2013 Materials Dialogue

[RevitRonin]

Does anyone else want to complain about the Materials Dialogue in 2013?

This is without a doubt the worst dialogue box in the history of Revit. The mistakes of the 2012 version have been magnified exponentially here in 2013. There is no logical hierarchy to this counter intuitiuve matrix of ambiguouse material categories, names, appearances, and
“assets” that appear in redundant lists without any explanation or evidence of their actual appearance or application in the model. Asset? Seriously?

The rumored excuse is that this was a cut and paste from AutoCAD to support material interoperability. Sounds like criminal laziness to me.

I appeal to the community to demand a DO-OVER! (please).

Thank you for listening, and sorry if this is the wrong Venue.

[sbrown]

It definately deserves a re-call election. It has had plenty of complaining reviews ever since it was first seen. I'm hopeful they heard the cry.

[Mike L Sealander]

Materials are a bit tricky in reality, and it appears they are tricky in software as well. A36 steel can have a coat of paint on it, or be sandblasted, and you might want to have it show with diagonal lines when cut in section in the model. It's pretty clear that in order to have a "material" exhibit different attributes such as appearance, strength, thermal conductivity, and a drafting poche, one needs to give each material these four independent attributes, and those attributes can then be assigned a flavor. So, every "material" that exists in Revit has a structural, rendering, drafting and thermal attribute. These are called Aspects. Each Aspect can be assigned a certain Asset. Polished Chrome is an Appearance Asset. R-19 is a thermal asset. Diagonal Hatch is a Graphics Asset. You can't assign the Diagonal Hatch asset to the Thermal aspect of a material.
It's confusing, and I agree that the interface is weak, but I think once you understand each material has four Aspects and there are four types of Assets that fit uniquely in those Aspect slots, it makes sense.

[RevitRonin]

Yes, materials are tricky, and of extreme importance in a BIM, which is why "we" must push back when Autodesk flubs the interface SOooo badly. Adding multiple tiers of vague nomenclature (to something that everyone already understood intuitively), into incoherent dialogue boxes is exactly the kind of nonsense that has made AutoCAD Architecture unusable to millions of very smart people. This "infection" needs to be cured quickly. Autodesk needs to feel the pain of a million furrowed brows, and appreciate the burden re-training people to something stupid. Revit 2013 is a weak release, and the materials debacle gives reason enough to skip it. The sky may not be falling yet, but this is a big red flag to me that the product is losing momentum in the middle of a long race.... IMHO. :-)

[LP Design]

Yeesh, I hate doing this, but... I actually prefer the 2013 materials setup PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!! :shock:

From what I can tell, the major problem with the editor is that it is not immediately intuitive. However, once you have a bit of instruction in its use, it is actually very user friendly. I was fortunate enough to go to a lunch presentation by our local Autodesk distributor specifically on the new materials interface. Since then I absolutely prefer the new setup. The 2012 version probably should have never been released since it was an attempt to do what 2013 did, but in the end just made things more confusing.

I agree with what Mike writes above about the different sets of properties, although I will admit that I really don't like the naming conventions. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of gripes about how Autodesk is running things *cough*texteditor*cough* :roll: but I think this is a move in the right direction. One of the biggest benefits in my mind is the interchangeability of materials between Revit, CAD and 3DMax. We have had huge problems in the past trying to "translate" materials across software so for us this is a big leap forward in productivity.

I would advise anyone who is having serious adjustment issues to actually get an introduction similar to the presentation I described above. It was extremely beneficial for me and I think it would be for your users as well.

Best Regards,
-LP

[Mike L Sealander]

It just takes a couple of hours of unbillable time per person to get comfortable with 2013 materials.

[patricks]

Any good websites or blog posts that run through the specifics of using that new interface? I've actually only done a single project in 2013 so far, and it was so small and simple that I didn't even need to use the Materials dialog box (existing walls and doors, added a few walls and doors, and that was it).

[nigeld]

Hi Patrick
This is a useful introduction to the 2013 materials UI:
http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2012/issue61-revit.html

[scatter]

Does anyone else want to complain about the Materials Dialogue in 2013?
Yes. Vociferously.

I didn't think it could get any worse than the botched stairs, or the program being as stable as a straw hut in a tornado... and then i opened the materials editor. jesus horatio christ what were they thinking?


