To create a ‘glowing’ light bulb, you need to define it by using material. You can create your own material, then activate the self illumination option in the material dialog box. You can define the filter color if necessary. And change the luminance to a lamp lens. In this sample, I use halogen lamp lens. As you can see in the material preview, the material is glowing. That’s how your light bulb should looks like, right?

After I apply the material to the light lens (or bulb?) then I render it again.

Looks much more realistic than before, right?

You may want to make the material as parameter, so you can change it during the design process. So when you need to ‘turn it off’, you can change it using dialog box, not using material editor.

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Preparing DWG File

First, you need to prepare the DWG file. If you have a DWT template, you need to create an empty DWG file using that template. We can’t import DWT to Revit. Title block should be the only drawing element in that file.

What if you don’t have AutoCAD, but you want to use the DWT file? Easy. Just rename the file in Windows Explorer, change the dwt extension to dwg. DWT basically is DWG too.

When creating title block family, Revit will attempt to find objects in your layout/sheet first. If your title block is not in your layout, then Revit will ask if it should try to find in model space. It should be no problem, whether you place the title block in layout or model. BUT… you have to create the title block in 1:1 scale. Try to experiment with existing title block in default AutoCAD template if you have problem.

Create a New Family

Let’s start. First, you need to create a new family. In home screen, click new under family group.

Revit will ask you to to choose a family template. Go to titleblocks folder, and choose the paper size you want. The paper size depends on your family units. I use metric, so I will see A0 to A4 paper size. Click open.

In your new family, you will see a rectangle that shows your paper size. You can create your title block here from scratch inside that rectangle. Or simply import your existing title block from AutoCAD drawing. We are going to do the last one.

Importing the DWG File

Now you can import the DWG file to your family. Use import CAD tool in insert tab, import panel.

Find your DWG file. Before you click open, there are many options available in the dialog box. If your DWG file has correct unit (and not unitless) then you can choose import unit as Auto-Detect. Positioning should be fine if you choose ‘Auto-center to center’. Title block is a rectangular object that should fit the paper just fine. If it’s not, you need to scale or move it later to fit your paper.

Click open. You should now see the title block in your family.

Select the title block. You should see it is selected as a single object. Click explode, full explode from contextual ribbon to break the AutoCAD elements, to basic Revit elements.

Adding Labels

Title blocks pretty much only have lines and texts. You already have them after importing the title block from AutoCAD. Revit does have some intelligent texts that will automatically update when the information changed. The changes can be manually by you, or automatic. Sheet number is defined by you. Date/time stamp will updated automatically by your computer.

Let us see this part of our title block. The project number can be automatically take your project information. Date and sheet number can automatically changed. Those values should be created using label. The others, should use text as ‘static’ texts.

If we look at the ribbon, in home tab, text panel, we will see there are two types of texts. Now you know what their difference is, right?

Now delete all texts that you will replace with labels. After you remove them, activate label and place in the location you want. Revit will open a dialog box, asking you which parameter you want to display. Choose which information should appear at that location, and click ‘add parameter to label’ button. Or you can double click it to add the parameter to your label.

Add every information you want. Save the family so you can load it later to your project. Or you can load it to your template.

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This e-book includes video animation (mp4 format) for every exercises, that you can download separately.

You will learn:

1. Getting familiar with family template
2. Creating 2D families and 3D families
3. Creating component families and system families
4. Using parameters and references
5. Using 2D DWG for your families
6. Adding details and controlling object visibility

You can download and see the table of contents here. And the animation sample here for Adding_Parameters.

Now the problem is, how can we define the structure vertically? We have discussed how we can add reveals and sweeps to do this. In this article, let us discuss how we can create a vinyl siding wall as example. The common way (and probably most suggested) to do this is simply using horizontal lines pattern, not actually creating real 3D forms. And later, we can use drafting tools to add details for the vinyl siding wall.

The reason why we do this is creating many horizontal sweeps/reveals can take much of your computer resources. When you are modeling a large building, this can be a problem. Of course, there are a downside: you have to take care the details later, manually.

Now, vinyl siding wall commonly used for simple houses, not multi story building. So I guess it is save if we create a real 3D vinyl siding, it would be acceptable.

Creating Reveal Profile

Create a new profile. Use Metric Profile-Reveal.rft (or Profile-Reveal.rft for imperial).

You need to define how your vinyl siding layer will be cut by this profile. Create reveal like below. Pay attention to the wall location. I use 250×80 as the outline. Remember this value, we are going to need it when defining our wall.

Save this file, and load it to your project.

Now why are we using reveal instead of sweep? You will see the difference later in the comparison section.

Applying the Wall Reveal

In your project, choose one of the wall type you want to modify. In this example I use generic 200mm. Duplicate, and add one more layer as your vinyl siding layer. Change the height to match your sweep profile.

To enable us adding reveal, change the view to section. Change it from drop down selection below the preview area.

In the modify vertical structure group, click reveal.

This will open another dialog box. Click add below this dialog to add a reveal definition. Select the reveal profile you created previously in the profile column. If you haven’t loaded it, click load profile.

Define the distance from base. Do it several times until it reach the highest wall in your design.

We are done. Click OK and close all the dialogs.

Now try to create walls and see how it looks like. I think this is quite nice :)

Comparison

Now let us get to (probably) some question you will ask.

Why not creating one reveal profile like below, so we don’t need to create many reveal parameters?

It doesn’t work as expected when we place door. See image below. The wall above the door will loose the reveals. I’m not sure why the window don’t have the same effects. I suspect this has something to do with the opening in the family. If that’s true, then creating the table is much easier than you modify your whole door family.

So why are we using reveal instead of sweep?

If we use reveal, it only remove part of existing wall. No wall, then it’s not showing. Sweep, will remain visible even if you have wall height less than your defined vinyl siding height.

This is unacceptable when we need to attach our wall to roof or having the top side of our wall is not horizontal.