Custom Material Images are gone in Revit 2020?

[Anonymous]

I have always created my own custom material images within standard materials, and it appears that Revit 2020 has done away with that ability. Trying to make a gorgeous verdigris copper appearance, but the image file cannot be changed. I can upload my own Relief Pattern, but that hardly changes the material appearance. Why did Autodesk change this? Am I missing something?

[barthbradley]

Not sure what you are talking about.  Nothing has gone away that I'm aware of.  What do you mean by "create custom material images within standard materials"?    Do you mean you unable to copy and change an Appearance Asset?  

[Anonymous]

When I duplicate the Copper material to customize it, there is no way to change the render appearance anymore. There used to be a .jpg file name that I could replace with my own preferred image file. Now there’s a slide bar for patina, but the image is still flat and soul-less. The only way I found to get a custom copper material appearance is by creating a new generic material, but that has no physical or thermal properties - very important to me.

[barthbradley]

You can add Thermal and Physical Properties to any Material.  

[Anonymous]

I’d much rather not create those property attributes from scratch when I have always duplicated an existing material with the same or similar properties. I’m trying to teach my (large) team of designers to stop making soul-less materials that don’t contribute to energy modeling accuracy. They come back to me saying they need to control appearance.

[barthbradley]

You don't start from scratch. You pick an pre-defined Physical or Thermal Asset. Been this way forever.  

[Anonymous]

That’s the whole point. I never start from scratch. But when I try to improve the image (.jpg) for any of the metals (I realize now it’s only the Metals category that lacks this option) I am stuck with the flat unrealistic surface image from Autodesk. I can customize all the other material images except metals. 

[barthbradley]

Not all Assets have Appearance Image associated with them, but there are plenty of "Metal" Asset that do.  Open your Material Asset Library and type "METAL" into the search bar and press Enter. It should return a bunch of hits.  Are you saying that they ALL do not use Appearance Images?  

[Anonymous]

No metals that I’ve opened have customizable images. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[barthbradley]

Can you post some pictures illustrating what you are trying to do? 

[barthbradley]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 I am stuck with the flat unrealistic surface image

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Try assigning a Bump image as well.   A high-contrast, black and white copy of the main image usually works best.    

[barthbradley]

[Anonymous]

Yes, I ended up doing that. But there are no physical or thermal properties that way without having to look them up and enter all that data manually. And that’s what started this line of inquiry. I think you have ended up running the same circle I did, and there is no way to customize the metals images without losing critical properties. Thank you for your help!

[barthbradley]

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@Anonymous wrote:

there is no way to customize the metals images without losing critical properties.

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That's not true. 

[martijn_pater]

Should work if you would just use a generic appearance asset. Or are you saying it somehow affects your physical/thermal material asset? That really shouldn't happen anyway...

[Anonymous]

Creating a generic material from scratch requires the user to 1) add physical and thermal property tabs and 2) add accurate physical and thermal properties data manually. My design teams won’t do that, working quickly and on deadlines. For other types of materials I can duplicate and update the image. But Metals don’t let you update the appearance image.

[martijn_pater]

Use and duplicate a generic type copper asset and then you can adjust the material image. That should work.

Appearance asset - generic type

Duplicate appearance asset/adjust material

[barthbradley]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Creating a generic material from scratch requires the user to 1) add physical and thermal property tabs and 2) add accurate physical and thermal properties data manually. My design teams won’t do that, working quickly and on deadlines. For other types of materials I can duplicate and update the image. But Metals don’t let you update the appearance image.

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This is also untrue. 

You know, you may want to learn Revit Materials before you try and teach your team about them.  Just saying.  GIGO. 

FWIW: There's a lot of good learning resources on-line.  Start here and drill down:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Revit-Customize/files/GUID-384EBBB7-3875-4FD9-830C-03C74D0EEC0E-htm.html

[Anonymous]

As always, sarcasm is appreciated on this help forum. Thank you very much for your kind words of encouragement.

I have tried to change the material class from Metals to Generic after duplicating, and it still offers no chance to change the appearance image. I can create a generic material from scratch, but as I have mentioned, I have to add all physical and thermal properties manually. I'm trying to avoid that. I have given up trying to manipulate appearance of Metals for now. I will create custom generic metals with analytical properties for our commonly-used constructs when I have more time.

[martijn_pater]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have tried to change the material class from Metals to Generic after duplicating...

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Why not use a generic type to begin with and duplicate that, not try to change to generic after duplicating... If you use a Generic type you should be able to change appearance/material assigned...