Display Priorities of Solid Fill in Revit Materials

Back in Revit 2012 Autodesk changed the way materials work - so that they had separate graphics and appearance properties.  This was the start of much confusion for many users - and still to this day it catches people out.  You know the drill:  duplicate a material;  change its appearance properties and suddenly a hundred other materials change too . . . .

Well, I am not going to address that issue directly.  Instead I want to look at a more subtle confusion that some users encounter:  Exactly how do the different material properties display in each 'Visual Style' - it will not always be what you might expect or consider to be logical

Material Properties

In order to analyse this issue we start with two very simple material definition examples, applied to two elements in a Revit project:

Material 1 - Demo Generic

• Light grey shading 
• Light Blue appearance (different colour to shading)
• no surface patterns
  

Material 2 - Demo Green

• Light green shading and appearance;  
• no surface patterns
  

Visual Styles

These materials display as expected in the various 'Visual Styles' in Revit - because we know that the graphic 'Shading' colour property matches the 'Appearance' colour property in material #2 but not in #1 

Material #1 on left,              Material #2 on right

Hidden Line Visual Style

Shaded Visual Style

Consistent Colours Visual Style

The colour displayed for material #1 (left) in Realistic and Ray Trace visual styles is different to shaded and consistent colours because the material properties do not match - this is to be expected.

Realistic Visual Style

Ray trace Visual Style

Material #1 on left,              Material #2 on right

Lighting

These views are lit with default sun and lighting settings (ie. light source over the right shoulder of the viewer)

 

Use Render Appearance

One thing that users often forget to address is consistency between the 'Graphics' and 'Appearance' colours.  If the colours are dramatically different, then materials look completely wrong, particularly in 'Shaded' views.

There is a quick and easy way to deal with this - it is the 'Use Render Appearance' checkbox to make sure the shaded colour matches the appearance colour.

 

This property can be used as a one-off operation - ie, tick the box to change the colour, then untick it.

Or you can just leave it ticked if you want the shading to update when the appearance property might change in the future.

• NB.  Make sure that the appearance colour is correct first - as there is no 'Undo' so you might lose a shading colour definition.

• Do not use this method if the shading colour is correct but appearance wrong
  

Surface Patterns in Materials

When you add surface patterns to materials is where things get more complicated . . .

We will make two more materials, based on the light green shaded material - these will use the same light green 'Appearance' (unchanged).

Material 3 - Demo Green Line Hatching

• Light green shading 
• Light green appearance;  
• Line Cross-Hatching foreground surface pattern

Material 4 - Demo Green Solid Hatching

• Light green shading 
• Light green appearance;  
• Line Solid Fill foreground surface pattern

Visual Styles

Hidden Line

• Cross-hatch pattern is displayed as you might expect
• Solid fill displays with solid colour - but without any lighting effects

Material #3 on left,              Material #4 on right

Hidden Line Visual Style

Shaded

• Cross-hatch pattern is displayed on top of the shading colour
  
• Solid fill displays replaces the shading colour - it is completely obscured -  this can be confusing if the user has not studied the material properties carefully
  

Shaded Visual Style

Consistent Colours Visual Style

Realistic (and Ray Trace)

• Cross-hatch pattern are not displayed at all - unless a hatching pattern is defined within the material appearance (not a simple thing to achieve)
  
• Appearance Colour replaces the Solid fill colour -  this is the reverse of what happens in a Shaded visual style - so it can be confusing
  

Realistic Visual Style

Background Hatching

Just for the record, here is what happens with background hatching - it follows the same rules as Foreground hatching.  [NB. This capability was added in Revit v2019]

Material 5 - Demo Green Line Background Hatching

• Light green shading 
• Light green appearance;  
• No foreground hatching surface pattern
• Line Cross-Hatching background surface pattern

Material 6 - Demo Green Line Foreground & Solid Background Hatching

• Light green shading 
• Light green appearance;  
• Line Cross-Hatching foreground hatching surface pattern
• Solid Fill background surface pattern

Visual Styles Materials 5 & 6

Material #5 on left,              Material #6 on right

Hidden Line

Shaded

Consistent Colours

Realistic

Conclusion

Solid Fill surface patterns are the one part of this Visual Style issue that cause display inconsistencies.

