Restore .fbx export function?

[Anonymous]

Dear Autodesk,

Could you please let me know if Autodesk would consider restoring the .fbx export function from Revit?

I did ask this same question a couple of years ago and the answer was to either: purchase FULL REVIT as opposed to REVIT LT, or to purchase 3DMax (as a very expensive file converter). I am already aware that Lumion and D5 Render plug-ins within FULL REVIT work well. Therefore, could you please not suggest this as a solution again. I am asking again in the hope that I may get a more constructive answer from someone else this time around.

I used my perpetual FULL REVIT 2010 license for many years and had no issues exporting to .fbx (with all materials recognised) and importing into LUMION. I was extremely happy with the workflow.

I am now using REVIT LT (from 2019) and cannot export files via .fbx as all of the materials are missing. I have tested REVIT LT 2022 and an educational version of FULL REVIT 2022 and have discovered no improvement.

Ideally, I would like to be able to export .fbx files from REVIT LT (with materials recognised), so that I can import them into LUMION and D5 render. I have tested every kind of alternative export option available, but have not found a good solution. Every other type of file export is problematic for one reason or another. The closest solution would be to either export as:

1. a .dwg file set to 'ACIS Solids' (to allow for smooth curves, however composite walls become one element with one material which is terrible. Exporting as a .dwg 'Polymesh' will split a composite wall into different materials, but all smooth objects like 'cornices' will be segmented which is unacceptable for rendering purposes.). The biggest issue with exporting as a .dwg file, is that the heirarchy of material/family names (eg: WALLS - Exterior-1) will change when a new family element is introduced within the Revit File. Materials in LUMION will shuffle around and have to be re-applied when the Revit model (via .dwg) is refreshed.

2. Exporting REVIT LT as .IFC and converting it into an .fbx file appeared to be the best solution as materials and smooth curves are maintained. (however composite walls are still exported as one element with one material). I thought this was the best solution until I did a 'House Swap test' within LUMION (which is very important for  workflow as we don't want to reapply materials every time we want to present an alternative design for the same project). I discovered that the 'House Swap test' failed because numbers were added to the beginning of all material names. For example: For Project 1, '_WALL - Brick', changed to '8083__WALL - Brick'; and for Project 2, '_WALL - Brick' became '10451__WALL - Brick'. Could you please let me know if there is any way to export Revit as an .IFC file while maintaining the original material names. ie: export as an .ifc without the numbers added to the beginning of each material?

I have attached 2 short videos of the 'House Swap test' so that you can see how material names remain unchanged for a .dwg export, but are altered (numbers added) when exported as an .IFC file.

In short, will Autodesk consider restoring .fbx export function? If not, could you please let me know if there is any way to export as an .IFC file without numbers added to material names? 

With kind regards,

Leah

[Anonymous]

Hi Rob,

Please accept my sincere apologies.

I have recently been informed that you are not an employee of Autodesk. Your title: 'Autodesk Mentor' led me to believe that you were an Autodesk employee assigned to my particular case regarding the Revit LT .fbx export issues that I have been having for some time. I was used to the D5 Render forum, where a D5 Team member contributes along side community members.

My assumption led to high expectations (combined with a level of entitlement as a paying customer) with regards to your responses. I believed that you were trying to sell me more expensive Autodesk products instead of answering my 2 initial questions. I also believed that you were 'fobbing off' me off by suggesting everything was fine with your company's product and therefore I must be doing something wrong at my end. And last of all, I viewed your detective work and suggestion to '...report this incident' as being bullied by an employee of a giant company simply because I asked too many tricky questions.

If I had realised from the beginning that you were simply a good Samaritan who was genuinely trying to help, my responses would have been very different.

With kind regards,

Leah

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous 

No apologies required...many mistaken us for employees on Autodesk payroll when in realty, as one guy posted the other day, we do not receive even Christmas card from them. We are users just like you and we pay for the licenses to use the software :).

The only ones affiliated with Autodesk are those having the registered trademark logo of Autodesk under their profile (either employees or users benefiting from a certain Autodesk program)

[Anonymous]

Hi Rob,

Thank you for your understanding. I will me more astute from now on.

I would also like to share what I learned from the official Autodesk help assistant. She answered my question of:

Why does the .fbx file work fine in Lumion, when exported from Revit 2010, but not from 2022?

The response was that the .fbx export function had been continually updated over time to work better with 3DMax and other Autodesk products. 3rd party products such as Lumion and D5 Render need to 'catch-up' with the changes. She did mention that some companies work more closely with Autodesk than others (eg: Developers of Enscape and Twinmotion), so I tested the theory to see if she was just passing the buck or not.

I imported the same .fbx file (Project Home Test exported directly from Revit Lt 2022) into Twinmotion. She was right. Twinmotion can recognise every element of a Window, Door and even different materials on either side of a composite wall. Tom was also onto this earlier. Thanks Tom. The image attached shows that the exterior wall is rendered brick, and the interior wall is painted blue.  I zoomed up onto the cornices to see if the curves are smooth, but as I suspected, curves are still segmented when exported as an .fbx. The second image attached shows a close up of the segmented Cornice (in Pink). You can sometimes get away with this, but I need to render rooms (like Bathrooms) that need perfectly smooth curved baths, basins, tapware etc. I explained to the Autodesk official helper that I currently only import the basic shell of the building using Revit Lt. All curved items (even Cornices) are modelled in Rhino and imported into Lumion and D5 separately. Surely there has to be a better way.

I know that the Revit to Lumion LiveSync and exporting directly as a .dae from Full Revit works perfectly fine with all materials recognised + smooth curves. Therefore I asked the question if Autodesk would consider .dae export from Revit LT? I think pushing for this might be more productive than pushing for an updated .fbx export. 

I do realise that all my fuss would be very easily solved by simply paying $3000/yr instead of $1000/yr. I am not ready to give in just yet, because I think it is unfair to have a product that works perfectly fine except for one minor anomaly that I believe could be easily fixed. If I had a nice little car that I liked very much, but had one faulty spark plug, I think it would be worth trying to replace the spark plug, rather than just chucking it in and buying a fancier and much more expensive car. I will therefore keep trying to push for improvements to future releases.

Lumion 12 should be release with 2 weeks, so I will be interested to see if anything has improved from their end. I have pretty much exhausted all of my theories and conversion tests, so all I can do for now is hope that something will be improved for Revit LT users soon.

With kind regards,

Leah

[peterQWRL6]

Leah,

I have similar problems with exporting .DWG from Revit lT and then importing it into Lumion. I went through some convoluted machinations by bringing the .DWG file into AutoCAD, exploding the blocks that the .DWG exporter (from Revit) had created and then moving individual elements of the exploded blocks onto to new layers. Then I assigned unique colors to each of the new layers (although I am not sure that this was necessary). When I imported this modified .DWG file into Lumion, Lumion treated each of the individual layers as different materials. Extremely tedious.

[infoVKBCP]

I Have the solution:

export it as .obj

then go to Blender (free 3d Software), import it and export it as fbx. 

I imported it in d5 renderer. Its one Model, but seperated Materials like in Revit. And the Normals are also good. 

Additionally you can make Bevels in Blender for smooth edges. 

Hope This helps a little

[peterQWRL6]

Thanks much for the suggestion. I will give it a try.