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Materials should be phased

Materials should be phased

We need the ability to control what material is applied to an element respective to project phases.  For example, we need to show that the paint in the Dining Room is "cream" in the Existing Phase, while the paint in the Dining Room is "blue" in the New Construction phase.  The wall isn't being demolished, just painted, and currently there is no way to do this in Revit.  Our clients are increasingly wanting us to use the 3D model and renderings to visualize existing vs new materials. 

 

Once workaround is to model the finish layers and core layers in the wall as a separate walls.  However, this is incredibly tedious and still causes problems with the demo plans.  This workaround also doesn't work for stairs.  If I need to change the material on a stair from one phase to another, I have to demolish the entire staircase! BAH!

 

I see this feature being working in three possible ways:

 1. Let the "Paint (PT)" tool remember what phase an element was painted in and then show correctly in each phase.  This isn't ideal because not everything can be "painted" and having to custom paint all the surfaces in a building is already tedious and a waste of time, but it seems to me it is the quickest way to implement the feature.

 

2. Make the "Material" type parameter a dual-entry parameter so we can select the "Phase" before we select the "Material".  This seems difficult to implement because it doesn't seem Revit's parameter types are structured to be able to accept two entries for one parameter.

 

3.  IDEAL SOLUTION: Update the "Appearance" tab in the Material Browser that will let us assign a different "Appearance Asset"  to each phase for that material.  Each material's appearance asset is applied to the first phase in the project by default and all the following phases inherit the most recent asset applied.  

 

I think solution #3 is the best for the user experience.  For example, I can create a "Dining Room Paint" material that has an appearance asset that represents the existing conditions and is applied to all the dining room walls' finish layer.  Within the Material Browser I can then got to the Appearance tab, select the "New Construction" phase and then change the appearance asset for that phase.  Then when I render both the existing conditions and the new conditions then the paint colors are accurate for the phasing and I didn't have to fake demo anything to make it happen. This method would work for everything in Revit including walls, floors, roofs, stairs, ceilings, and even families that use materials!

 

 

 

8 Comments
bill_gilliss
Collaborator

This would be great for the renovation and interior design projects I often work on. The key phrase is "Our clients are increasingly wanting us to use the 3D model and renderings to visualize existing vs new materials." The contractors rarely care what colors things USED to be, just what paint and wall covering they need to order for the new work.

 

As a work-around, I have sometimes used material overrides by phase to render existing-condition views with the "Phase - Exist" material, which I modify to look like light brown cardboard just so it's not gray. Otherwise, photographs -- you just can't be painting and unpainting and painting again, unless the client will pay for that as additional services. Because that is a service, not something needed for the construction documents.

 

overriden.jpg

phasing overrride.jpg

Yien_Chao
Advisor

i know it's not an ideal solution, but you could paint your wall in options...

 

Or better : i use Vray for Revit. the material can be overrided by a simple click before rendering. no need of options here.

bill_gilliss
Collaborator
I use Enscape. Maybe there's a similar option there. Thanks.
AlexLibengood
Advocate

Yeah, design options i guess could work for this specific need, but that would introduce a laundry list of issues for coordination not to mention design options often produces a boatload of element conflict errors as soon as it gets more complicated than a few walls.

 

We also use Enscape (and love it!), but there are not phasing/painting options with it.  It simply reads the phase settings applied to the view in revit in order to determine what elements/materials to show.

bill_gilliss
Collaborator

TWO MODELS?

 

Now that we are getting into the details, this seems to me like one of the very few cases where it might be best to have two models: a static, purely existing-conditions model in which you would create the "before" renderings, and the regular multi-phased production model where you would create the "after" renderings. Heresy, I know, but better than jumping through all those hoops and compromising the integrity of the production model for the sake of a couple of existing-conditions renderings. (Which, I have to say, in over 30 years of doing this kind of work, I have never once been asked to provide.)

 

I fully agree that multiple Design Options are a total pain the the butt to deal with when you are working with existing conditions.

AlexLibengood
Advocate

Yeah, two models was our original intent with this particular project we're working on, but in reality that just doesn't really pan out.  First this assumes that the client will give you the time needed to fully complete the existing model including material appearances before starting the reno work (Ha!).  Even then, inevitably what happens is that once you start the reno work in the new model then you find you need to add detail or update something in the existing conditions, so now you have to update two models.

 

The reason the need for material phasing is so poignant for this project (and many others of ours) is that it's a huge historic cathedral, and having existing conditions renderings is just as much about having virtual record of what is there now as it is to be able to show the reno work in the context of remaining existing conditions.

 

I guess my faint hope in posting here is that after three years of AutoDesk focusing on the ability to model REBAR in Revit, that they might actually revisit their core users and focus on improving (and in some cases even finishing) features that need more attention like phasing, materials, stairs, roof layers, etc. etc. etc.

ryley.g.h
Advocate

Yes please!

Mark_Engwirda
Collaborator

@AlexLibengood, this idea is definitely needed and hats off to you for coming up with such great alternative solutions.
I like your first idea because of its simplicity and let's face it we need as much of that as we can get when doing renovations.
I did not think that you would have to paint everything like families etc, just system familes like floors, walls & roof etc that's why I would lead to this option as the best of the 3 choices.

Imagine a  tag and the schedule that could show the existing material and the replacement material!

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