My “Revit/3DS MAX Integration” chapter in “3ds Max Architectural Visualization – Advanced to Expert” (Summer 2009)
Jan 29, 2009 3DS MAX, FBX, Revit, latest
Coming this summer, a new book called 3DS MAX Architectural Visualization – Advanced to Expert is coming out within which I’m writing what appears to be my favorite topic of the moment: Revit Integration with 3DS MAX. To quote the description from the publisher’s website:
“…this book will be a collection of self-contained chapters, written by dozens of industry experts. The goal of this book is to take readers from an advanced level to an expert level by providing a straight-forward discussion of difficult subject matter not available anywhere else. It serves as a follow-on companion to the two previous books of the same title; the Beginner to Intermediate and Intermediate to Advanced editions.”
If you click here, you can now preorder the book with a discount. I think the great idea of this book is that the publishers have looked for individual authors who have advanced skills in a particular area. This means that each chapter will be highly researched and written by people who have real world experience with their particular topic. I would encourage you to take a look it (as well as the Beginner to Intermediate and Intermediate to Advanced books). Also, the Advanced to Expert book will be based on 3DS MAX 2010 being released later this year.
The Bigger Picture
Jan 28, 2009 3DS MAX, AutoCAD, BIM, Commentary, Revit, latest
Hey All. I’m sorry I haven’t written in a few days but I was on vacation to the happiest place on Earth. I wrote the majority of this post while in mid-air on the way down, but, due to an Internet restriction imposed by my wife, for the duration of the vacation, I was unable to post it. Anyway, in trying to decide what to blog about, I’ve begun thinking about the larger purpose of spreading this knowledge (mine, yours or otherwise) and the answer is really to help us design better. Sometimes I think us techy people forget that because we hear that 3DS MAX (or any other piece of software) can do this cool new thing, or something like that. Last Thursday night the class I teach at the Pratt Institute in NYC started again and I, once again, altered it a bit from previous semesters. When I first started teaching it about 4 years ago it was called Architectural Visualization Using 3DS MAX. It was a 15 and 10 week introductory course that taught the architecturally-related features of 3DS MAX. That is, user-interface through rendering. 1 or 2 of the classes throughout the semester, however, would be about AutoCAD. It was during these classes that I found people were really paying attention. Their eyes would light up because suddenly there was an aspect of the new topics I was laying out that was familiar to them. After a year or so, I modified the class and renamed it Architectural Visualization Using AutoCAD and 3DS MAX.
Now, the time has come once again to modify my class. The reason? In a word, Revit. Since many of my posts go into the gloriousness of that which is BIM, I’ll refrain from repeating that here. What I will say is that Revit works (or can work) just as the design process does. The key word in that sentence is process. They don’t teach you software in architecture school as the main focus of your education. They teach you how to identify and develop your creative process. My problem will be that I can’t call the class Architectural Visualization Using AutoCAD, Revit and 3DS MAX. That’s just too long (and, no, I’m not ready to abandon AutoCAD, so it can’t be removed from the title just yet either). Maybe…hmm…this is going to be harder than I thought. Either way, Revit is helping to move the class back to the architectural process and away from how do I do task A in software B, so I think that’s a good thing. I write all of this to remind us of the process and the fact that the software is a means to help us think better, design better and work better.
Tags: 3DS MAX, AutoCAD, BIM, Commentary, Revit
New CADuzer Features! “Request a Tutorial” and “This Week’s Assignment”
Jan 22, 2009 Commentary, latest
Notice the new feature at the top-right of the page! While I’ve tried to come up with tutorials that really let you get into a program (versus heavily advanced topics), there are many topics that I’m sure you would like to learn about. Click the link within Request a Tutorial and fill out the form letting me know what you’d like to learn about. I’ll either write a tutorial for you myself, or, I’ll do my best to find one on the Internet. I can’t guarantee I’ll always find one, but if not, I’ll see if I can get someone else to put one together.
The other new feature is called This Week’s Assignment. I’ll post a different question and you tell me what you think. At the end of each week, I’ll post a summary of the discussion (which you can then comment on). Hopefully this can get a good discussion started independent of the posts. If there are any questions you’d like me to ask, please let me know and I’ll be happy to set it up. Also, if you’d like to write something slightly longer, I’m happy to take a look at it and, if it’s appropriate, post it (and, I’ll obviously, credit you).
The great thing about blogs is that we can try whatever we want and post about virtually anything. Hopefully this will help build a useful learning environment and foster and ongoing discussion.
Let me know what you think.
Tags: Commentary
FOLLOW UP – Adding DWG Floor Plans to Different Levels in Revit
Jan 21, 2009 BIM, Revit, latest
Following up on my earlier post, Starting Your Revit Model from a 2D AutoCAD Drawing, a comment was posted asking how to insert multiple floor plans from AutoCAD to their correct levels in Revit. When you’re ready to import the first floor plan, switch to your first floor plan (or level 1) view. Then, click File –> Import/Link –> CAD Formats… and within the Import/Link CAD Formats dialog box, notice at the bottom-left it says Current view only (fig. 1). Select this option and click Open. For the next floor, switch to that view (floor) and repeat the process. Be aware that the inserted DWG’s will ONLY be visible in the views that you imported them into.
