Formit to Revit - change material in revit

[oakesjascha]

Hi,

I have successfully imported Formit into Revit with all materials. Id like to change one of the imported families material in Revit as I missed it in the Formit model....I am having trouble changing the material? As there are many duplicated families id like to change the family material globally not with Paint tool. Can this be done??

Many thanks!

Jascha

[HeatherL01]

Hi Jascha,
I'm not clear if the family (coming in from FormIt) has some material assigned to it from FormIt or none. If there is some material defined for the FormIt import in Revit and you want to change it in Revit to a different one, you can do this by going into the Materials dialog in Revit, search for the list of FormIt materials (they have a prefix "FormIt"), find the one that you want to change and change the material asset. (https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/EN...)

You mentioned the Paint tool- the Paint tool in Revit is meant for one-off changes to materials.  So, if you need to change the material of several faces at once, you will need to select each one using the Paint tool. There isn't a way to group-select or filter-select. You may be better off going back into FormIt, making the change to the material, and then bringing the model back into Revit.

[oakesjascha]

Hi Heather,

Thank you very much for the response. Original Formit family had a generic white material assigned (I created a basic white material in addition to default white). When bringing it into revit I realised after a while that I had not assigned a number of the blocks the correct material. The problem is that this generic white material is applied to other objects that are meant to be white. So changing the material in the material editor will change multiple objects. What I attempted to do was open the generic family in Revit, assign a material parameter in the family and load back into Revit. when i reload the family back into revit, click on the family and change the material by pressing the radio button the material doesn't seem to change. Works fine if I create a in-place mass but not one created in formit.....

I may have to go back into formit and change it there as you have suggested. If I do this will i need to redo the work i have already done (its an exploded isometric view. Actually i would have kept it in Formit if it not for the fact that there is no isometric view in Formit!!)

Regards

[HeatherL01 · Accepted solution]

I agree that the best thing for you to do is to go back into FormIt and redo the material there, then re-import the FormIt geometry into Revit. What you are experiencing with trying to add a new material parameter to the FormIt-originated geometry that's now in Revit is a current limitation. The FormIt geometry is recognized as a solid 'blob' in Revit and it doesn't have all of the same powers as a piece of geometry that was made in Revit (like being able to add and edit material parameters).

If you are willing to share the file or some screenshots, I'd be interested in seeing what visual you are trying to achieve with the exploded isometric view in Revit.

Thanks.

[oakesjascha]

Thanks, Heather.

I went back into Formit and assigned the correct material to the geometry. Because it's really a block like diagram re-doing some of the work was not an issue. Ive attached a screenshot of the Formit geometry in Revit. Some of the pink blocks at the top of the image were white. Using the paint tool as you say is only for one-off type changes so updating the geometry in Formit was the best solution. Actually I would have done the entire diagram in Formit/illustrator if an ismetric view was an option. I do understand this is coming....

Thanks

jascha