How you you model this???

[r.grandmaison]

I have a wall that has some precast elements on a wall, in a wainscot pattern. The grout lines between the units need to be properly expressed, they can't be faked with a bitmap material. The banding has different colors as well, to complicate things- and while each course has a different color, they also have different lengths between the head joints on those precast veneer elements. Shadow lines are very important to give the banding the proper look of realism.

I have tried to do it with a wall sweep added to the structure of the wall with each course created from a different profile family, but then it seems there's no way to get the vertical head joints to appear by doing it in such a manner- mostly because it seems that you can't use a reveal on a wall sweep - the reveal only affects the host wall, not the hosted elements.

The more I use this software, the more I love it- and the more I hate it. I'm counting on you really experienced Revit modelers here to shed some light on how you approach things like this.

Anyone?

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Without seeing an image or any context the first thought that jumps to mind is the curtain wall tools.
Can you give us some idea what the end result needs to look like?

[dhurtubise]

Without seeing an image or any context the first thought that jumps to mind is the curtain wall tools.
Can you give us some idea what the end result needs to look like?

Gotta agree with that Dimitri, a picture (sketch) would help please.

[twiceroadsfool]

I have a wall that has some precast elements on a wall, in a wainscot pattern. The grout lines between the units need to be properly expressed, they can't be faked with a bitmap material. The banding has different colors as well, to complicate things- and while each course has a different color, they also have different lengths between the head joints on those precast veneer elements. Shadow lines are very important to give the banding the proper look of realism.
Anyone?

Model the entire Precast veneer as a family. If its a straight wall, you CAN go with Wall Hosted or Face Based, but since i dont know how it relates to the wall, ill hold off on that. Either as modular units, or as one larger family. You can parameterize the Materials using the Paint Tool on the different courses, even if theyre made out of the same solid and then cut out with voids.

If you have a LOT of them to do, you can make it a Line Based Generic Model, so you can make a lot of them quickly, but depending on the complexity of the jointwork/layout, youll have a bunch of constraints to figure out.

The ****** thing, is itll be a Generic model, or an equipment family, or some other category other than Walls. Or, i can send you a family template to make an .rfa for walls, but its not supported, and if it breaks your project i cant be held responsible. Doesnt seem worth it, just to control lineweights and VG categories.

[r.grandmaison]

Thanks Aaron, I'm VPN'ing into work now to dl the model. I'll post some images to give you an idea what I'm working with. I do appreciate the help - AND the helpful tone! ;)

And, fwiw, the veneer won't be always applied to a straight wall. There are time when it will be applied to an elliptical wall (yeah, from that OTHER tone thread!)!!! ;) :)

[r.grandmaison]

Gentlemen,

Here are the promised pics. The first is a handsketch illustrating the concept. Some sort of 2"+/- precast veneer courses adhered/anchored to stucco wall. Courses have different heights and alternating colors- between grey and a yellow/grey precast color. Courses also have a different head joint spacing. Head joints on yellow courses occur at a more frequent spacing than the 36" wide veneer courses. Ideally these all NEED to be adjusted on the model so that they are all symmetrical on the walls they occur on, with the same length of "end pieces" on each wall.

The second pic illustrate the scope of the project- all exterior walls wil receive some of this wainscot- though in some cases it may only be the 12" portion visible above grade.

The third pic shows you what I know can be done with SWEEPS in the STRUCTURE portion of a wall type...utterly useless to me without the ability to add vertical head joints...but handles the color banding adequately.

The fourth pic is included because I love the way Revit renders water and I want to jump into that very refreshing looking smooth surface in the pool.

[twiceroadsfool]

After seeing those, in my HONEST opinion:

I would make it as a stacked wall. With the Different basic walls for the courses, and the top one can have the embedded sweep in it for the cap. Then, i would use a family for the vertical joint. A wall hosted family that is a parameteric height. with the void. Reason being otherwise youll have to eep adjusting the heights of vertical wall reveals.