Yeesh, I hate doing this, but... I actually prefer the 2013 materials setup PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!! :shock:

From what I can tell, the major problem with the editor is that it is not immediately intuitive. However, once you have a bit of instruction in its use, it is actually very user friendly.
glad you like it, but come on... user friendly? really? it's an absolute mess. multiple windows at once to accomplish one extremely basic task is an hilariously poor ui in any language.

and that's before you get to some real problems, such as not being able to update a material in your library without first transferring it to the project, replacing the original that's there, editing it, then copying it back to your library where Revit will sometimes make duplicates of the properties that make up that material. it's infuriatingly impossible to keep track of what is going on in a library of any decent size. there is absolutely no way of knowing whether a property is in use by another material so wanting to make minor changes (say decreasing the opacity slightly on a frosted piece of glass) can have effects god knows where... and just to further snafu things: it seems that sometimes the editor will arbitrarily ignore duplication of a property type and save any changes to the original, thus propagating changes to materials you are trying not to change.

i could go on for ages about the problems with the new material editor. if we've ended up with this because AD wanted uniformity across their major platforms, then they've picked the wrong base point imo - the slate editor from 3ds would have been a far better starting point. but, just like the stairs, i get what the factory are trying to do here, and unlike others, i don't have an issue with that general direction. but again, just like the stairs, the implementation in this release has been absolutely rubbish.

[LP Design]

multiple windows at once to accomplish one extremely basic task is an hilariously poor ui in any language.
I disagree with this only because I believe materials editing is NOT an extremely basic task. As described earlier, materials can have a whole number of different properties, so you do need a larger set of controls to deal with them. Again, please don't think that I am saying this is the best feature ever. I just see that it does have benefits. Probably what Adsk should have done is to have a "basic" materials editor, with an "advanced" button on it. Only after clicking advanced would this full UI open up. I dunno, I just don't think the feature justifies statements like "criminal laziness", "infection", and "absolute rubbish".

I will say that I have not run into the same kind of problems that you describe, but at the moment 2013 is not fully implemented in our firm. Maybe those issues will start cropping up, but so far my impression has been that Revit materials have been undergoing a continuous improvement over the last 3 releases. Oh well, I knew I would be in the minority on this one. :beer:
-LP

[crullier]

Funny this thread came about today. I was about to start one regarding appearances.
I understand the whole process of materials having all these different assets. It all works great if you use what autodesk provided out of the box. But what happens when you need to modify or add new appearances to a project. For example what if the client has selected a specific palette of paint etc and you want to use appearance that really represent these paints and colors.

I have found not easy way to create a new appearance other then grabbing and existing one from the autodesk library and adding it to the EDITOR (asset editor). Then when I make a change to it, it is as if the appearance gets duplicated and get put into the UNREFERENCE ASSETS LIBRARY (with-in the Asset Browser). This new asset will remain there until I added to a material. After that, every time you make a change to the appearance, Revit will create a new appearance...

Either way that is the only way that I can see to make new appearance assets.

[crullier]

additionally, if you have a gypsum wall for example, you create gypsum wall material give it a mark etc.
If you then apply paint to that gypsum, then you have to create a material "paint" with a color "appearance. This leads to great deal of replication of material for different conditions. For example, let's say that you have an office and a lobby. The gypsum in the office is painted white just like the lobby. However, the gypsum in the lobby is "impact resistant".

Ideally it would be nice to tag the materials and finishes separately


So yo can have a material tag (which tag the entire material)
and you have an appearance tag (which will tag the appearance / paint or finish)

The way it is done right now form what I see, is that you need a whole NEW material for every variation of a finish. Am I right or am I missing something?

[scatter]

no, that is essentially correct. but tbf to the factory, that's not really new. it's always been necessary to have multiple materials to do what you've just stated.

[crullier]

^ yeah, it would be interesting for the factory to think about what I suggested don't you think? especially if they are now talking about a more detailed way to define materials.

[Limbatus]

whats the best autodesk preset to use to make a light source material? i used a glass material, but i'm wondering if theres a better one? what should my emmisivity be set to?

[Limbatus]

also, how do i change the categories listed in the right column of the material browser?

[gbrowne]

I'm glad its not just me who thinks this...