Materials too light

[3dway]

Hi everyone,

I'm a kind of new Revit user. I've done three days of "training". I've partially completed three houses using revit. I've finally delivered one renovation project using Revit. I've been using for about two years on and off. I can model just about any straight forward architectural feature. I can make families that flex, and I'm starting to take advantage of parameters and shared parameters to more than just flex families (ie scheduling). All of that just for an idea of where I am with Revit.

Before Revit ever came along, I used 3ds Viz, 3d studio/MAX. When it comes to rendering and materials, I think in terms of MAX.

I don't have access to a MAX license any longer. I do own Revit, so I'm trying to make due with what I've got. I'm trying to learn Revit's / Mental Ray's rending method. One thing I'm finding is the materials are always rendered way too light and washed out when compared to the diffuse image map.

I've taken a couple of materials, opened the source image in Photoshop, saved it to a different name, then changed the lightness, saturation etc of the image, then put that image back into a new Revit material. Still way too light. For example, I made a brown anodized aluminum, I turned the image nearly black, and it renders out about the colour of light swiss chocolate.

I seem to recall something from when MAX was starting to include global illumination and radiosity that one of the channels of the image or material had to be set to black. I also tried this. I set the RGB colour to black and no change. Mental Ray seems to only use the image.

Anybody have some tips on controlling this? I just want the rendered result to reflect more closely the diffuse image maps lightness/darkness.

[cliff collins]

By default Revit usually renders with very strong exposure--esp. in daylight scenes.

Try adjusting the exposure controls to get the materials to look "right" instead of
editing the materials/maps.

cheers

[3dway]

I played with the exposure, and found that it darkens the sky too.

What I've been doing is going into my materials and pushing down the the brightness slider for the images.

The downside is that the shaded view is useless. If I'm using dark colours, the model might as well be all black.

[cliff collins]

For shaded views, have you looked at RAC 2011's Realistic Views?
They show the material maps in the viewport, ala Sketchup.

I agree, there is a balance of the brightness/contrast/saturation, etc. of the material
map, and the exposure and lighting of the scene.

Most times, the lighting has the most pronounced affect to overall rendering.
Try adjusting location, time of day, etc. as well as exposure.

The controls are much more basic in Revit than in Max, but good results are pretty easy
to achieve. Just a different set of sliders and simpler interface in Revit.

cheers

[bregnier]

For this and other reasons, I usually set the shaded view color to something other than "use render appearance for shading". Is it just a certain kind of material (metal etc) that is coming in too light or is it everything across the board? Remember that what material you choose to duplicate when making a new material is important as there are hidden settings you can't touch associated with the default materials.

[3dway]

Heh, heh. Why is "user friendly", always so, not. I have yet to find a user friendliness system that doen't just take controls out of the hands of people who are willing to research and learn their tools.

My mistake above, I said, "shaded", I should have said "realistic". My realistic view is dark. My shaded view is, well, as it's been in revit all along; kind of schematic, which I'm OK with.

Funny thing though. My realistic viewport is faster than my shaded viewport. Not sure it it's a video card thing, or what.

I'm really keen on using the actual location and sun, though I've worked for more than one architect who said, in presentation drawings, their projects are always perfectly lit from all sides. IE get that light top right in all design views... forget about the actual sun play, unless we're doing a zoning shade study.

It sounds like the answer is tweak what little can, deal with the rest, worry about the result, or use another package.

[durangodave]

I have been all over the map trying to find a solution to this exact problem, including long exchanges with revit support.
.
Bottom line: Forget about trying to use the same materials for shaded views as for rendered views.
.
You will need two entirely different sets of the same material names, saved in 2 different files, then "transfer project standards" for materials into your current project as needed.
.
Very dissapointing.
.
(as for "realistic" views. That just doesnt work at all, as everything turns pastel-light)
.

[durangodave]

And further...
I'm a little dusgusted with revit right now.
.
1. the drastic change in material colors from shaded views to rendering means a whole separate material palette is needed for each.

2. so I try to present just shaded views to my client... and the available planting families look like garbage in shaded view

3. so I try to import trees from sketchup, and many simply fail to import, or come in somewhat "broken", or have colors which I cannot modify.

4. I have put days into this. Had lots of help from support. I'm pretty sure now that revit is not meant for simple professional 3d documentation. Its either a massive push for a stellar rendering, or nothing.
.

