rendering materials

[MikeJarosz]

I have been using Revit since 2004, but in all that time I have never used Revit for presentation rendering. Finally the time has come, and things aren't working out right. I have quite a bit of millwork that will have oak veneer. I created the families myself, mostly cabinets and shelving, and assigned white oak finish from the default materials library. The appearance tab in the materials browser shows a great wood grain pattern, but when I run the rendering, all I get is a solid color. I tried fiddling with the many settings, one at a time, (I have no idea what some of them control) and rerun the rendering. I've tried every resolution from draft to best and still only solid color. I know I'm halfway there because I modeled the cabinets to be a light green paint color and after the rendering they turn into the RGB color of the white oak sample. But I can't find what controls texture. I have seen photorealistic interiors done with Revit and I'm green with envy, especially because I can't seem to achieve the same results!

What am I missing?

[Revitaoist]

That's going to be tough to troubleshoot without the files. I recommend a test render with the defaults, default template and families. That's a good way to isolate the problem. I'll wager it's how the families were created. Are you assigning the material parameters in family editor, then assigning those family parameters to materials in the project? Also there are a lot of option in material editor by double clicking the image.

[BillB_UH92]

Hi Mike
Sometimes I have adjusted the "size" of the bitmap in the material for good results...
You may have already tried this:
In materials editor: open the material, click Appearance Tab, click on the "image" showing the bitmap; then in the dialog box you can adjust the "X" and "Y" size of the bitmap - larger size means the grain will be "rougher" or more easily visible.
Good luck...
You can also swap out the bitmap for another; Archvision has lots...

[rbcameron1]

Couple things. I had one install of Revit 2016 go back where the Material Library didn't fully install. I had to copy folder 2 and 3 into the root to fix it.
Do you have a screen shot of the material browser you could post? Both the main screen and the two tabs of the material you're using.

My initial guess is that either you have no assigned a wood grain pattern to it and/or you just have a color, no textures in the "material browser - Appearance - Generic - Image" click on the downward arrow to go to the texture editor and change those values.



Digressing slightly from your question:
Just wait until you get to the wood grain direction patterns!

I'll post what I do for that sometime this month (I hope!)

Here's how I name materials:

Material Type - Specific Category - Coloration - Unique Property


Wood - White Oak - Dark Stain - Horizontal Grain
Wood - White Oak - Dark Stain - Vertical Grain
Wood - White Oak - Dark Stain - Planar facing (veneer)
Metal - Steel - Clear Finish - Handles

And yes, for full rendering effect, it does require three materials with different material settings.

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