Pretty sure its been said since this publication, but using reference lines while making piping families is key and the direction is from right to left.
The Questions were sort of interrupting. I think it’s more efficient to compile them abs address then in a Q/A session. Many of them will be answered in due course of the main session.
Thanks for the feedback. The beauty of a live show is being able to take questions as they come and before the subject has moved onto something else. I am sorry if you found the format distracting!
Watching this, I'm reminded how little revit family UI has changed over the years. It's really showing its age. I'd love to see more AI & gen design dev'd in there. But this is an excellent convo on the fundamentals of making fams. Thumbs up.
Hi, thanks for the great video series. You should definitely have him on again to finish his tips and tricks. It would be nice to hear him talk about object styles and how to handle the arrays. Next time maybe we can wait with the questions until the end so that we don't miss any of his tips. Have a nice weekend!
I've also got a suggestion for a subject. I currently work at an engineering firm and there is some talk about "drawingless" deliveries or deliveries with large pdfs that are only used digitally. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts about that and where we are heading. Also, about LOD and how much effort we should put into the accuracy of the 3D model. Ps my name is actually Carl-Marcus (Swedish double name). I've learned a lot from your channel!
You could have touched on formulas with the array to get the number of chairs auto populate depending on table length. And shared families for the chair type will make your parent families a lot lighter.
I sometimes do reference planes within sketch mode to keep the views clean. These are typically for more detailed geometry which is independent of other geometry. If you’re just starting with families, just draw reference planes for everything. For the legs (because they are a separate material) i would have likely created a family and nested it into the table family. Then I can swap the families out with multiple leg types, but mostly just to reduce reference planes clutter.I would have also created model lines and hosted swept profiles, which is also another method to reduce reference plane clutter. Technically, the reference plane ‚direction, (top, bottom, front, back, etc) should allow you to swap elements in the model while maintaining the dimension references. I’ve still run into issue. Setting the centers (left/right, front/back) is very useful if you have the centerline references set up in your dimension Styles.
It was such a relief seeing someone else drawing the new ref planes aligned to the existing ones. I've felt so alone with this OCDish insanity :D I also open the perpendicular view to adjust the ref planes extents there too. What's more I've made a pyrevit script that lets me numerically adjust the extents of all the refplanes in the Family. I think I have to take a break...
35:10 In a simple case like this, you don't need to lock at all. If sketch is drawn snapping to intersections of reference planes, it'll work without locking.
In this case, Brenton's point was to NOT do that... Because, as he illustrated, if you let Revit assume the relationships it could BURN you down the road.... You are right, it will work, but, it could also NOT work in the future... Better off spending the time to control what is constrained and not let Revit assume.
@@TheRevitKid Yeah, I commented as I was watching, before he explained why he doesn't do it. Although in such very simple cases I'll continue to do it :D Simply because I'm the only one using my families and if something brakes I'm the only one to blame. If only there was a "lock all visible unlocked constraints" shortcut.
@@DarioRubilovic I'd say the habit of "I'm the only one" is not a good one to get into. As a bim mgr, I rail against that since many users think actions are one-offs when they rarely are. This isn't for you specifically, Dario, just for others that are reading this who work in teams.
he is not using addins? at all?! Crazy click click click process. Archilizer family editor interface to flex Pyrevit cycle types to go through types and check nested families parameter mapping Family manager from diroots to rename and manage a few stuff paramanager from diroots to handle loads of parameters ...
Every professional Revit creator I seen: make family have one million different shared family parameters, make the family over half a gigabyte, and make sure that it only works with very specific dimensions. And make it so convuluted to edit the family that the single change will turn it into a deconstructionist sculpture.
To bypass the locking issue I will always use the pick lines tool and there is an option that will pop up a check box on the top left side where it will automatically lock the generated line onto the existing line you pick. So I will have my frame or skeleton and then I will pick my reference planes and have them lock automatically. I think it is more intuitive and faster doing it that way rather than creating the lines and then aligning the lines together and then locking it. I'm also wondering why you don't flex the geometry in the model window? I feel like it takes more time to open the type properties and then change to value and either save or apply. Having the end user in mind is so important. One of the best and worst families I have worked with was for a barn door. I don't know why its so hard to find a decent barn door that also looks good but it is. The barn doors we use in our company look amazing but we had to spend half a day exploring the family because their parameter for door slab width and height were not assigned correctly. This made it a nightmare for scheduling because the units were coming out as 125/256" or some other odd number. We had to find a way to redue their formulas so the model could still work but we could change the parameters for scheduling purposes.
Matthew, thanks for tuning in and the comments! Using Pick Lines and selecting, as you said, is definitely another strategy! Of course, you still need to pay very close attention to WHAT you are picking when the family gets more complicated! I am not sure what you mean by flexing in the geometry window!?
