topic Nested Family Transparency in Revit Architecture Forum

Nested Family Transparency

David_Knight — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 13:25:21 GMT

Hey all.

Technical question. I don't see a way around this, but maybe you guys do. I have a Dock Door family. In that family, I have a nested Dock Shelter that is in the "Special Equipment" category with a sub category of "Dock Shelter". I can adjust the line types, line weights, line colors, and visibility (on/off). But the option to set the surface transparent does not exist for subcategories.

On our enlarged views, we like to set the shelter transparent and dash the shelter in. Since it's a 3d object I went to set the subcategory to transparent. Then I realized that is not an option for subcategories. I then though, that I could migrate it to the Special Equipment category (no subcategory) and adjust it that way. But to my surprise, the transparency only seems to be dictated by the Door category (the family all the pieces are hosted in). Even tried some filters but could not get it to respond that way either.

We used to have all these pieces separated. But we ran into an issue where some doors would be calling for a shelter, and some not, and the elevations and schedules would not match. Embedding them and setting the schedule based on a checkbox guarantee's the schedule and the elevation match.

So I'm stumped. How can I get these to be transparent? Is it possible?

Re: Nested Family Transparency

mhiserZFHXS — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 13:33:25 GMT

Go back into the family, select the shelter element(s), go to their visibility/graphic overrides, and uncheck Plan/RCP.

Then draw detail lines to show whatever lines you want to show for the shelter. Make sure you constrain the lines to any references lines/planes needed.

Re: Nested Family Transparency

barthbradley — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 14:17:49 GMT

Are the nested families shared? If so, you could get there in the Project via Override Graphics in View by Element.

...you could even put the Elements into a Selection Set Filter which could be added to VGO's Filter Tab.

Re: Nested Family Transparency

David_Knight — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 14:23:24 GMT

@barthbradley

They are not shared. Since they are controlled by parameters within the family I did not believe I could do this.

...you could even put the Elements into a Selection Set Filter which could be added to VGO's Filter Tab.

I'll have to look into this, I've not done that before.

@mhiserZFHXS

While that does solve that solution, it would create a different problem. In the overall elevations (1":30') we would want the shelters to mask the door. It's only on the enlarged elevations (1/4"=1') that we would want the shelter transparent. As in this view we would want to see the detail around the door showing the chamfering and reveals.

HOWEVER! Your suggestion did put me on a path of a solution, so thank you. I created detail lines locked to the shelter, then placed them on a different subcategory. So they can be turned on/off independently in each view. It creates the desired outcome, though a bit cumbersome with a lot of locking.

So thanks guys!

Re: Nested Family Transparency

mhiserZFHXS — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 14:47:57 GMT

Yea, if you want it to vary based on view, that's the way to do it. Do you use view templates? If not, I suggest you do. You could have these settings built into your various view templates within your project template so you only need to do it once.

Re: Nested Family Transparency

ToanDN — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:26:13 GMT

@David_Knight wrote:

@barthbradley

They are not shared. Since they are controlled by parameters within the family I did not believe I could do this.

You CAN control shared nested family by associating its parameters with the host parameters. Since the nested family is shared, it re-acts to filters in the project.

Re: Nested Family Transparency

David_Knight — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:26:23 GMT

We do. I'll have to make some revisions to them though as a result. 🙂 Thanks again!

Re: Nested Family Transparency

David_Knight — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:31:11 GMT

Strange. It removed all the parameters that were linked when I re-loaded it as a shared family. I may need to take a deeper dive into shared families. I may have set something up incorrectly. I'm trying to control a lot from within my dock door family and if one type reacts one way, I need them all to react that way.

Example:

Visibility of all objects, Shelter and dimensions, Seal and dimensions, Edge Channel, Edge Angle, Dock Edge Leveler, Pit Leveler, Pit Leveler Dimensions, The door itself, it's dimensions, window options, etc... etc...

it's gotten very beefy. But it's rather nice that when I say "yes" this thing is in it, that the schedule updates appropriately and there is no error between the two.