Override Basic Colors

[Keith_Wilkinson]

I'm tempted to start recording how much time we spend putting in color definitions to define colors for color schemes, area schemes, filters etc.  We use the same colors on every project and literally none of these are in the 'basic colors' palette.  Lets just look at that palette for a moment... 

If we look at the greens that exist on rows 1-3 - there are 5 colors here which to all intents and purposes are identical... we then have a couple of yellows that same, with orange, teal and some insipid yellowy green color following suit.  All in a thoroughly useless palette of colors.  I can imagine how the conversation went back in '97 'just pick some random colors for now, we'll change them later on to something better', nearly 20 years later I'm sure it must be almost on someone's to-do list... 

Anyway, back to the IDEA... it would be really useful (for us at least) if there were a method to load in different palette of colors.  Word offers something like this where they have different palette styles defined and you simply pick the one you want to use.  I know you can define your own custom colours via the ini file but that's not ideal.  We have scope here to define 48 colors that get used on a daily basis, the actual solution may not be a simple one but if implemented it would be a great way to cut out a lot of wasted time on projects.

[doni49]

"We use the same colors on every project"

Open your template file, add the colors you need.  Save the template.

Any new projects created using this template should already have these colors created.

[Keith_Wilkinson]

This will take care of the 16 slots (although I like the idea of having this set in the ini file) but the 48 utterly useless slots above are still, well, utterly useless.

[fabiosato]

Hello,

Yes, the other ones are helpless.

Actually this set up will be saved in the Revit.ini file, you set up properly you can have this setting in all computers and users.

But you have to edit each machine, since each one has a particular ID.

[Anonymous]

The current colour palette tool is infuriating. Especially for someone who uses a lot of other visual design apps such as the Creative Suite or Affinity Suite, or Sketchup or pretty much anything else...

The Pantone selector is particularly awful to use and I cringe every time I have to open it up. What a mess. I am sure that the team can solve this UI problem.

[Anonymous]

It is time that we got a modern, easy to use and highly functional colour picker and colour palette manager in Revit as the current functionality is no longer adequate. I would like to see the following features:

• Ability to create, duplicate, modify and delete colour palettes. Each palette should have its own user definable name and function as a holder for a collection of colour swatches. 
• I would like to be able to save/export/transfer a colour palette for use in other Revit projects.
• Optionally, I would like to have access to a palette wizard that uses colour theory to automatically and easily generate entire palettes. This should use techniques such as complementary, compound, analogous, monochromatic, triad, and shades to generate a set number of colour swatches given a base colour. (if you don't know what I'm talking about see this or this or this)
• I would like to be able to add, duplicate, modify and delete colour swatches within a colour palette.
• I would like to edit colour swatches primarily with sliders, colour wheels/cubes and have the option to enter various values via text inputs.
• I would like to be able to set a colour swatch's colour from a hexadecimal string that encodes RGB values (e.g: #ff0000). This would greatly facilitate using external colour tools such as pickers. 
• I should be able to add a colour swatch by picking it from the Pantone colour selector. This selector needs to be modernised and its performance greatly improved over the existing offering.

[Anonymous]

This is a fantastic idea.

[Anonymous]

OK, I am angry right now with Revit's colour management. It's just so crap. Get a load of this: I have to create a new area colour scheme that needs to have the same colours as one of the exsiting room colour schemes. In order to get this accomplished I have to take a frigging screenshot of the base colour scheme window and use that bloody picture as the source of information to create my new colour scheme. 

I can't even reference the same colours in the colour palette window because there is no way to save all the colours. I have to read text in a picture so that I can type it in again into another window. Seriously?! Come on!

-t

[Disappointed]

I wonder why there is only PANTONE as a colour system. I have never been able to get any building material to those specifics yet. Why not introduce NCS, HKS, RAL and COPIC?

[biztrobill]

I may be speaking to an empty room, but 3 years later Revit still has the same useless color set. I'm a Mac user partly because of the better look and feel from Mac apps. Like most architects, I appreciate good visual feedback as I work. 

I use Revit (in Parallels) instead of Archicad or Vectorworks because it's faster and more intuitive (in my opinion). But in Revit I try to avoid colors altogether. I mostly do hidden line views and conventional plans and elevations. But when I try to add color, Revit is pretty lame to say the least. 

Am I right in thinking that Autodesk today simply doesn't have the mindset to make this kind of improvement? 

