Varying Materials Types

[steve]

In trying to create renderings of exteriors with varying real-world materials (let me call them RWM) that are rendered by Revit Materials (RM's):  
We have many things on the exterior that are assigned to RM-1:  doors, windows, decorative ironwork, sunshades.  

Then another group of selections is RM-2.   

Within the RM are materials "appearances" (RMA's).   What I want to do is be able to swap in and out different the RMAs to illustrate different facade combinations to client.  The problem is the I cant find a way to save the RMAs as an "asset" so I can swap custom made RMA's :  "lets make all RM-1 group into RMA-X.   Also RMA-Y, & RMA-Z.  

I cant find a way to save "assets" in the asset browser.  https://goo.gl/qtz1DS   How is that done?

[cbcarch]

Check into .mat material library files:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/EN...

Switching materials on the fly for presentations really can't be done the way you are decsribing it.

Perhaps Design Options would work--with different materials applied in each Design Option. You can then show the various materials by showing different Views of different Design Options.

Hope this helps.

[Sahay_R]

Can I suggest - 

1) a separate model for presentations

2) create a family with the groups of furniture

3) saveas - to create as many families as there are material combinations. Apply the materials per design. Give each family a visibility parameter

4) Nest into a host family. Associate the visibility parameters

5) Insert the final family into the presentation model

6) During presentation - all you need to do is control the display of the choices in the family properties. Advantage - you can easily purge out the rejected choices

The other alternative would be an instance based material parameter applied to the family - I think that would involve too many mouseclicks to open too many dialog boxes in a presentation.

Good luck!

[ToanDN]

Create different empty projects or project templates with only materials.  Each file has an iteration (appearance and/or graphic asset) of your RWM.   The name of the materials must be the same among the files.  When you need to swap material scheme for your project, use Transfer Project Standards and tick only Materials box to bring the materials from a chosen template and overwrite the ones in the project.

[cbcarch]

Better still--use another software like Lumion that can do just what you need--using Design Options to show different material schemes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAcsK89WVA&feature=youtu.be

Or Enscape:

https://bimchapters.blogspot.com/2018/01/enscape-blog-post-how-to-boost-your.html#more

Yes, these methods require software and perhaps GPU hardware upgrades--but well worth it for making slick design presentations compared to trying to get Revit to do it quickly/simply. Design Options in Revit are really the only solution that Autodesk has come up with for these types of scenarios--and 

they work but can also be difficult to manage/teams to use correctly, etc.

[barthbradley]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I cant find a way to save "assets" in the asset browser.  

When you duplicate an asset, a copy of the selected asset is stored in the asset library for the current project. Duplicating an asset creates an editable version of the selected asset, while leaving the original asset unchanged.

[steve]

That deserves a look, thanks.

Is there a way in Revit to save a custom created "appearance" in a way to recall and assign it for a different chosen material?

[cbcarch]

Sort of--with Materials Libraries--as I mentioned above.

[barthbradley]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Is there a way in Revit to save a custom created "appearance" in a way to recall and assign it for a different chosen material?

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Yes. 

[steve · Accepted solution]

I think i figured it out:   https://goo.gl/2uHqkm

You can double clik this symbol. It creates a copy of this appearance combination [e] and puts it in the asset library. Nothing happens visually to show that occuring, but it's there. Then you can
[a] go to a different project material,
[b] search for that newly created asset in the asset browser then
[c] double clik that asset and
[d] the appearance group will be replaced with the double clicked asset.