You CAN do it out of a family, but once you have to build all the trigonometry in to it to get it to array around an arc, youre not going to like Revit very much. The Stacked wall will do everything you want to do besides the vertical joints, and then you just eat the time and do that manually.

[twiceroadsfool]

By the way, im only saying use a wall hosted family and manually place the voids because you seem adament that it "cant be handled with a bitmap and surface pattern." If it was me, it would be a stacked wall, with surface patterns and a bitmapped material.

Even if the vertical joints were "random" id still do it with a bitmapped material. BUT, assuming theres an actual need for it to be "modeled," the above is how id do it.

[r.grandmaison]

Aaron,

Thanks! I think I can make your stacked wall suggestion work.

[dhurtubise]

If theyre all the same thickness why not use a split region.

[r.grandmaison]

The stacked walls are working well, at least in my inital tests. I can do the grout reveals by way of horizontal and vertical wall reveals. It's more work than I'd like to do for it, but it will get the best results.

Here's a test render:

[twiceroadsfool]

Trust me on this... Make a Wall Hosted Family for the verticals. It will only have a void in it, that cuts the wall.

When you use a vertical reveal, it defaults to full height on the wall, and youve got to pull both ends. EDIT: Or is it only cutting each basic wall when you place it... I forgot about that, its Stacked. So maybe never mind? :)

If you use the family, it can have a default height of one course, and you can place them faster.

[r.grandmaison]

Trust me on this... Make a Wall Hosted Family for the verticals. It will only have a void in it, that cuts the wall.

When you use a vertical reveal, it defaults to full height on the wall, and youve got to pull both ends. EDIT: Or is it only cutting each basic wall when you place it... I forgot about that, its Stacked. So maybe never mind? :)

If you use the family, it can have a default height of one course, and you can place them faster.

That's the beauty behind it- the reveal ONLY cuts the wall you drop it on wiithin the stack! Then it's a simple matter of arraying or copying the vertical reveals as I need them.

Same is true for the horizontal reveals...they lock in on the lower or upper edges of the "stacking" portion of the wall, so it's quite easy to snap them to their correct location.

[twiceroadsfool]

Yeah, i forgot that we had talked about Stacked Walls. When i do something similar with Basic walls, its much better as a family, since it defaults to the entire height of the *wall*, which can be a royal pain in the behind.

Glad it worked out for you. :)

[sthedens]

The attached image shows two different walls. The wall on the left has a split region with brick on the bottom and concrete on top. The wall on the right is a stacked wall with a CMU base and brick above.

In the split region wall, the vertical reveal takes whatever material is at the bottom of the wall and paints the entire reveal face with that material (probably not what you want). The vertical void family paints nothing on the reveal face.

I had to place two void families on the stacked wall (one for each wall) and then align them.

[twiceroadsfool]

Split face is an ugly tool all around, in my humble opinion. It likes to delete itself when wall joins are messed with, it means a lot of manual work and painting, and it GUARANTEES you have to do it to every one of those walls. Plus, as you mentioned, it doesnt do the reveal correctly, which gets even MORE fun depending on how many FACES the reveal has... Since you have to "paint" all of them.

I avoid that tool for everything but putting "paint" on interior walls.

[sthedens]

Split face is an ugly tool all around, in my humble opinion. It likes to delete itself when wall joins are messed with, it means a lot of manual work and painting, and it GUARANTEES you have to do it to every one of those walls. Plus, as you mentioned, it doesnt do the reveal correctly, which gets even MORE fun depending on how many FACES the reveal has... Since you have to "paint" all of them.

I avoid that tool for everything but putting "paint" on interior walls.

I did a split *region* in the wall definition, not a split face on the wall element. I didn't do any "painting", and shouldn't have used that word since is it a command in Revit. Revit just displays the surface pattern of the bottom material throughout the entire reveal on a split regioned wall.

[twiceroadsfool]

Gotcha, my mistake not reading closer as well. ive used the Split Region tool now and again, but with stacked walls i never really paid a mind. So ill deflect to you on if its efficient or not, since for me i would use the Stacked walls. :)