You may have good reasons for using Solid Fill surface patterns as part of a material definition - in which case go for it.  Otherwise, they are to be used with caution in normal Revit use.

Another approach to avoid the inconsistencies would be to make sure the appearance, shading and solid fill colours all match up.

Don't forget to check how many materials are sharing the Appearance asset before you change it - it is the number above the hand on the Appearance tab.

Applying colours and Materials in Rhino for Revit Import

Following on from my previous post about importing Rhino materials in Revit 2017.1   here is a brief description on how to set up the colours/materials in Rhino:

I am new to using Rhino, so my understanding of the UI and functions is pretty basic but I managed to figure out how to apply colours and materials to objects without reading any manuals.  I am happy to be corrected if there are better ways to do this.

Once you have created an object (or multiple objects), you can select the object and view its properties.  Unless you tell it otherwise, it will be on the 'Default' layer, with Color, Linetype etc set to 'By Layer', which means that it will behave according to the layer settings.  During the new import process, Revit 2017.1 considers the default layer & colour not to be a material.

 

You can change the layer of the object from the Layer drop-down list, providing you have created new layers

By default, your file most likely will have no layers, so you need to create them, using the 'Edit Layer' function, available from the Edit menu.

Once the layers menu has been opened, it will be available under a Layers tab.  It has typical columns showing the name, show/hide, lock, display colour (just a box) and material properties for each layer.  New layers will have default settings (no colour or material defined), but these can be changed by clicking on the colour box or adjacent space under the material column.

If you are creating layers just to manage export to Revit, the names are irrelevant to Revit, but the colour and material are important - you don't need to get the colour/material right for its end use in Revit, as long as each object has a different colour, it will become a different material when imported to Revit.  The materials can then be edited in Revit.

If you expand the width of the menu it shows the material name (if defined), linetype and print width/colour - the print colour does not seem to be relevant for Revit imports.

Materials

You can define a material for use in Rhino, but the only thing that Revit takes note of is the material colour.

Rhino Material Properties

Object Properties

Normally, objects will display according the the 'By Layer' settings, which means that all objects on a given layer can have their properties changed together easily.

Object properties By Layer

You can override individual 'Display Color' for any selected object

Object properties By Object

If you choose a non-standard colour, it will show the colour name as 'Other'

SAT files

I tried exporting a coloured Rhino file to SAT format, then importing it to Revit, but sadly it did not bring the colours in as materials - so I am not sure what the trick is to assigning colours to objects in a SAT file.  I tested various ACIS versions of SAT format, to no avail.

Rhino Export SAT options

Does anyone know how to define colours for objects in a SAT file from Rhino?  Or from any other 3D modelling software?

Import Colours to Revit

For details on how these colours are imported to Revit, refer to importing Rhino materials in Revit 2017.1

• It seems that Revit uses the display colours set in Rhino, not the print colours.
• If you import two different Rhino files that have identical colour definitions, it treats them as different materials
• If you import the same Rhino file twice, it seems that Revit assigns the same materials to objects in both instances
• However, if you rename a material, or change its definition before importing the second instance, Revit will create new materials with a suffix of (2) added to the original name.  You could use this to your advantage if you want multiple instances of the same object but with different materials.

Revit 2017.1 Import Rhino Materials

Following on from my post about the new Revit 2017.1 feature 'Import 3D Shapes', I have done some more testing on how to import Rhino files with materials (colours) into a Revit family.

If you import a Rhino file that has no colours or materials defined in it, you just get a dumb object in Revit that has no capability for controlling materials.

However, one of the subtleties of the new import shape feature is that it will recognise assigned colours in the Rhino file.  It will then create a new material in Revit for each colour.

