Soliciting Input for Revit 6 Tutorials

[brittany.fortin1768]

I'm almost afraid to open this can of worms, however, I'm going to trust that you all will provide me with some thought-provoking and valuable input.

Specifically, I'm rewriting the majority of the "Getting Started" tab of the online tutorials that ship with the product. There will be a one solid project based tutorial along with several tutorials covering system and project settings.

In addition, I'm considering adding a tutorial on how to create your office template, however, I haven't seen anything regarding this issue on any of the newsgroups. The issue has been brought up in the Revit Basics Placeware training, so I thought there was a need. However, because I haven't seen any discussion of the issue, I suspect there may not be a need and I can redirect my energy elsewhere.

So I'm asking those of you who have been using the product:

1) Do you think an online tutorial called, "Creating Your Office Template" woulld be useful?

2) What tutorials would you consider useful in the "Getting Started" tab?

3) In general, if you could ask for one new tutorial, what would it be?
(Yeah, there's Pandora's box!)

Thanks for the input! :D

Regards,
Brittany Fortin
Autodesk Revit Technical Writer

[Martin P]

I think something that I would have found useful when I was getting started would have been some general advice on really basic stuff like sensibly naming your levels, making good use of duplicating views, when to use a model/drafting line, when to use a grid/ref plane - not really how the tools work, more a general idea of when they are best used or not. Hope that makes some kind of sense!!

though there are no real rules for this kind of stuff, it is the type of thing that once I had worked out I felt a lot happier using Revit.

[BomberAIA]

I think setting up a template for your office is a great idea. Also need the steps to create a multifamily project w/ different unit types & building types. That's my $.02.

[gregcashen]

1) Do you think an online tutorial called, "Creating Your Office Template" woulld be useful?

Yes. I think you don't hear too much about it because in the rush to complete projects, some of these things get left behind. It would have been great to have a tutorial like this when I started out.


2) What tutorials would you consider useful in the "Getting Started" tab?

Complex roof joins. Roof cuts by other roofs.


3) In general, if you could ask for one new tutorial, what would it be?

I would like to see a tutorial that covers a majority of the major features of the program in one tutorial. Take a single small residential building and model it from the ground up, including sitework, annotations. I would have loved this when I started out. It would be way more useful than a bunch of disconnected tutorials on individual features.

I realize there is something like this in the getting started booklet that comes with it, but it is not complete and ignores the most important things, like how to do foundations, for instance. It needs to be comprehensive and focus on best practices.

just my $0.02

[rodneyf]

1) Do you think an online tutorial called, "Creating Your Office Template" woulld be useful?
Yes definitely!!


2) What tutorials would you consider useful in the "Getting Started" tab?
Creating foundation plans, roof plans, and electrical plans.


3) In general, if you could ask for one new tutorial, what would it be?
I have to think on this one and get back to you.

Thanks,

[gregcashen]

Ooh, yeah. Electrical plans. That's a good one! And framing plans.

[PeterJ]

I suspect that for many people, like me, the office template is a back burner project. I constantly find myself wasting time creating generic levels and print settings, locating a favoured door and so on. Its not that I don't know how to do it (now) its just been sidelined by other work. Having a very early tutorial in how to do this would have saved me a lot of time and no doubt would be very useful to many new users.

I've been with Revit too long now to really recall what would have been most use at the 'Getting Started' stage but it would be nice if the tab led to a compiled help file rather than a pdf file. Having said that the pdf you have at present relates to a simple new build a side by side example of an pgased project would be very useful to explain how refurb can be handled.

The thing I think would be most useful in terms of a new tutorial would be an 'advanced family creation' line, nesting, arrays, variable detail levels, incorporated drafting details and so on. All stuff that is out there but sometimes tough to get to grips with.

Hope that helps. The idea of upsetting the queen of the Amazons doesn't appeal too much.

P

[cmvdesigns]

Greg-

Love the idea of taking a residential house and building it from the ground up (well, below the ground, for foundation :wink: )

Scott Onstott has an excellent training CD, but uses a commercial building. Still a great tool for a newbie like me.

[brittany.fortin1768]

PeterJ:

I was stunned to see you knew about Penthesilea! Ever since I read Virgil's, "Aeneid", I've been taken with the name.

If I get a dog, which I may do soon, I'll have to name her, Penthesilea.

