Modeling advice: walls with reveals vs in-place families

[tim.101799]

I am looking for some advice from some of the more experienced revit users. I am currently imputing an existing 27 story high rise into Revit for a current project. The building shell is entirely made up of pre cast conc. modules (see the attached image). I modeled the window units as individual components and copied them up. But I am not sure of the best way to model the corner buttresses. Currently I have them drawn as revit walls, and I was starting to put reveals in them as shown in the attached image. But this is taking to long. So now I am thinking of making a family or in-place family for the buttresses and copy them up as well. The reveals will automatically be generated at the buttress joints as they are copied up wards. In my mind this would be much faster and efficient. Are there any down sides to this approach?

[Wes Macaulay]

Create a wall style that has the reveal built-in (look at a Section preview of the wall in the Wall Properties box to do this). Create the walls as single storey walls and copy the walls up to each storey...

[truevis]

You can also get an effect like that with a curtain wall by making the front of your "mullions" (which can be concrete) be offset back from the front of your concrete panels.

[cliff collins]

The in-place families will be alot more individual objects to manage--
putting them into the wall itself as a reveal would be more efficient.
This will work great for horizontal reveals like you have.

The only problem we have had with this approach is what about vertical reveals?
Can't find a way to build them into the wall itself? Anyone chime in on this?

cheers.....

[tim.101799]

Create a wall style that has the reveal built-in (look at a Section preview of the wall in the Wall Properties box to do this). Create the walls as single storey walls and copy the walls up to each storey...


This suggestion worked great! Thanks for the help.

Tim Mailloux
Tecton Architects

[mmc]

If you're not doing 3d details at a very large scale, I would recommend just using model lines instead of reveals...much faster and just as visually effective if you're showing overall building elevations. Also, if your components that you're copying and pasting up the building are identical, it would be wise to use groups in case you need to edit. See this thread: http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=34548

[dbaldacchino]

The only problem we have had with this approach is what about vertical reveals?
Can't find a way to build them into the wall itself? Anyone chime in on this?
Truevis' suggestion should work for your case. See below:


You can also get an effect like that with a curtain wall by making the front of your "mullions" (which can be concrete) be offset back from the front of your concrete panels.
Your Mullions can be the reveals (or bump-outs) in any direction, any size, even at an angle. You can set up a curtain wall that is type driven with spacings if you want, or you can just place the reveals by adding grids wherever you need. Your panels would be concrete instead of glazing, and the reveals also concrete instead of aluminum. Curtainwalls are very flexible.

[truevis]

If you're not doing 3d details at a very large scale, I would recommend just using model lines instead of reveals...much faster and just as visually effective if you're showing overall building elevations...
One can do that, but the model lines don't render. (Been there, fixed that.)