To assign a material or colour in Rhino, you can either select an object and choose a colour/material;  or else you can create layers and assign a colour/material to the to the layer, then put the object on that layer and leave its object properties set to 'By Layer'.
Once you import the Rhino file to Revit, it will take just the RGB value of the defined colour or material and use that to create a new material in Revit - any other material properties will be ignored, so don't expect textures, reflectivity or anything else.
If you do not assign a colour/material to any object by either method, it will not be given a material in Revit (not even 'Default') - so you cannot subsequently change it.  Hopefully this will change in future versions of Revit.

The materials in Revit are given names such as 'Material 2' etc.  This is a big improvement over the confusing naming of imported Autocad materials (eg. Render Material 255-255-255).

The only property that the new materials have is a 'Graphics' colour definition.

It has default 'Appearance' settings (grey), meaning that realistic or rendered views will show grey objects.

You can of course change the material definition and give it 'Appearance' colours, tints, bump maps etc. 

This will only affect the part of the imported Rhino file that had that original colour (and now Revit material).

Realistic view with only one material Appearance edited

It would make sense to rename the materials so that they refer specifically to the individual objects within the imported file.  I like to set the 'Appearance' colour to match the Graphics colour, so that not only do the material previews show in colour but also any realistic views will display the colours rather than default grey.

I have not yet succeeded in testing this functionality with an imported SAT file (as I can't figure out how to apply colours in a SAT file), but hopefully it will work as a viable alternative workflow to the old method of importing/linking SAT files, as described in an earlier post.

For details on how to apply colours/materials to objects in Rhino, click here

How to Find Linework Overrides in Revit

The Linework tool is much misused in Revit - it seems like a quick and easy way to make individual lines look the way you want.  In reality, it wastes much more time than it saves - this is because it is so hard to undo or change later on.  My advice to Reviteers is to use it as a last resort when every other method cannot or will not work - instead you should use sub-categories, filters, view visibility overrides or even object styles.

What does a BIM or Model Manager do to figure out when the Linework tool has been used?  Well, it is basically guesswork.  All you can do is set the linework linestyle to <By Category> and then hover the cursor over any lines that you suspect might have been tampered with using the Linework tool.

Why is this inconsistent with so many other Revit tools that have a 'None' option that sits at the top of the list?  Who knows - it is lost in development history, but it makes training harder.
And why is <By Category> not automatically at the top of the list?  I guess because it sorts alphabetically - but it is very irritating trying to find it in a list.

Once you have managed to select the linestyle of  <By Category> you then hover the mouse over the line and it will probably turn dark blue - which is not easy to spot on a large busy view.

Tip to speed up the search

I know of a quick tip that will help you in the search for overriden lines:
All you have to do is change the 'Pre-selection' colour to something brighter.

• Go to Revit Options
• Choose 'Graphics'
• Spend 30 seconds wondering why 'Selection' and 'Pre-selection' colours are the same, and why dark blue, which is very hard to distinguish when most lines are black in Revit.
• Spend another 30 seconds wondering which $#&*%$#* at Autodesk thought it was a good idea to make the default setting colours both dark blue.
• If the colours are not both dark blue in your options, then you probably need to praise your BIM Manager for changing the Revit.ini file that is rolled out in your company.  Give them a gold star or buy them a drink

• Change the 'Pre-selection' colour to something really bright like red (unless you are red/green colour-blind, in which case choose something else).
• I like to change the selection colour too, although it is tricky to get a good selection that is not the same as sketch lines, and all the other special line types like Area boundaries.

Now when you hover the cursor over any line that has had a linework override applied, it shows up red (or whatever bright colour you chose) - don't forget that it only works when you have set the linestyle to <By Category>

I hope this saves someone, somewhere in the world a few minutes, and eliminates some anguish

Revit Hatching Pattern Line-Weights

Following on from my post about hatching patterns on stairs, I thought I would describe a strange Revit phenomenon that I noticed a few years back. . . .

