Why massing is broken in 2010

[Wes Macaulay]

The 2010 massing tools, while quite impressive, have one incredible, massive flaw which has been widely reported since the beta: if you need to change the shape of the form beyond what the form allows, you'll have to recreate the form. Of course, to do that you'll need to add new lines to create the new form because the original lines were subsumed into the original form (unless you used reference lines). And then, all the walls, floors and roofs based on the original form cannot be updated and have to be DELETED to make way for the walls, roofs and floors on the new form! Doors, windows, tags, dimensions... b'bye! All gone!

In 2009, each wall / floor / roof was associated with a face of the massing form. If you changed the sketch of a blend so one end has one segment of the sketch changed from a line to an arc, you'd only have one or two walls that would be orphaned by that change, because you were keeping the original mass solid -- you were just changing a few lines in the sketch.

In 2010, the whole form would have to be recreated, so ALL walls, floors and roofs associated with the form would have deleted and re-added. This is so incredibly un-Revit like that it floors me (no pun intended) that 2010 was released with this functionality.

Be warned! And maybe don't even use 2010 if your design process uses massing heavily. Ours doesn't fortunately, because I would be livid instead of just dumbfounded.

[twiceroadsfool]

Agreed. The new quasi-push-pull form editor is a nice addition... If it WAS an addition. As a replacement of the iterative processing of Masses, its dangerous. Plus, the original shape makers should remain, in the Mass editor.

I went to in-place a form for a Schematic Design Skylight system, and it bit me in the rear end (which was fitting, considering i squalk about NEVER using in-place). I had forgotten i could no longer make a sweep in the old workflow, and then had to figure out the order of operations necessary to sketch the profile and the path, and then get it to make the right form.

[mbeham]

Another issue i have noticed, maybe its just me, but when you create a mass with curves and extrude up, then use wall by face, you cant add a curtain wall to a curved face. Just curved not even sloped and curved. It says "Wall type "Curtain Wall 1" [or storefront or any other] is incompatible with picked face. Only basic wall types are accepted" which is crazy because in 2009 i could do exactly that. Is there something i'm missing or does it just not work.

[brethomp]

I agree. This new massing tool is a huge step backwards for anyone that used the old massing tools. It is nice that is can make the new shapes, but the loss of all of the sketch based tools makes design iteration very difficult. Instead of simply modifying a sketch, you are now required to delete the "form" and create a new one from scratch.

Thankfully you can still use the old tools in 2010, by importing a mass created in 2009.