[3dway]

I'm ok with not checking the "use render appearance for shaded view"

My problem is with how MR seems to treat procedural materials different than materials with a diffuse image map.

I've created a dark brown generic material with the RGB set to something like you'd see for a bronze anodized aluminum curtain wall mullion. The preview in the "appearance" editor looks like the colour I want. I look at the highlights and dark areas on the preview thingy which looks like a sphere with a cross around it and a hole through it. "fine, should be good" I say to myself. Render it with an exterior sun, and it renders nearly orange. I find myself turning the RGB value nearly black to get the rendered result the same as preview in the material.

Some have suggested playing with the exposure settings. I have started doing this, but what I'm finding is that Revit is not treating image based "appearances" (materials) the same way as one with an rgb value in the diffuse channel. So what's happening is, I try to play with exposure to get my "standard materials" (if it were MAX) to look better, and it's also affecting my image mapped materials. I find the exposure settings more like post image manipulation in Photoshop, which I can do in Photoshop.

I'm about to bail on the idea of using Revit for presentation drawings. I wanted a more efficient pipeline than the competition, but it's just not a competitive tool, even compared to other packages using a MR engine. I'm getting tips from people in Arch Viz forums form adjusting MR settings, which have been taken out of Revit. Gamma doesn't even turn up in the help index?

What I'm getting

[Captainkb]

I'm ok with not checking the "use render appearance for shaded view"

My problem is with how MR seems to treat procedural materials different than materials with a diffuse image map.

I've created a dark brown generic material with the RGB set to something like you'd see for a bronze anodized aluminum curtain wall mullion. The preview in the "appearance" editor looks like the colour I want. I look at the highlights and dark areas on the preview thingy which looks like a sphere with a cross around it and a hole through it. "fine, should be good" I say to myself. Render it with an exterior sun, and it renders nearly orange. I find myself turning the RGB value nearly black to get the rendered result the same as preview in the material.

Some have suggested playing with the exposure settings. I have started doing this, but what I'm finding is that Revit is not treating image based "appearances" (materials) the same way as one with an rgb value in the diffuse channel. So what's happening is, I try to play with exposure to get my "standard materials" (if it were MAX) to look better, and it's also affecting my image mapped materials. I find the exposure settings more like post image manipulation in Photoshop, which I can do in Photoshop.

I'm about to bail on the idea of using Revit for presentation drawings. I wanted a more efficient pipeline than the competition, but it's just not a competitive tool, even compared to other packages using a MR engine. I'm getting tips from people in Arch Viz forums form adjusting MR settings, which have been taken out of Revit. Gamma doesn't even turn up in the help index?

What I'm getting

We are getting half ---. It's kind of funny, it's like buying a bike that has a very round and straight front tire, but the back tire is square and bent, that = a very hard bike to ride and bumpy.

Revit will never have a presentation quality rendering engine. That is what the max/viz package is for. Wouldn't make good business sense to create a rendering engine in Revit that has the power of max, nor could the software handle it. Autodesk has sure tried to give us a better engine in MR, but they have and still will fall short of a max type engine. Revit does have the .fbx exporter to help us mad Reviteers.

Captain

[Scott D Davis]

Revit will never have a presentation quality rendering engine. ... Autodesk has sure tried to give us a better engine in MR

Its the exact same rendering engine. mental ray is the same engine in Revit, Max, Inventor, and AutoCAD in the 2011 products. The difference is in the level of control one has over the mental ray materials in Max compared to the others.

But the rendering engines are the same. I've seen plenty of "presentation quality" renderings from Revit.

[Captainkb]

Its the exact same rendering engine. mental ray is the same engine in Revit, Max, Inventor, and AutoCAD in the 2011 products. The difference is in the level of control one has over the mental ray materials in Max compared to the others.

But the rendering engines are the same. I've seen plenty of "presentation quality" renderings from Revit.

Opps your absolutely right, same engine, makes a lot of sense, why give all the controls to the Reviteers also? Make them buy Max! Good business! smart I say! sneaky thou, back door type, ah haaa moment.

I could stop if I wanted too.

[narlee]

Its the exact same rendering engine. mental ray is the same engine in Revit, Max, Inventor, and AutoCAD in the 2011 products. The difference is in the level of control one has over the mental ray materials in Max compared to the others.