However, it just doesn't flow off the tongue when calling her at the beach!

[Wes Macaulay]

Peter's up on his books - no doubt there!

And no worries on the name - easily shortened to "Penny". Cool name tho - might have considered it myself for one of my kids, though I think Ben and Graham would be happier with their current names.

[brittany.fortin1768]

So, based on what I've heard thus far, a tutorial on creating an office template will not be wasted. That's good news.

In addition, I'll include a lot of practical information within that tutorial regarding naming conventions, tips and tricks, etc.

From the sound of it, a project based tutorial taking a residential house from the ground up would be most useful in the Getting Started tab of the tutorials. Is that the consensus? I was leaning towards a commercial building, however, I am beginning to be swayed.

Just so we are all talking about the same thing, I am not talking about the "Getting Started" pdf that is found on the HELP menu. That is a seperate document. I am talking explicitly about the Tutorials accessed from the Help menu.

On the Getting Started tab, there are two projects that have been around for a while. I intend to write a single, more comprehensive tutorial using more up to date techniques.

I am starting to lean towards a residential project after reading the feedback. I'll put together a bulleted outline of things that will be covered in the tutorial and post it here for feedback.

And thank you all for the feedback. Sometimes it pays to go directly to the source!

- Britt

[timothyj67]

Okay can I put my $.02 in...

1.I would love to have a framing command such as Chief Architect has..
The ability to have 3d framing would be so beneficial to the builder in the field so that when a plan is printed they can get a better understanding of the framing or structural work they are going to do.

2.Electrical symbols and other architectural symbols that are basic bundled with the program.

3.a right click pan command, and middle mouse command...
such as redo,undo,exit!

4....give me a minute...



timOthy

[gregcashen]

I am starting to lean towards a residential project after reading the feedback.

Scott Onstott has a tutorial that can be purchased that deals with commercial stuff. I have found that commercial work tends to be more straightforward in Revit.

As such, I think the residential walk-through would be helpful to a lot of people who pick Revit as a better choice than, say Softplan or Chief Architect, since this tutorial does not already exist.

[hand471037]

One big thing I've noticed from users migrating from other 3D CAD systems is at first they want to use in-place families for everything. Not really understanding Revit, it's the first thing that works a little like what they were using before, so they turn to them first off. Hence they have a hard time with Revit, because they don't understand how to use which objects where.

If there was a tutorial in the 'getting started' tab that outlined what the different objects within Revit are for, and when to use in-place families (as in, make it obvous that it's a last resort- not really, but you know what I mean), I think it would go a long way for migrating users. This kinda ties into the 'working practices' above; but would go beyond when to use what kind of line and would extend more into proper family application.

[designer56644]

As a user that's going through the curve right now, I also think a residential tutorial would be super benifical. A good, well rounded, comlex, multi level (e.g. F.F.) residential tut. would certainly have helped me.

Moreover, a gathering of the concepts into one continuous tutorial would be greatly appreciated. Jumping from model to model is nutty, and incomplete concepts, doing commands without being taught why, etc. have left me likewise fragmented as I work through my first couple of projects in the program.

Also, our sister arch. product "seems" to have alienated itself from the residential marketplace. I hope Revit does not, as it is a market that is wide open, and would be an area that Autodesk could tap into and greatly increase Revit's seat base. As a designer, I personally know many that are choosing Softplan and Chief Arch. over any Autodesk prod. Rational?...see "residential construction starts".

[Kroke]

Ooh, yeah. Electrical plans. That's a good one! And framing plans.

Ditto that.

Basically a job from start to finish would be key.

[Steve_Stafford]

I agree that a residential focus is smart, but not to the detriment of a commercial building. I believe both methodologies are important enough to do well.

I also believe that a good opening statement, "Why use this feature?" for each feature is a good way to explain the intent of a tool, even though some are "self-evident" perhaps. Then a discourse into how to actually use it follows.

My thoughts, thank you for asking!!

[bclarch]

First off, thanks for asking. It is nice to know that the collective experience of this group is perceived to be a valuable resource.

I think that most offices are concerned with two things when they implement CAD either initially or when changing software programs.
1. How quickly can we get up to speed?
2. How can we make the drawings conform to our established standards?

If you keep these two things in mind I think it will help guide your efforts.