Hello! Appreciate your advice on whether Revit has a function similar to 'find & replace' in microsoft office tools? For example, if I have created a family type 01, but further on I'd like to have a filter only for instances that are placed below L10, so if I duplicate family type 01 to family type 01a (so to apply the filter only for 01a), is there a way to find all instances of family type 01 placed below L10, and change them to family type 01a without changing them 1 by 1? Thanks!
The video starts at 20:30. Brenton's advice is so valuable here... NEVER dimension geometry to geometry Show temporary sketch dimensions to check what's locked down (or not). Don't use mirrors and expect everything to flex nicely. Never trust RevitCity content. It's all garbage uploaded by students
There are contexts in the Project space (I'm thinking Properties Palette) where can enter a value, press Enter to complete the value and Enter again to get them to Apply. In pop up windows you can often toggle through active parts of a window with the TAB key and when you get to Apply you could press enter... But in this context I suspect that there is far too much toggling to be done to get there, so then the mouse is the quickest option after all ;-)
Great Revit family crash course. Keep up the great work on these “bim after dark” series!
Cheers! Glad you enjoyed! Be sure to check out all the other 62 episodes!! :)
I would pay good money to have a full tutorial series. I've not had much luck finding tutorials for advanced families.
www.bimafterdark.com/volume3.html - Just saying... ;)
Pretty sure its been said since this publication, but using reference lines while making piping families is key and the direction is from right to left.
The Questions were sort of interrupting. I think it’s more efficient to compile them abs address then in a Q/A session. Many of them will be answered in due course of the main session.
Thanks for the feedback. The beauty of a live show is being able to take questions as they come and before the subject has moved onto something else. I am sorry if you found the format distracting!
Watching this, I'm reminded how little revit family UI has changed over the years. It's really showing its age. I'd love to see more AI & gen design dev'd in there. But this is an excellent convo on the fundamentals of making fams. Thumbs up.
Glad you enjoyed Mark! Thanks for tuning in!
It so great to see a specialist Revit Family .Awesome my bro.
Glad you enjoyed it!!
Hi, thanks for the great video series. You should definitely have him on again to finish his tips and tricks. It would be nice to hear him talk about object styles and how to handle the arrays. Next time maybe we can wait with the questions until the end so that we don't miss any of his tips. Have a nice weekend!
Thanks for tuning in Carl!!
I've also got a suggestion for a subject. I currently work at an engineering firm and there is some talk about "drawingless" deliveries or deliveries with large pdfs that are only used digitally. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts about that and where we are heading. Also, about LOD and how much effort we should put into the accuracy of the 3D model. Ps my name is actually Carl-Marcus (Swedish double name). I've learned a lot from your channel!
that was awesome, great guest, thanks a lot!
So glad you enjoyed! Cheers!
That was really great! Could have easily watched another hour on this, shame it was cut short. Glad you are doing another part!
Awesome, thank you! Glad you enjoyed!
You could have touched on formulas with the array to get the number of chairs auto populate depending on table length. And shared families for the chair type will make your parent families a lot lighter.
Yes, I believe that is where Brenton was going but we ran out of time. Great point about the shared types! Thanks for the comment and for tuning in!
I sometimes do reference planes within sketch mode to keep the views clean. These are typically for more detailed geometry which is independent of other geometry.
If you’re just starting with families, just draw reference planes for everything.
For the legs (because they are a separate material) i would have likely created a family and nested it into the table family. Then I can swap the families out with multiple leg types, but mostly just to reduce reference planes clutter.I would have also created model lines and hosted swept profiles, which is also another method to reduce reference plane clutter.
Technically, the reference plane ‚direction, (top, bottom, front, back, etc) should allow you to swap elements in the model while maintaining the dimension references. I’ve still run into issue. Setting the centers (left/right, front/back) is very useful if you have the centerline references set up in your dimension Styles.
Matt, thanks for tuning in and for your tips! Cheers!
It was such a relief seeing someone else drawing the new ref planes aligned to the existing ones. I've felt so alone with this OCDish insanity :D I also open the perpendicular view to adjust the ref planes extents there too. What's more I've made a pyrevit script that lets me numerically adjust the extents of all the refplanes in the Family. I think I have to take a break...
Haha glad you enjoyed! We all have our OCD habits when it comes to Revit and family creation for sure!
35:10 In a simple case like this, you don't need to lock at all. If sketch is drawn snapping to intersections of reference planes, it'll work without locking.
In this case, Brenton's point was to NOT do that... Because, as he illustrated, if you let Revit assume the relationships it could BURN you down the road.... You are right, it will work, but, it could also NOT work in the future... Better off spending the time to control what is constrained and not let Revit assume.
@@TheRevitKid Yeah, I commented as I was watching, before he explained why he doesn't do it. Although in such very simple cases I'll continue to do it :D Simply because I'm the only one using my families and if something brakes I'm the only one to blame. If only there was a "lock all visible unlocked constraints" shortcut.