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| Figure 1 – “Current view only” Option |
Thanks for the comment Bessa!
The Daylight System in 3DS MAX 2009 – Part 1
Jan 20, 2009 3DS MAX, Lighting, Rendering, latest
The Daylight System in 3DS MAX has been around for a few releases. The system aspect of it means that it’s sort of a group containing both a sun object as well as a sky object. Previously, the sun and sky types were known as standard (similar to standard lights versus photometric lights). Now, with version 2009, Mental Ray is the default rendering engine and, therefore, the sun and sky types are known as mr sun and mr sky. These types of objects work well with Mental Ray to create highly accurate lighting environments. One great additional feature is that depending on the date time and location you set, the lighting level and background will change. In the first part of this post, I’ll go over how to create a daylight system as well as how to change the time of day thus changing the lighting environment and background.
Figure 1 - Basic Box on a Plane
Read the rest of this entry »
President Barack Obama…Incredible.
Jan 20, 2009 Commentary, latest
While I never wanted this blog to take a political, or social commentary, tone, I feel that I have to say something about what I just witnessed. Here in my office, we were streaming the inauguration and projecting it on a large screen. I was initially a Hillary Clinton supporter and then became a Barack Obama supporter. As time went on, my support of him only increased. I was asked by a few people who did not support him what it was that I liked about him. I responded that among other things, he gave me hope. Certainly, I was laughed at. I think, however, that in his speech today, he talked about the country’s need for something to believe in, for some reason to believe that hoping for a better future is something worth doing. While I certainly have high hopes for the new President, if he does nothing more than wake the country up, nothing more that getting the country up off the mat, then I would say he was a successful President.
I congratulate President Barack Obama on becoming the 44th President and wish him all of the intelligence, creativity and strength to lead the country.
Tags: Commentary
Embed More Data into your Revit Families (you’ll be happy you did!)
Jan 17, 2009 Revit, families, latest
Be honest, how much data do you really embed within the families you use (or create) in Revit? Do you ever use the Manufacturer or URL areas? Do you create your own parameters to add even more data? Going beyond the basics of creating and inserting families will allow you to really take advantage of the I in BIM (for those of you who don’t know by now, it stands for Information). The other benefit is that your Revit model becomes more than just a means to an end (ie. modeling so you can have drawings so you can make changes in one location so those changes can be automatically dispersed to every view so…). The model will now contain all information about your building which can be very useful for its maintenance over time. In this post, I’m going to show you three things: first, we’ll see where you can embed information using the standards parameters, second, we’ll see how to create your own parameters directly within the family so you can add more information. Finally, third, we’ll see how you can quantify that information within a schedule. Here we go:
In the image below we see a bathroom floor plan. Within it there are several objects with characteristics that we might want to specify: the sink, toilet and floor tile. For this example, we’re going to work on the toilet:
Rendering in Revit 2009 – Grouping Artificial Lights for Easy Access
Jan 13, 2009 Lighting, Rendering, Revit, latest
Did you know that in Revit you can put all, or some, of your lights into groups? This is particularly helpful when you want to turn lights off that won’t affect a particular 3D or camera view. Follow these steps:
Grouping your lights will not only help you to turn them on and off quickly, but, if you choose to organize your groups this way, it will also help you identify where in your model the lights are located.
Turn Off the Render Window in 3DSMAX to Speed Up Rendering (and your computer!)
This is a quick post, but I received a question about whether or not turning off the rendered frame window in 3DS MAX would speed up the rendering. The answer is, yes, it will. It will also speed up your computer. While the increase in speed and decrease in render time won’t be extreme, if you’re doing a rendering that you know will take hours versus minutes, it’s definitely worth doing. Here’s how to do it:
Tags: 3DS MAX
Live in the Tri-state area? Take my Continuing Education Course at the Pratt Institute
Jan 11, 2009 3DS MAX, AutoCAD, Commentary, Revit
Hey All. The Spring semester starts soon (and I use the word spring lightly because it’s 29 degrees outside her ein New York) and that means that the class I teach at Pratt is starting soon. For 15 weeks I teach Architectural Visualization Using AutoCAD and 3DS MAX (and since Revit and 3DS MAX talk to each other so nicely now, I’ll mix that in as well). If you live in the area I would encourage you to take it. It starts January 22nd and runs through April 23rd. Every Thursday night from 6:05 to 8:05 we’ll go through how to prepare data in both AutoCAD and Revit, and then bring it into 3DS MAX. The largest part of the class will focus on what we can do with the data in 3DS MAX. While this is an introductory course, and we’ll start with the user-interface of 3DS MAX, we’ll go through modeling, lighting, materials, rendering (with Mental Ray) and how to take a project from beginning to end. There is a maximum of 10 to 12 spaces for the course so act fast before it fills up. For more of a description, take a look at this PDF: Spring 2009 Course Catalog and search for rosenbloom. Be aware that the dates in this catalog are incorrect. Again, the class runs from January 22nd to April 23rd. That’s every Thursday night from 6:05 to 8:05. I hope to see you all there.
Tags: 3DS MAX, AutoCAD, Commentary, Revit
