Rendering with REVIT

Introduction

Introduction
Shadow Analysis
Materials Settings
Creating Materials
Materials Editor
RPC Content & Creation.
Camera Setups Perspective Views
Raytracing and Radiosity.
Render Scene Setups External
Camera Setups 3D Elevations
Render Scene Setups Internal
Flythroughs Basic
General - Tips and Tricks
Questions

Accurender

Steven Fiorio
Altis Architecture

- Shadow Analysis

STILLS
- Duplicate Site plan.
-Turn off unnecessary modelled elements or annotationTIP:Keep imported
survey plans to show adjoining buildings.
-Rename view with logical name to suit eg SD 9am 22June Proposed Ground
Floor
- Duplicate settings, rename in accordance with view name, and adjust
settings accordingly
- Turn shadows on and adjust crop regions.
- Duplicate this for all required shadows
- Place on sheets.
ANIMATED SINGLE DAY
- Select Single Day Tab
- Duplicate settings, rename in accordance with view name, and adjust
settings accordingly
- Adjust settings required.
- Preview Solar Study or Export AVI file

- Material Appearance settings

- Materials dialogue box is
the location where all
materials is stored.
SHADING: Material /
colour used in shaded
views.
ACCURENDER: Material
used in raytraced rendered
views.
SURFACE PATTERN:
Pattern of object faces in
elevation.
CUT PATTERN: Pattern of
cut objects in section.
TIP: - These materials should be kept to approx 40 of the most used in your
offices template file.
- Surface / Cut patterns use data stored in Filled Pattern. These should also
be office template specific.

- Creating Materials
- Select Duplicate and
Name the Material in a
logical name.
Select Accurender menu
arrow.
Select Material New (or
right mouse click new).

-TIP:
-Sometimes is easier to start with a default grey material than
editing an existing material.
-User defined materials are stored in the default C:\Documents and
Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\Revit Building
9.1\Rendering\AccurenderRedist\Support\user.mlibuser.lib and backup
regularly

- Material Editor

- Main = Colour properties

- Transparency = Transparency
- Maps = applied texture maps
jpgs to materials
- Highlights = adding shine and
gloss

-TIP: Use your digi camera, and take photos of realistic materials for use in
renderings. Store these jpgs in a separate folder than the standard Revit
ones and begin a library of images.

- RPC Content
- Use RPC content for more realistic renderings.
Purchase libraries of trees and people for the final touches
- Load these as families and adjust as necessary eg: People, Trees

-TIP: -Use landscaping content

sunken into the ground for
hedging or bushes, so that only
the bulky crown of trees are
visible or elevate to show tops
only.

- Camera Setups Perspective Camera Views

- In a Plan View select camera in the View Menu, click to place location of
camera and then view depth. Generally perspective view will be generated
automatically.
TIP:
-Rename views accordingly, do not leave as default 3d View x.
-Keep an eye on the changing command lines

END

START

- Camera Setups Perspective Camera Views

-Adjust view crop regions with blue tabs, this stretches the cameras field of
view.
TIP: - Be careful not to adjust these too much as view may become very
distorted, and use Show Camera to see view extents in plan.
- Adjust view characteristics itself with Dynamically modify view (F8)
TIP:- Great for those internal construction views and finding conflicts, eg
stairs landings, voids, beam head heights

- Raytracing vs Radiosity
Raytracing
- SINGLE beam path of light calculated FROM camera
TO light source. No secondary reflection.
- Sharp, accurate sunlight shadows.
- Excellent reflections and highlights.
- Realistic metals and textures.
- Can be faster than radiosity for complex scenes, with
RPC components.

Radiosity
- MULTIPLE beam paths of light calculated TO
camera FROM light
source. Has secondary reflections.
- Better image quality architectural interiors with
accurate artificial lighting and secondary lighting
bounce
- More accurate distribution of light with more realistic
colour shading bounce
- Can be much slower for complex scenes.
- Excellent night time scenes.
- More setup time
- After Radiosity has been done , the scene still has to
be Raytraced.

