Tricky Modeling Condition

[gsHoeflinger]

Ok all got a modeling question for you all.

I am trying 'stack' 2 walls without using the stack walls. But it's a bit more complecated than that, because of thicknesses and offset finishes. One wall has an exterior face (finish) that must extend past the second wall.

In my attached thumbnails (thumb1) the 2 walls i have created are orange and yellow.
They work fine in a straight line however when 2 of these walls intersect at 90 degrees. I get a very poor connection. (thumb2)

Any ideas? I wish to model the wall as shown, because it helps with passing information through the model to other users more correctly. I am thinking of using 2 walls with a 3 third wall as the finish but was hoping to not to do that.

Thanks

[Steve_Stafford]

...Ok all got a modeling question for you all...Did you try to change the wall join to Miter instead of butt?

[sbrown]

Try just adding an integral wall sweep to the top wall for the portion that extends below the lowerwall. This should wrap the corners fine.(note this is added in the wall construction, not the hosted sweep.)

[gsHoeflinger]

I have tried the miter vs butt. Thanks though. No luck there.

Sbrown: Are you saying to add sweep below the wall at the height required at the same thickness of the finish i wish to extend? Will you get a line?
Thats what i was hoping to do by unlocking the base constraint of the elements in the wall and 'pulling' it down.

But I'll try it out. Thanks

[gsHoeflinger]

Well i tried to add a sweep to pick up the thickness the finish so it would extend below and cover the lower wall. However, once the sweep was partially outside of the hosted wall, i got errors.

We'll keep trying on this end. Thanks though

[tamas]

I assume you used the "unlock layer" technique to achive the pulled down portion of the yellow wall.

Wall join set to miter should create proper 3D shape.

However, we do try to make the corner properly even for butt condition. Does it work if there is no wall at the bottom (the orange one is not there)?

Tamas

By the way, why don't you want the "Stacked Wall" type?

[gsHoeflinger]

Correct i used the 'unlock layer' to pull down the yellow wall.
When the lower orange wall is not there, it works fine. Also if the orange wall only extends to the bottom of the extended portion of the yellow wall it works. However, if i combine them even even with using miter join i have no luck.

The reason I haven't used stacked walls is with the base model i have here (a 6.0 upgrade) I have had a few problems with stacked walls. Occasional Revit crashes while playing with them, very WEIRD joins when i attach them to roofs, (lower fixed portions of the stacked wall construction attach to the roof and not the upper variable sections) etc.
Also i didn't think i could create an 'offset' stacked wall, with 2 different thicknesses and varying starting elevations. Can I?

[tamas]

Sorry to hear your trouble. There may be a bug with the joins in your case. I'll see if I can duplicate it.

Stacked walls do allow you to create all kind of offsets, just like the section you show here. If the subwall type has an unlocked layer, it can be pulled up or down in the stacked wall type structure. The neighbor subwall then will automatically attach to follow the shape.

I agree that stacked walls do not behave perfectly when joined, but you can always use the "Break up" command in the right click context menu. Then you are back to regular walls that are simply stacked on top of each other. It is just easier to manipulate them when placed as stacked wall.

About the stacked wall joining to roof problems. I'd like to see some examples. I think we did fix them in 8.0, but it is always good to double check in case there is another issue we have not noticed yet.

Scott's suggestion about using integral wall sweeps is a reasonable one. However it is a workaround and you may find other issues with that approach especially if you use windows, or doors around them. Wall sweeps were designed with relatively thin decorative elements in mind, so when used as a wider panel they may not behave as expected. There are some improvements in 8.0 in this area as well.

Hope this helped a bit,

Tamas

[tamas]

Galen,

I just tried to recreate your problem corner and everything worked for me in a simple case. (Either using stacked walls or regular walls.) Could you post your example so I can take a look at it?

Thanks,

Tamas

[Mr Spot]

Tamas,

I disagree with your statement about 8 and stacked walls...

[gsHoeflinger]

Tamas,

I think it may just be inherent to my model and the walls created within it.
Because when i copy those walls out of the base model and place them in a new 7.0 model, it duplicates the error. I'll attach a file for your veiwing. (sorry for the file size)

With a clean model in 7.0 with simple sample walls duplicating what i am trying to do everything appears to work fine.

[tamas]

Thanks for the file. I reported this issue as a bug.

It is related to the fact that the top height of the orange walls are above the bottom height of the yellow walls. This causes spurious wall joins to be created between yellow and orange walls. With the pulled up layer you removed the overlap, but the wall joins were already created by Revit (which is the bug).

If you change the yellow walls to start 2' 4" higher, unlock the outer layer instead of the inner and pull it down, the corner cleans up properly and you get the exact same shape..

I good way to test is to remove the bottom extension and make sure your walls do not overlap. If they do, you can expect wall join problems even if you eliminated the overlap by pulling layers, or by other means.

It is always better to start with walls that do not overlap.

Tamas

[gsHoeflinger]

Thanks i'll definately try that out today!

[patricks]

I agree with not liking the stacked walls. I recently tried using a stacked wall type to create a split-face block wainscot on a wall, but I was ALWAYS fighting with wall joins, especially when I got to 45-degree angle walls. It always seemed like I would finally get it to look right, then I would do something else and the wall join would be screwed up again. Finally I just threw my hands up and went back to a basic wall with a sweep for the wainscot.

[tamas]

Currently you can work around the stacked wall join issues if you break up the stacked wall and adjust the ends of the individual sub walls.

