Material by...Generator

[gschleusner]

To make the process of generating renderings in Revit and to enable easier export to other platforms, we need a tool to simply create new materials from the model interface.

• Modeless so it can be kept open and edited while working
  -Ability to Review and Sort Materials in the project.
  -Edit Materials - Merge, Delete, Copy some settings
• Create New or copy Existing
• Type, Category, Subcategory, Instance, Surface , Room Prefixed, Group(?)

[mrtoprice]

…and also a way to tell which materials are currently in use

[ksobon]

@KatarinaWDC I was told by @gschleusner that you are the go to person for workflows regarding Enscape. Can we unpack, in some detail, what we need to accomplish here and how it fits into the Enscape workflows? I will need some guidance since I am not very familiar with these "new" visualization workflows.

[ksobon]

from my conversation with @KatarinaWDC I learned that what would really help is ability to keep a "materials" window open at all times (modeless), so that materials can be applied without need to re-open the dialog all the time. That's the biggest bottleneck right now.

Another thing would be to allow for materials to be copied and or created.

@gschleusner that makes the first 2 points from your request a priority for this tool, but the last one didn't seem to offer any major improvement to the workflow that @KatarinaWDC preferred. Maybe @diveyj can chime in with some more info/preferences.

[diveyj]

Well, the very first thing I'd do has nothing to do with the tool, and that would be to do a complete KonMari of the Revit Materials Library: Rip it all out, and start rebuilding the materials to be put back in a way that makes them more flexible for use within Revit and beyond (ie no more procedural materials).
Second would be to get our families cleaned up and loaded with either the correct materials, or assigned correct category and sub-categories for easy control of materiality within the project.
Once we have those things done, then a tool that is modeless would be phenomenal. Not sure how much we can do to bypass the functionality of the current Materials Editor, but while it's not technically broken, it's so un-intutative that most won't use it, or use it wrong. Working with the available pieces, I can envision an interface that would make the process much less painful, but that seems like a big ask.
I assume that Greg's 3rd bullet point is in regard to the Revit families themselves, but some seem material related as well. @gschleusner , is that accurate? Otherwise we could mock up a way we'd like it to work, along with a workflow, and see if it's possible.

[ksobon]

Second would be to get our families cleaned up and loaded with either the correct materials, or assigned correct category and sub-categories for easy control of materiality within the project.

I am not sure that it makes sense to invest time into rebuilding Families with different materials if at the end of the day each project will re-assign these same materials as they wish. It's a waste of time in my book.

Not sure how much we can do to bypass the functionality of the current Materials Editor, but while it's not technically broken, it's so un-intutative that most won't use it, or use it wrong.

This is more to the tune of the conversation that we are trying to have here...with one thing to keep in mind. I love complaining about things, but we are talking about building a new tool here, so complaints about existing ones are not exactly in hot pursuit here (we wouldn't be here if we thought that the current material editor worked well). I am interested in constructive feedback and possibly suggestions about potential solutions.

Working with the available pieces, I can envision an interface that would make the process much less painful, but that seems like a big ask.

Details please. I can't tell anyone if it's a big ask if I don't know what we are talking about.

[diveyj]

To your points @ksobon

I'm not advocating re-building families, merely making sure that discreet geometry be sub-categorized properly so that it can be controlled from the project. If everything just lumped in to one sub-category (or none), then it won't mater if we have a tool to help with managing/creating materials. It would be an undertaking, but necessary imho.

Agreed, and I will take a fist pass at mocking up something that I think would be useful, and others can poke holes in it.

See above.

[KatarinaWDC]

So far the work we have done in DC was interior fit-out and lab planning - we ended up using majority of custom families and materials designed specifically for the project. Not sure if fixing our families would be worth the time. In my process the most consuming part is usually waiting for the material window to open (more materials you have in the model it takes longer, especially if you have Enscape running at the same time, even with paused live updates). Having floating material window would reduce the waiting time dramatically. This is my wish