk has no-one available to read through half a dozen posts a day and give us some indication that someone is actually listening..?



"The other members of the product team are quite dedicated to making Revit MEP a better product, they just do that internally, rather than here on the forums"


Well, tell them to get out in the real world and give us a hand. Edited by: IanMatthews on Nov 7, 2008 3:57 PM

[IanMatthews]

And what's the matter with this damn forum - some of the posts are out of sequence.

And I can't seem to be able to format my text. No paragraphs...makes me look like a third grader writing home to his Mum.