There are two main types of hatching patterns in Revit:

• Hatching patterns applied to the surface of a material, or as a cut pattern
• Filled Regions - 2D annotation patches

I intend to discuss the former - in particular material surface patterns.

As any good Revit implementer should know, most Revit material hatching patterns are displayed and printed using the Revit line-weight number 1.  [Edit. Ceiling surface patterns use line weight 2]
This number is then converted to a line thickness according to the scale of the view, on a matrix chart accessed from the 'Additional settings' icon on the manage tab of the ribbon.

This matrix is stored per project, and is something that should be set up in the company project template, and then seldom changed.  Unfortunately many new users are not aware that material hatching lines use line weight 1, so they often assign that as their general use thinnest line drawing number.  Most experienced users would recommend reserving weight 1 for hatching, then start the rest of the element line weights from 2 onward (2 = 0.1mm, 3 = 0.18mm, 4 = 0.25mm, 5 = 0.35mm etc).  [Edit. or start from 3, to avoid ceiling hatching patterns in 2].  Once you have set up all your family templates, and libraries it is not easy to change them all a year later.  Sadly the default templates and Autodesk libraries are almost all set up to default most things to weight 1 as the thinnest line weight, which propagates this awkward setup.

Incidentally, if I use the term 'Pen 1' instead of Weight 1, it gives away the fact that I once used pen plotters in the dim, distant past (or even Rotring pens!).

Let's assume that you have set up your library and templates to reserve weight 1 for hatching, it gives you more freedom to play around with pattern line-weights without affecting anything else in the drawings.  But you need to know some mysterious things about how you can control hatching display - or in fact that you have very little control!  The reason for this is that there are various limitations and some hard-coded behaviours within Revit.

Material Surface Patterns - Law of Diminishing Returns

When you apply a surface or cut pattern to a material, you do not get any option to set the line weight - you can only control the pattern and colour.

Object styles do not give you the opportunity to control material pattern line weights;  nor do Visibility Graphics pattern overrides, which can be changed per category:

Or they can be overriden by element, where you can change the weight of projection or cut lines but not hatching patterns:

Notice the colour of the hatching lines at different scales in the screen snapshots below - I have chosen the 'colour purple' to make it easier to distinguish.  At scales from 1:1 through to 1:50 they would all look the same (I only show 1:20 onward), but after that the lines get progressively lighter at each scale change.  This is hard-coded into the software - not something that we appear to have any control over.

1:20 material hatching

1:50 material hatching

1:100 material hatching

1:200 material hatching

1:500 material hatching

1:1000 material hatching

1:2000 material hatching

1:5000 material hatching

You might notice that the line thicknesses above are the same from 1:20 up to 1:1000, which would not necessarily be the case in a real Revit project.  I artificially bumped up the line thicknesses at the smaller scale, to compensate for the screen scale display of the lines.  I ran out of 'thinness' for 1:2000 and 1:5000 as the thinnest that Revit lets you put in is 0.025mm.  However, it is unlikely that your plotter will be able to get lines that thin anyway.

Artificial settings to get consistent screen display - do not use!

At 1:5000 the hatching just stopped displaying - or maybe the lines are so pale we can't see them.  I'm not sure how Revit decides at what scale to give up displaying, as it is not always the same.  It seems to depend on the line thickness, and spacing as well as density of the pattern.

For more weird Revit line weight behaviour click here

What does it all mean?

This is another example of  the software writers deciding what is good for us!  We have no choice or control that I can figure out.  All I can recommend is to reserve weight 1 for material pattern hatching.  It is probably wise to put all filled region hatching in weight 1 too, so that when you apply those nasty little filled region patches in section, they blend together.  Normally I do not approve of that, but when it comes to pads and earth hatching in section it is pretty much unavoidable!

I did wonder about that print settings dialog option 'Replace halftone with thin line':

It does not treat those faded hatch pattern lines as halftone - it only affects them if the whole element or category has been set to halftone.