But the rendering engines are the same. I've seen plenty of "presentation quality" renderings from Revit.

I agree. Revit images can be pretty good, especially for a piker like me. It's the speed (or lack of) that's a killer for me personally. So, it's interesting (I guess that's the word) that Max has the same engine? Maybe there's a speed governor on it, like in the go-cart places? :)

[Scott D Davis]

I agree. Revit images can be pretty good, especially for a piker like me. It's the speed (or lack of) that's a killer for me personally. So, it's interesting (I guess that's the word) that Max has the same engine? Maybe there's a speed governor on it, like in the go-cart places? :)

Prior to Revit 2011, there was a "governor" on Revit rendering....it was limited to 4 cores. This limitation is gone in the 2011 release. Now, with that in mind, Max can still render faster in most case because its a tool made specifically to handle rendering. Revit, on the other hand, is a tool for designing and documenting building design, and it has a rendering engine included. Rendering is not Revit's primary capability.

Max also has BackBurner capabilities...turn your network into a render farm for free.

Most Revit users want a simple push-button type renderer...they don't want to deal with "modifiers" or "specularity" or "diffuse maps". So the renderer in Revit is simplified, to be "So easy a caveman (or architect) can do it!" Those that need more capabilities, need to use Max. If we added many tools from Max into Revit, it would complicate rendering inside of Revit to a level where many would not use it at all. It's intended to be simple enough to use as a design tool as much as it is a presentation tool.

[redfish]

My problem is with how MR seems to treat procedural materials different than materials with a diffuse image map.

I've created a dark brown generic material with the RGB set to something like you'd see for a bronze anodized aluminum curtain wall mullion. The preview in the "appearance" editor looks like the colour I want. I look at the highlights and dark areas on the preview thingy which looks like a sphere with a cross around it and a hole through it. "fine, should be good" I say to myself. Render it with an exterior sun, and it renders nearly orange. I find myself turning the RGB value nearly black to get the rendered result the same as preview in the material.



This is exactly why I'm moving away from Revit rendering. Preview material is often significantly different than rendered material, and I spend entirely too much time editing materials to look correct with a given light scenario.

The removal of the core limit is certainly a welcome enhancement and has helped decrease overall render time.

[Scott D Davis]

The preview in the "appearance" editor looks like the colour I want. I look at the highlights and dark areas on the preview thingy which looks like a sphere with a cross around it and a hole through it.

You can change the preview of the material to many different scenarios: corner of a buidling, on a sphere, draped over a chair, etc. These previews are actually rendered by mental ray on the fly for the preview window. They take a single light source into account, and obviously can't display all lighting options. They are meant to give an idea of what the material might look like, but the best test is to try it on your project by rendering a region at low or medium quality to quickly test the look of the material.

[narlee]

Prior to Revit 2011, there was a "governor" on Revit rendering....it was limited to 4 cores. This limitation is gone in the 2011 release. Now, with that in mind, Max can still render faster in most case because its a tool made specifically to handle rendering. Revit, on the other hand, is a tool for designing and documenting building design, and it has a rendering engine included. Rendering is not Revit's primary capability.

Max also has BackBurner capabilities...turn your network into a render farm for free.

Most Revit users want a simple push-button type renderer...they don't want to deal with "modifiers" or "specularity" or "diffuse maps". So the renderer in Revit is simplified, to be "So easy a caveman (or architect) can do it!" Those that need more capabilities, need to use Max. If we added many tools from Max into Revit, it would complicate rendering inside of Revit to a level where many would not use it at all. It's intended to be simple enough to use as a design tool as much as it is a presentation tool.

I didn't realize there was to speed than the engine. Don't understand, but take your good word for it, Scott. Re the simple-push button, so true, including for me. I just always thought all those Max modifiers had nothing to do with speed. But, I was wrong once before...so long ago, I don't remember, tho...

[trombe]

Hi,
adjunct to this discussion is about the client changing materials again and again throughout the design phase stages and even up to immediately prior to purchase, such that the value of rendering engines and their importance in the design flow for small and sole practices has risen sharply over the past 3 years.
I wonder how many people around the world in small and sole practices have effective contractual agreements in place to provide for rendering services, and manage to give effect to those , versus client expectations about getting rendered content by default (now) because they know we can and, (as with the discussion) the iterating of materials for rendering or non rendered views.