- Render Scene Setups -Exterior

- Use appropriate names ie 3pm -22 June.
- Select Interior or Exterior. Generally Exterior scenes render quicker than
interior. If more lighting effects are required use interior.
- Environment: settings for background colours, or project specific JPGS.
Advanced section adds more tabs as selected.
- Lighting List of lights that are used.
- Sun Sun settings as desired.
- Back Face Culling Removes rendering of model faces that lie outside the
view of the camera decreasing rendering time yet quality low.
- View Culling Removes rendering model faces that lie outside the area to be
raytraced.
- Radiosity Settings: Draft, Medium, Good, Better, Best.
- Solution Goal The max number of steps to calculate radiosity.
- Colour Bleeding Controls colour saturation of the reflected light.
- Raytracing: Draft, Medium, Good, Better, Best. Quality of anti-aliasing. (The
process where more than one ray is shot for each pixel) increases
considerable rendering time.
- Soft Shadows produces more realistic edges.
- Blurry Reflections affects the look of reflections in glass.
- Blurry Transparency effects the look of material seen behind glass.
- Reflection and Transparency bounces. These values determines how many
levels of reflections or transparencies are permitted = longer rendering times.
TIP: - When using RPC content and black sections are rendered, increase the
Transperency Bounces.
- Recalc Radiosity Lights to recalculate the shadows cast during the radiosity
preprocess. Very time consuming.

The Finale
- What now?
-Hit the GO button.
Use the Adjust Image dialogue to add finer touches after raytracing finishes by
adjusting Brightness, Contrast, Indirect values.
- Export image to JPG or Capture Image to remain in Revit File.
TIP: - Use Capture Image sparingly as this can increase file size dramatically.

- Camera Setups -3d Elevations

3D orthogonal elevation (if there is such a thing)

In any 3d View , - View Properties check Section Box.
Adjust view accordingly to crop unwanted elements
such as a large site.

In the view menu select Orient, South (in this case),

to get the 3d elevation. Adjust render settings for
desired effects and Render.

- Render the Elevation.

-Hit the GO button as beforeUse the Adjust Image dialogue to add finer
touches after raytracing finishes by adjusting Brightness, Contrast, Indirect
values.
- Export image to JPG or Capture Image to remain in Revit File.

- Render Scene Setups -Interior

-Create Interior Camera View and name
appropriately
- Use appropriate names for scene setup
- Select Interior and adjust settings accordingly
- Lighting List of lights that are used which can be
grouped.
Raytrace or Radiosity You can probably get 4 -5
Raytrace renders compaired to one Radiosity

- Flythrough Basics?
-View Walkthough and click path.Keep em simple.
-Adjust camera view depth with blue circular tab and camera angle with pink
tab.this has to be done with all keyframe points.
-Adjust Controls as necessary.
-Make camera active and render or export walkthrough

General Tips
-If Elements are rendering grey, check 3d views phase filters are set to Show Complete.
- Focus on one view at a time, and periodically do low res renders to see how its going.
- Rendering time depends on:
image size: The larger the image, the longer the rendering time.
resolution dpi: higher dpi results in longer rendering time. 150 is a recommended dpi value.
lights: Rendering time decreases if you turn on only the lights that are required for the scene. For example, in exterior
scenes, render with only the AccuRender sun turned on, and all other lights turned off. This improves render
performance by reducing the number of lights to calculate.
Speed of machine: Weve found some newer AMD machines are quicker than INTEL.
- When taking photos for background images try to measure on site distances from where photos are taken and at
what height, and camera settings.
- RPC Content
- Plants:
-stick to max ten species
-periodically rotate species.
-overlap trees and shrubs,
-add a mulch zone to border grass ie different material map.
-Layer planting as you would in your garden
- People
-Dont use the same guys and girls ( unless you want to have twins, triplets etc everywhere).
- Shadows Turn Off when not in use as this can slow file down dramatically.
- Keep materials simple A few really good materials are better than ten mediocre onesbut if time permits, get em all
right
-Glass and water are difficult materials to render, so spend time on these..
- Keep lighting simple
- Radiosity?? Is it worthwhile???
- Plants can help enormously by framing images and covering any hick-ups

Questions?

Thanks to a whole lot of people who over the years have helped me to learn Revit, and who have
contributed some of the tips and images shown here.