A tip for when you want to stack walls with different structure but the same overall width and aligned in each side faces:
In this case you can get much better performance by creating this wall type using split layers instead of the new Stacked Wall type. It may be more tedious to set up, but the resulting walls are much lighter weight.

Tamas

PS: I just finally got around fixing that pesky join problem. It will be available in a later version ;-). I am sorry, but it only reached the top of my bug pile recently.

[Michelle Gibson]

Following this thread and wondering what you mean by "unlock layer". We're doing our first Revit project and are using stacked walls, not doing too badly. I have two questions related to plan details and wall sections.

1. We have a stacked exterior wall with an interior partition butting into it. When I do a callout of the lower wall portion all the finishes wrap properly. Doing a callout of the upper portion of the wall will not wrap the finishes properly, no matter how many times I try the wall join or pull away the wall. I've checked the layers for both wall types that form the stacked wall and they are identical on the interior - same from core to interior. How do I correct this?

2. We are assuming that when we want to do a detailed section of the exterior wall with a wood truss that we have to bring the wall type up to the underside of the soffit, then use the edit profile to "cut"down each layer of the wall that does not need to extend to the underside of the soffit. Is there a way to pull or cut multiple layers at once? I find it tedious to move each layer in a complex exterior wall?

Your suggestions are appreciated.

[Michelle Gibson]

Unlock layer? I went to help file and it shows the steps, which is a great feature. Now when I try it, I can't get the padlock to appear, only the shape handle. What am I missing?

thanks,
Michelle

[tamas]

Following this thread and wondering what you mean by "unlock layer". We talked about the somewhat hidden feature of wall structures that you can get to by changing the preview of the wall type to section, zoom in the top or bottom and select an edge of a layer. Once selected, you will see a lock icon that you may unlock. Now your walls of this type will allow you to push/pull the unlocked portion. There is also a corresponding "Top Extension" and "Bottom Extension" wall instance parameter.



1. We have a stacked exterior wall with an interior partition butting into it. When I do a callout of the lower wall portion all the finishes wrap properly. Doing a callout of the upper portion of the wall will not wrap the finishes properly, no matter how many times I try the wall join or pull away the wall. I've checked the layers for both wall types that form the stacked wall and they are identical on the interior - same from core to interior. How do I correct this?
I am afraid this is the same join problem we talked about above. Your only option is to break up the stacked wall (right click/BreakUp) and only then you can adjust individual sub wall ends.



2. We are assuming that when we want to do a detailed section of the exterior wall with a wood truss that we have to bring the wall type up to the underside of the soffit, then use the edit profile to "cut"down each layer of the wall that does not need to extend to the underside of the soffit. Is there a way to pull or cut multiple layers at once? I find it tedious to move each layer in a complex exterior wall?
I am not sure I understand you correctly, but have you tried attaching the wall top to the soffit?

Hope these helped.

Tamas

[Michelle Gibson]

Thanks Tamas

With regards to either breaking up the stacked wall, I don't follow why this would help me to be able to extend only exterior layers.

The wall type is stucco on wood stud, wood truss structure. The wall type - at this time - goes up to underside of truss. I want to extend the stucco and sheathing up along the edge of the truss to underside of soffit. I don't want the core of the wall to go up above the underside of truss.

I can continue to use edit profile of each layer, but it is a bit tedious. IF I know that I am only changing that particular instance of the wall type in the section detail, then the unlock layer command would be great. IF it is going to change every instance, then I think I have to stay with my drafting section detail to get each individual condition.

Any comments?

[tamas]

Thanks Tamas

With regards to either breaking up the stacked wall, I don't follow why this would help me to be able to extend only exterior layers.

The wall type is stucco on wood stud, wood truss structure. The wall type - at this time - goes up to underside of truss. I want to extend the stucco and sheathing up along the edge of the truss to underside of soffit. I don't want the core of the wall to go up above the underside of truss.

I can continue to use edit profile of each layer, but it is a bit tedious. IF I know that I am only changing that particular instance of the wall type in the section detail, then the unlock layer command would be great. IF it is going to change every instance, then I think I have to stay with my drafting section detail to get each individual condition.

Any comments?
You are right, I assumed you wanted a horizontal clean up of layers in a plan view call out. Instead you seem to care about the vertical extension. Breaking up will not help there.

Once you unlocked the top layer in the wall type, your wall instances will not change, rather they start to have the ability to extend layers. So instead of edit profile, you can just change the "Top Extension Distance" on the walls you care about.

Of course if you have a stacked wall, you would need to unlock the top layer of the wall type used in the top sub wall.

[gsHoeflinger]

Unlock Layer refers to the ability to add grip handles to different layers of a wall, and then adjust them individually. In my example above I unlocked the layers and pulled the outside portion of the wall lower.

The way to go about this is when editing the wall structure, select the preview to be in section. Then select the layer of the wall you wish to adjust. From there in the Modify Vertical Structure choices select modify. If you zoom in you'll be able to select the bottom of the wall and "unlock" it. Now after you save this wall, you'll be able to adjust it dynamically in your models.

Hope that helps. If you want more specific info on you condition you may want to post an image or two.

[Michelle Gibson]

Thanks - I just tested it and it worked. Thank God I hadn't yet started detailing my 20 section details! The first question is completely independent of the second one. My problem is I can't get my wall join to clean up properly for both wall types in my stacked wall. Its as if the interior partition can only wrap to one wall type, not two. In fact, the wrap is not even occuring with my host wall (the wall type that shows up at my cut plane).

any thoughts?