Revit RPC alternatives

[nathaniel.mcmahon]

Problem:

We want to have beautiful entourage graphics for our elevation views that are located in 3D space (hidden by elements) and have transparency masks (ex. see through complex regions like leaves of a tree)

RPC's seem perfectly suited for this application and having tried them out I have found them working exactly like we would like. We create our own content in the form of a PNG with transparency. The use Archivisions web app to create a RPC for use in revit. The problem is that the RPC technology, which I'm shocked to hear is licensed by Archvision and all RPC's created using their tool are watermarked. Is their any other way to create an RPC or are we limited to subscribing to Archivision in order to create our own RPC content. This seems a bit of an oversight that a Revit built in tool which really has no other alternative in terms of functionality is locked to one Vendor. 

See watermarked RPC to the left and PNG tree inserted to sheet on the right

[barthbradley]

So, that tree on the left is one from Archvision content?  Doesn't look like any one I have - and none of the ones I checked have a watermark.  

[nathaniel.mcmahon]

Hi. No it's one I created using a PNG file which was uploaded and converted
to an RCP file using the archvision fovea app. It's not their content. I'd
like to have a library of 2D assets which graphically unify a standard
across the office. While an enscape/twinmotion pipeline is great for 3D
realism. 2D graphical representation isn't really where we'd like to be
with Revit.

[ToanDN]

You can create a material with cutout and assign it to a mass surface.

[nathaniel.mcmahon]

Thanks ToanDN

That was my first thought also but a number of problems arise with this. 

1. You get the outline of the mass object, which can't be removed only overridden. Which is not suitable. 

2. I got very low resolution rendering of the material in most if not all instances. (display type realistic) I didn't look into why. Glitchy. 

3. Massing once turned off in view losses material applied to surface.

I felt like I was trying to reinvent wheel. This is exactly what RPC's are great at.

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

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@nathaniel.mcmahon wrote:

I felt like I was trying to reinvent wheel. This is exactly what RPC's are great at.

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I agreed.  If you are doing this a lot then paying for the Archvision app may not be a bad idea.