[Anonymous]

My suggestion on this topic:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/modern-ui-colour-palette-and-swatch-manager/idi-p/7415171

Perhaps these ideas should be merged.

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Yes, I think that would make sense.  it's part of the problem with the ideas board, ideas get duplicated votes shared and it becomes very hard to see what are the main issues.

[Anonymous]

Ideas merged. We now have 55 votes in total from the two separate ideas. Awesome!

[Anonymous]

Yes, we spend a lot of time exporting PDFs to add color from other applications. For example, we do this when we want to generate a simple block or department plan. Even if you create a palette with specific RGB or hex colors, when you change the name, or even the capitalization of an area tag, it generates a new horrible color, replacing the one you just customized. There should be an option to lock the colors of any palette, if chosen by the user, so that the name can be updated in the legend or plan, leaving the colors in tact. There is no reason we should have to go to other software for this capability.

[fei]

Hello all, it's 2021 and while it's already hell trying to coordinate company template colours between Adobe and AutoDesk, the primitive tools in Revit make it truly infuriating. I'm trying to help build a company Revit template, and I have to have an excel sheet where I've recorded all RGB values for whenever I have to manually type in template colour values (OFTEN, it turns out) because Rooms/Areas/Filled Regions/Lines/Materials don't speak to one another AT ALL. And I'm sorry but the Colour Picker window from Win95 is just not sufficient anymore. I won't even mention the Pantone picker which takes 2 minutes to unfreeze and still manages to be glitchy. 

They're really making it super difficult to use nice colours in Revit. I used to be a hardcore believer in just exporting line work and doing all colouring in Illustrator, but there are huge benefits to integrating that colour processing and having near-marketing quality plans exported straight out of Revit. Correction: It is technically possible, it's just mad difficult to coordinate with the limited tools at hand. For what it's worth, improving this feature has my vote.

[jeremy.thomas6]

Here's my 2 cents about why the Revit color palate tool is horrible.

• The 6 x 8 grid of colours is average to say the least, one could say garish
• The 2 x 8 grid of 'custom colours' is very hard to manage. Why can't I just add a colour to the highlighted box. 
• There is no where to add a code a basic RGB or Hex code - this is fricking unbelievable. 
• Colour is spelt colour not color (sorry thats my English English there making sense of American English) 
• The PANTONE picker is clucky AF. When you do pick a colour IT JUMPS OUT OF REVIT AND INTO A RANDOM CHROME BROWSER!
• There no way to export or import a colour scheme to a project
• and a few more..

Revit need to take a leaf our of Canvas book and get with the times on this tool. We as designers need basic functions to work quickly. Colour is a basic function that has been working well on like even Mac Paint for 20 years. Yet Revit is still in the black/white ages.

Ahhh...vent for the day done...now back to wrestling the frigging colour plate tool so I can have some consistency across my current project and the upcoming ones... 

[jeremy.thomas6]

Oh my...this just gets worse...

Why can't we see our colours in the properties? There's a nice little box next to the filled region name that is asking, begging to have the colour and hatch pattern in it. Then there's boxes in the drop down too.

Do you want to select a filled region colour by the colour? NO SAY THE REVIT GOS! Select it by the name!

So you select a filled region and it goes into selected mode to you can't see the colour. 

Clunky AF... 

[W_Whit]

6 years on and as usual, highly functional, and necessary updates are still yet to be addressed. Fairly sure this could and should have been prioritised over something like having coloured rows in schedules. 

[bkirichun]

We need Autodesk to add an option or open to third party developers to make an alternative to PANTONE button in the color picker.  We use mostly Sherwin Williams/ PPG colors, RAL, and some others. Would be nice to just click a SW button or optional colors book, and select color. No need to look up RGB values, and manually input them. If there are any third party developers that can make this, please do.  I bet if a Autodesk did a poll about updating color picker, 99% of people would say "yes". Adding Hex, color books, updating swatches, saving swatches, etc. I know material add ons exist, and that is not the same. We just need a better way to get actual RGB values.

[Disappointed]

I just had a sort of déjà-vu experience voting on this. @kimberly_fuhrman-jones Maybe these votes could be bundled? Eg. https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/override-basic-colors/idi-p/6724013

[kimberly_fuhrman-jones]

Congrats! We think this is a great idea, so we've decided to add it to our roadmap. Thanks for the suggestion!

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