Revit has the capability to save the view settings to a view template. If you save the view template in your project template, then you can use it for your next project.

You can find Revit view template on your ribbon> view tab. Alternatively, you can right click a view name on our project browser, and choose from the context menu.

Let us try ‘apply template to current view’. In this dialog, you can find some default templates. If you are currently on 1st floor, try the site plan template and click OK.

You can see the view appearance now showing site plan. You can see the contour (if your model has any), you can see the roof –not floor plan anymore-, and other changes.

Try to use other template and see how it works. You can also change the settings from the dialog. But I prefer to change the view first until I’m sure to get what I want, then create a template from the view.

Now you know how to create a standard view quickly right?

Some Notes

The default views may be different if you use imperial template. And if you use no template, you will see no view template available. You can create a new project without using template by choosing none when creating new project.

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.

If you new to Revit Families, you may be interested to our e-book: Creating Your Own Revit Families. You can purchase it only for US$ 7. You can learn the basic, and guided by video tutorial.

The roof doesn’t look pretty, the roof edges don’t meet at expected point.

The problem that cause this is Revit attempt to create slopes from each edges. The meeting point might not where we expect it should be. So how we can correct this shape?

There are several ways to do it:

First, You can create a mass and create roof by selecting the mass faces. Mass are quite easy to make, but using this method might be require a lot of works. If your design is quite simple, you will not want to spend to much time on your roof. I will not discuss much about this for now.

Changing slope angle and using slope arrow

To do this method, you need to select the roof and edit the roof footprint. Click edit footprint to enter the sketch mode.

Changing the slope angle

If you see the symbol, then the edge will be generated having slope. The value can be different for each edge. Select the edge and change the slope value. You can do a little math here or simply doing a trial and error until you get the expected result. It’s not fun, but it a way to do it :)

Using the Slope Arrow to control the slope direction

The trick above might work. However, you might need to control the slope direction by yourself. You can do it by using slope arrow.

Before you use slope arrow, you need to turn off define slope for the edge. Select the edge you want to control the slope direction, and turn off the define slope from option bar. If you do not turn it off, you will get an error message: The tails of slope arrows must not lie in interior of slope defining lines.

The now should disappear from that edge. Activate slope arrow. Then draw the arrow to define the slope direction. You can use height or slope value, specify the method and the constraint values from properties palette.

Tips: For creating complex roof, it might be easier if you create separate roof then use ‘join roof’ tool to join them later.

Using Shape Editing Tools

This is the easiest way to do it. But I’m not really sure if this is a best practice. i believe this tools are not design for this purpose. You need to create the bay window roof separately. Do not give any slope to your roof edges. After you finish creating the roof, select it. You will see shape editing tools from in your ribbon, contextual tab.

This shape editing tools will not appear if you define the roof slope.

First, activate add split line and draw the lines like below. This is pretty easy to control. Easier than the previous method.

After you finish with the lines, open default 3D view. Activate modify sub elements. You can drag any point in your roof and adjust the roof shape as you want. In this sample, I only use one.

You also need to adjust the roof height to match the other roof. You can move the roof from elevation view or change the offset value.

The downside about this method is you can’t join the roof to another roof. So you will have two separate roof. I’m not sure if this will affect the model in structural or MEP analysis, but for modeling and visualization only… I guess it’s OK.

Do you have another suggestion how to do it? And what do you think about the last method, would it cause a problem later in your design process?

Revit has shortcuts too. If you place your pointer above a tool icon, the tool tip will show you the shortcut. If any. The wall tool shortcut is WA (see characters in the bracket).

You can also see the complete list of modify it in shortcuts.txt. In Revit 2011, you can also see it in a dialog box (see keyboard shortcuts section in this post).

However, they are still not easy to remember. And sometimes the tools are not even available in Revit ribbon. For example: overriding snaps.

The good thing about Revit shortcuts is you can cycle through them. If you remember the first character, simply press it. Then press arrow key (up down or left right) to cycle between available shortcuts. See the shortcuts cycling in your status bar.

When you find the shortcut, press [enter] to activate it.

This is useful because we can also guess what is the first character. For example walls and windows will start with W. Door with D, and snap with S!