G**-Awful Colors

[narlee]

I checked my AutoCAD and the colors don't look "neon" on their solids. Anyone know how to make Revit colors less whacky? And, they're nearly impossible to predict. And, they look one way in plan view and quite different in 3D. I'm frequently explaining to clients not to pay attention to Revit colors...

[TroyGates]

Hard to understand what your complaint is about. Can you post a screenshot of Revit and of Autocad showing the difference?

[dhurtubise]

It's probably because of you r sun settings. Try modifying it to change the angle of incidence.

[narlee]

Hi Daniel. These images are not renderings or shadow images. Sun settings do not affect them. They are regular images.

All these images were made the same way (ctl-alt-printscreen, then paste into Paint). In each case, for Light Brown, Light Green, and Yellow, I did a Revit Pallet, a 3D, and an elevation (the second "light brown" elevation on the right contains the "light green" Revit Pallet).

BTW, 3D elevations produced the same color as 2D elevations. Revit has trouble with color fidelity in elevations and floor plans. I used to try doing floors in two different colors (one for 3D views, one for flat views), but it was too much trouble.

The color settings are NoGlow, 0 Transparency, 50 Smooth, 64 Shine. I noticed that changing the Smooth and Shine to 0 had zero effect on the 3D, but changed the "green" elevation more green and less blue, but was still way too light in tone.

Interiors, as I recall, are even worse, but my memory made have faded. I quit using interior wall colors because they were pretty bad and really just confused matters.

I did the green version in AutoCAD. Using the same RGB settings produced a darker green, which I guess is due to other factors. But, it's irrelavent as I'm bothered by the different colors displayed from the "same" color chosen. The AutoCAD image kept its color fidelity throughout (you'll have to trust me, because I had trouble making images off AutoCAD).

[dhurtubise]

I can't remember where it's coming from but it might help you :

Here is trick for getting ELEVATIONS to appear such that the RGB value of your materials show with same color in the view:

Turn on shaded with edges
Open the advance model graphics dialog from the shadow flyout (icon controls at bottom of viewframe)
Turn on shadows
Set shadow intensity to 0
Sun intensity to 80

Make a new sun and shadow setting called "true color", or something like that.
Set these values using the "directly" options:
Altitude = 90
Azimuth = 0
Relative to View = Checked

[narlee]

Thanks for the tip, Daniel. I'll try it out.

Tho in the past, I've found shadows really slow down my models, and often create unattractively dark images.

[twiceroadsfool]

Thanks for the tip, Daniel. I'll try it out.

Tho in the past, I've found shadows really slow down my models, and often create unattractively dark images.

What hes describing will definetely slow down your models, but it will not produce a dark image as the shadows themselves are set to 0.

What it will do is allow you to get closer to the actual RGB value that you intended to use, in your elevations and whatnot. We typically leave the shadows and sun settings off, and then if we want to print a shaded view with actual RGB values, we'll switch all the viewports on a sheet to this setting, and then print.

Beware though, it takes a good while to plot with the shadow settings on. (At least here, it does...)

[aaronrumple]

This is an area that ADSK needs to put some resources - rather than makeing a whole new team for "Impressions"....

We deserve the same color fidelity that Inventor users have and expect. If architects knew how well that ADSK program did materials, color shadow AND real time reflections - they would be up in arms.

[narlee]

This is an area that ADSK needs to put some resources - rather than makeing a whole new team for "Impressions"....

We deserve the same color fidelity that Inventor users have and expect. If architects knew how well that ADSK program did materials, color shadow AND real time reflections - they would be up in arms.

AGREED!

I work in real-time with clients. And, my clients aren't interested in paying for high-production-value images like VIZ-type. So, I put a premium on an ability to produce quick images that have reasonable color & material fidelity. For instance, I would be thrilled if accurender did the level it does, but quickly and not crash Revit. I played just a bit in ACAD last year and was impressed with the graphics. And, for a time-premium, VIZ render looked like it would have been great to have in Revit. In this area, Revit looks like a toy compared to ACAD.