I would not expect to show a client views from the "realistic" or "consistent colour" modes in Revit without expressing the view that these are at best, broadly indicative and for discussion only.
For my means, HL and shaded are very good tools and renders , while critical tools now, are still a finishing kind of touch because I am still not happy enough with the output but it is super compared with pre-2009 and way better in 2011 than earlier versions.

I guess I struggle to equate reliance on rendered imagery and any of the qualities of colour / color for materials with a real situation since in reality right now, most of us are not in the position of having dedicated rendering facilities and specialists to run them, and the time component is still so huge for the top end stuff that it is really a managed process of output quality lower down the food chain. At this point. washed out colours / colors is still much less of any kind of issue in terms of client expectations when it is the architectural quality / qualities that should be the overarching focus.
Colour boards still reign and manufacturer RGB values are still not able to be achieved from Revit if for no other reasons that the printing hardware and software are not up to the task either or instead.

I think Revit is doing a much better job with colours than before...but my printer has not got any better.
trombe

[narlee]

Most of my clients think photo-realistic rendering is a bonus, but most not wanting to pay for it. Even the big boys don't do a lot of it. My drawings, even without rendering, are so much better than what comes out of the big offices, it's not funny. I want to use renderings as a competitive advantage (which is why they MUST be efficient), as well as I love doing a great job. After all, who's in this for the money?:)

[thomas.163390]

Bottom line: Forget about trying to use the same materials for shaded views as for rendered views.



Why?! The materials for shaded views has nothing to do with materials you set for rendered views.

[durangodave]

Why?! The materials for shaded views has nothing to do with materials you set for rendered views.
...except for the "Use render appearance for shading" option.
and
the option to use the same sun settings, which should offer some sort of consistency between rendered and shaded views.
.
Instead, the rendered colors behave wildly different from shaded colors. Dark brown becomes light tan in weak sunlight.
.

[narlee]

I think the Realistic View is very useful, and expect future releases will provide improve the quality/consistency of the feature, because nice as it is, it isn't "there" yet.

[narlee]

...Like those disappearing edges...!! (Hear me Factory :)).

[keyp]

Thank Goodness I am not the only one unhappy with this!

I had a project the client kept asking about different colors and I knew I could not produce a rendering true to the color we had in our hand- a smokey blue/became a washed out baby blue. It was embarrasing when he told me the paint brand itself had a website that he could load a drawing and see the colors.

I thought Accurender did a much better job of not washing out the colors.

It does seem to me that the solid paint colors tend to wash out more than the wood tones.

[chriskline2007]

I have been rather frustrated with this same issue over the past several days. My exterior renderings in Revit 2010 appear very "washed out", at least initially. The colors of the materials are nothing like what you see in the materials dialogue box, even using the image preview. What I am finding is that you have to set the render appearance material VERY dark, compared to the color you are trying to achieve once your view is rendered. In addition, I have to adjust the exposure to be considerably darker. Yes, this darkens the entire scene (I wish you could leave the sky and background alone), but the results are a little more realistic.

It is difficult to convince my colleagues to use Revit for any renderings when SketchUp can produce rather good looking renderings (using an inexpensive external rendering software), with better entourage (thanks to the FREE well-stocked Google 3D warehouse), and minimal setup time.

Yeah, I know. "Buy Max for another few grand". Most small companies just don't have an extra few grand to invest in software right now. Revit, for the cost, should have the contrast issues worked out so the rendering feature can compete with free programs out there.

-CK

[cliff collins]

These renderings are 100% Revit--no Photoshop or 3dsMax.

Produced in RAC 2010.

We have found that you just have to use Custom Render settings and/or
adjust the exposure--little or no tweaking of materials. The lighting is more critical
than fussing with material maps in Photoshop or inside of Revit.

Just my 2 c worth.

cheers

[sbrown]

You also might want to adjust your saturation setting after or before the rendering. I really like the quality we can achieve. Here is a recent. 100% revit except background.

[cherrmann]

I find it rather interesting how threads can get off topic sometimes and assistance is lost.

I have been having the same issue for the past three days. The preview of the material in the editor does not match the rendered appearance. Am I missing something, or did someone answer this question earlier in the thread and I didn't catch it. Is there a setting I need to configure to get my rendered materials to match the preview in the editor?