@@DarioRubilovic I'd say the habit of "I'm the only one" is not a good one to get into. As a bim mgr, I rail against that since many users think actions are one-offs when they rarely are. This isn't for you specifically, Dario, just for others that are reading this who work in teams.
@@HippieP629 100% this. "I'm the only one using them anyway" doesn't get you really far in a AEC environment where everything is done in Team.
@@enricoc2968 Not in my country, here it's 99% AutoCAD. So I literally am the only one using my families :)
Thanks Brandon great job 👍 🧡🧡
Thanks for the update
he is not using addins? at all?!
Crazy click click click process.
Archilizer family editor interface to flex
Pyrevit cycle types to go through types and check nested families parameter mapping
Family manager from diroots to rename and manage a few stuff
paramanager from diroots to handle loads of parameters
...
All valid options, but, to Brenton's point.... Sometimes the tedious task of changing them individually helps you troubleshoot along the way.
Every professional Revit creator I seen: make family have one million different shared family parameters, make the family over half a gigabyte, and make sure that it only works with very specific dimensions. And make it so convuluted to edit the family that the single change will turn it into a deconstructionist sculpture.
Great refresher, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
To bypass the locking issue I will always use the pick lines tool and there is an option that will pop up a check box on the top left side where it will automatically lock the generated line onto the existing line you pick. So I will have my frame or skeleton and then I will pick my reference planes and have them lock automatically. I think it is more intuitive and faster doing it that way rather than creating the lines and then aligning the lines together and then locking it.
I'm also wondering why you don't flex the geometry in the model window? I feel like it takes more time to open the type properties and then change to value and either save or apply.
Having the end user in mind is so important. One of the best and worst families I have worked with was for a barn door. I don't know why its so hard to find a decent barn door that also looks good but it is. The barn doors we use in our company look amazing but we had to spend half a day exploring the family because their parameter for door slab width and height were not assigned correctly. This made it a nightmare for scheduling because the units were coming out as 125/256" or some other odd number. We had to find a way to redue their formulas so the model could still work but we could change the parameters for scheduling purposes.
Matthew, thanks for tuning in and the comments! Using Pick Lines and selecting, as you said, is definitely another strategy! Of course, you still need to pay very close attention to WHAT you are picking when the family gets more complicated! I am not sure what you mean by flexing in the geometry window!?
thanks for tips
Cheers! thanks for tuning in!
Good Stuff. I’m literally figuring out mech louver family.
Awesome!!!
Really good content ! Thank u
Glad you liked it!
in 2016 they did change the reference plane. They corrected it in 2018. In between they patched it.
THanks Michael!
A-Mazing.
Would be great if guests would state what shortcuts they are using, very difficult to follow when you are using shortcuts.
Valid point. I’ll make it a point to try and fill in the information when the guests do not! Thanks for tuning in!!
Man you are going way to fast! How did you get to the associate family parameter???
Lot's of content in a short amount of time! Associate Family Parameter is the little tiny grey box to the right of most parameters....
@@TheRevitKid oK,tHANKS
Do you guys know of any Revit integration for project management like Monday, Trello, and so on.
Nope... Can't say I do! Sorry!
Q- Do you constrain your height parameter to the level, or the reference that is locked to the level?
i think you must make content for formulas they are super usefull
Noted!
Hello! Appreciate your advice on whether Revit has a function similar to 'find & replace' in microsoft office tools? For example, if I have created a family type 01, but further on I'd like to have a filter only for instances that are placed below L10, so if I duplicate family type 01 to family type 01a (so to apply the filter only for 01a), is there a way to find all instances of family type 01 placed below L10, and change them to family type 01a without changing them 1 by 1? Thanks!
Dynamo, my friend! Tune in tomorrow night to the livestream ;)
Episode 36 is not there anymore!
Sorry, looks like I messed up the link on my blog… here is the episode - ua-cam.com/video/TVNnQJiwXBk/v-deo.html
@@TheRevitKid thank you very much
Great episodes!
I have subscribed on channel it seems it is very important
The video starts at 20:30. Brenton's advice is so valuable here...
NEVER dimension geometry to geometry
Show temporary sketch dimensions to check what's locked down (or not).
Don't use mirrors and expect everything to flex nicely.
Never trust RevitCity content. It's all garbage uploaded by students
Is there a shortcut key for hitting apply?
Not in revit there isn't, because that's a windows command.
There are contexts in the Project space (I'm thinking Properties Palette) where can enter a value, press Enter to complete the value and Enter again to get them to Apply. In pop up windows you can often toggle through active parts of a window with the TAB key and when you get to Apply you could press enter... But in this context I suspect that there is far too much toggling to be done to get there, so then the mouse is the quickest option after all ;-)
Flexing … genius
Stretch and flex your families! Always!! ;)