Problem with family type proprieties

[veronique_deschenes]

I've been assigned the task of creating a schedule that includes the weight of my steel structural pieces, such as beams and columns. These pieces are designed using families provided by an external steel company. The simplest solution I've found so far is to generate a material with the corresponding steel grade and input the variables into the properties of that material (please refer to the attached images). Then, I designate this material as the default for the specific family type. This approach saves me from individually editing each steel piece.

However, I've encountered an issue when starting a new project and adding my steel pieces to the model. They don't seem to adopt the material I've assigned to their respective families; instead, they just use the last material I employed. For instance, if I create a column using material "A" as specified in the family settings, it displays with the correct material. But immediately afterward, if I attempt to add a beam that is intended to have material "B," it still applies material "A," likely because it was the last one I used.

Ideally, I want my pieces to automatically adopt the material defined in the family type properties without needing to change it every time I add a new piece.

I've spent more than two hours experimenting with different approaches, but I haven't been able to make it function as intended. Does anyone have any insights or suggestions?

In the pictures I use Revit in french, but asked my question in english because there is more chance i get an answer with the international language.

Thank you.

[ToanDN]

Copy piece A to create piece B should adopt the material.

[veronique_deschenes]

I can't simply copy and paste my pieces every time, as they won't consistently share the same length.

Continuing my research, I discovered that the material assignment within the family was configured as "instances." I made the adjustment to change it to "type," and it has improved the situation. However, I'm still in the process of figuring out how to apply this change across the entire list of various beams (with different sizes) within each family. Currently, it only affects one of them.

Any insights on how to address this issue and make it work for all the beams would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[darwin_valenzuela · Accepted solution]

One of the original sins of the out of the box families is that a parameter that should have clearly been a Type parameter is set to Instance. This has been the case for decades.

Setting the Structural Material to “Type” is the right way to go. However, if you already have objects in an model and they have different values for the parameter you modified, you are going to need to change the parameter IN THE PROJECT by updating the TYPE PARAMETER.

The most efficient way to do this is to make a schedule in the project and change the value there.

[veronique_deschenes]

I actually don't have to change previous projetcs. I will use this on the new ones , so starting from zero. What I am testing to see if bugs may occur in certain situations but other than that it seems to work. Just figured out I also need to change the name of the list if i change the name of the family. The schedule seems to work but i need to sort it by ''Material: Volume'' if i don't want to see all instances, otherwise if there are diferent lenghts of beams, some info is missing in the schedule.

[darwin_valenzuela · Accepted solution]

Final observations:

1. If you do not want to see every instance, uncheck the bottom option in the sorting tab of the schedule.

1. The schedule will “collapse” to whatever sorting regime you set up. If you do not set anything up, it will collapse to a single, unintelligible row.
2. For type parameter, it doesn’t matter if your schedule shows all instances. Changing a type parameter of any instance will change the value of that particular instance’s type. You will get a warning to that effect.
3. Depending on the version of Revit you are using, the “missing information” means 1 of the following:
   1. EACH ONE of the sorted objects have that parameter BLANK/NULL
   2. ONE of the sorted objects has a DIFFERENT value for that parameter. Newer versions of Revit “fixed” this and now show <varies> when this happens.

It is usually #2.

[veronique_deschenes]

Got it ! It works fine now.

Thank you for your help !