[cliff collins]

The preview in the Material Editor does NOT have the same lighting and render settings
as your actual camera view in the project, so the two will never match exactly. There is no setting to make this so. The preview is just there to give you a quick impression of how the material may look in "default lighting". ( I believe Scott Davis mentioned this fact in his reply.)

So--we are not "getting off track"--we are explaining that there is no 1 to 1 literal equivalence with the preview and actual rendering, so you must learn by experience to adjust the render settings and exposure to get the materials to read correctly.

My personal experience has been to use exposure controls and render settings to get the desired results, and NOT spend a lot of time making major adjustments to the Material maps and settings.

cheers

[cherrmann]

Thanks for replying Cliff.

I guess I got sucked to far into the materials blackhole that I can't get any of my colors even close to the preview. I understand that the editor preview is not going to match my exact rendering, but I would hope it would be somewhat close to it. I am not using the building location for my rendering, but just the sun settings from top left to simplify the look.

Here's another question. I was reading that materials from earlier versions of Revit might not work in 2011. My template has been evolving from a Revit 2009 file and there have been multiple materials imported in to the file that no longer have any image or colors assigned. Everything is generic gray. How do I know if Revit 2011 is pointing to the correct materials folder? Under options> rendering tab, there are no additional render appearance paths. Should the main Revit 2011 materials path be listed here?

Thanks for your assistance!

[cliff collins]

As I recall, RAC 2011 has incorporated new Mental Ray Protein 2 Materials ( Adesk Materials, which are now common to Acad, Revit, 3dsMax and Inventor ).

So--I believe you are correct that "legacy" materials from older versions may or may not
"translate" correctly if a project is upgraded to 2011.

cheers

[aaronrumple]

Revit users interested in color should look at this:
http://www.gijsdezwart.nl/tutorials.php

Unless someone at the factory has better information, this is how Revit uses the mental ray engine:>
Revit and Max use the same rendering engine (which is linear). However, based on what I've been able to tell, Revit doesn't and can't use a linear workflow. Revit also doesn't have the settings that Max does to "Affect Color Selectors" and "Affect Material Editors". These options allows Max to display the material preview correctly.

The washed out colors in the selector isn't a "lighting" issue. It is a gamma issue. You get the exact same thing in Max if you setup your gamma wrong.

Jpegs are using a gamma corrected curve. The need to be de-gamma'ed for mental ray as it work in linear space. Then once mental ray is done a gamma curve is then applied to put the image back in sRGB color space. Revit does none of this other than adjust the saturation of the final image. Which helps, but isn't a real linear workflow for predictable color manageemnt.

The only way you could get Revit to be color correct is to feed it maps formated without gamma. You could do that before in Photoshop, but it would be a real pain.

Revit should make LWF automatic and the standard way of working and include HDR and EXR output formats.. Otherwise, as Cliff has stated - you just guess.

[mcaddc]

I too have encountered the same issue with Revit not reproducing the colours appropriately. Having cursed at this for problem for quite some time, I discovered that if you lower the material brightness from the default "100" to around 80 and lower, you will achieve a more accurate reproduction. Hope that helps somewhat!

[bbaughman]

Revit users interested in color should look at this:
http://www.gijsdezwart.nl/tutorials.php

Unless someone at the factory has better information, this is how Revit uses the mental ray engine:>
Revit and Max use the same rendering engine (which is linear). However, based on what I've been able to tell, Revit doesn't and can't use a linear workflow. Revit also doesn't have the settings that Max does to "Affect Color Selectors" and "Affect Material Editors". These options allows Max to display the material preview correctly.

The washed out colors in the selector isn't a "lighting" issue. It is a gamma issue. You get the exact same thing in Max if you setup your gamma wrong.

Jpegs are using a gamma corrected curve. The need to be de-gamma'ed for mental ray as it work in linear space. Then once mental ray is done a gamma curve is then applied to put the image back in sRGB color space. Revit does none of this other than adjust the saturation of the final image. Which helps, but isn't a real linear workflow for predictable color manageemnt.

The only way you could get Revit to be color correct is to feed it maps formated without gamma. You could do that before in Photoshop, but it would be a real pain.

Revit should make LWF automatic and the standard way of working and include HDR and EXR output formats.. Otherwise, as Cliff has stated - you just guess.
Aaron's de-gamma solution just saved me HOURS of frustration. A quick correction in Photoshop for the one custom laminate I have and my interiors look perfect. Thank you, thank you, thank you!