When we first started with Revit we were provided with a white paper or implementation guide that addressed setting up an office template. You may wish to get your hands on a copy of it if you don't already have one. It appeared to be very comprehensive and useful. I say "appeared" because I skimmed through it and never really refered back to it (not something a technical writer likes to hear I imagine) because we were more concerned with seeing if the software would meet our needs than with the setup details. If I remember correctly, some of the following items were included in the above document. Some may also seem obvious but I am trying to think of someone starting from scratch.


With the above caveats in mind here is my take on items to be included in the "Creating Your Office Template" tutorial. (In no particular order.)

1. Setting up line weights and styles, including a discussion on the differences between the behavior of model & drafting lines.
2. Fill pattern creation, including a discussion on the differences between the behavior of model & drafting patterns.
3. Text style set up.
4. Dimension type set up.
5. Creating custom annotation items. (Section heads, drawing titles, elevation markers, door & window tags, etc.)
6. Creating a titleblock.
7. Clear explanation with examples of how views placed on sheets are affected by scope boxes, cropping and view depth settings.
8. Advice on which families to include in the basic template. Family creation itself needs to remain a separate tutorial.
9. Discussion of strategies for using underlays and backgrounds to make full use of the parametric nature of the drawings. (Creating electrical plans, framing plans, etc.)
10. When to use the linework tool.
11. Basic introduction to worksets including the value of worksets in a single user environment (Aaron that's your cue:) and as worksets relate to items 7 & 9 above.

That's it off of the top of my head, although I am reserving the right to edit at a later date. :)

Thanks again for listening.

[Les Therrien]

A tutorial for a full residential project would be the way to go since commercial is usually straight forward. By doing a residential project, you could kill some of the other complex issues such as foundations, complex roof joins, multiple level floor plans.... Perhaps a victorian styled house with a wrap porch, sunken living room and full basement with a main floor height of approx. 30" above grade level. (this would have turned me on!) I bought Scott Onslott's CD which is excellent, but I'm a residential designer!
If people could master these skills then I feel they'd be better prepared to use Revit.

[jbalding48677]

OK, I will jump in on this very hot topic.

1) Do you think an online tutorial called, "Creating Your Office Template" would be useful?

The importance of a template file is HUGE for any office. I proposed a session on it for AU. It was not selected, but that doesn’t mean it is not important. Brittany, Chris Fox and I are writing a book and there is a full section devoted to templates. Chris has done and excellent job of putting together an exercise on the topic. We might want to talk about it, call me if you would like to discuss. The short answer to this is YES.

2) What tutorials would you consider useful in the "Getting Started" tab?

There’s a million and one tutorials you could choose for this. I don’t think the actual tutorial is critical. The content is what is critical. Covering as many topics and techniques in a clear and concise manner is going to be the issue. Too many tutorials give you step by step instructions on what to do but don’t explain the implications of these steps. I realize page count is a consideration for the books (ours in particular); however, you will not have that to deal with.

3) In general, if you could ask for one new tutorial, what would it be?

One tutorial – Tough one, initially residential comes to mind, however, I think that a commercial application would be better exercise. You could cover most if not all of the techniques required to conquer any residential solution while reaching out to a majority of architects, not to mention help remove the stigma that, “Revit is only for residential” or “Revit can’t handle the big stuff”. Besides that there are tools that are better suited for commercial that I can not see using in residential, so you could expose more of Revit in a commercial application.

My .02

[Steve_Stafford]

How about a "blend", A res-com project if you will. A project doesn't have to be a "house" to use some residential construction methods.

Z's adult living communities could pony up to that concept right Z? Scott Brown's too for that matter.

A blend would cover em all plus (warning: serious mode off) we could maybe design it so it could qualify for the back page of The Old House Journal?? (re-muddling, or a bad blend of styles, you know a International style building with a craftsman style entrance) I could do that, Z couldn't... :lol:

[Urban D]

I am just starting with Revit and setting up an office template tutorial would be great.

As for families, I agree with Jeffrey's comments above.

Residential is my area of work.

[wjspence]

I think the debate over whether to have a residential or commercial tutorial is answered simply. Do both. Both are needed for, well, lots of reasons that probably will vary with the user and the needs of the practice. For me, a commercial tutorial is more beneficial since that will be my first project in Revit. Just having a residential tutorial as the main beginning learning device could easily give the wrong impression to some architects regarding the nature of the program and its power. Visa versa if the tutorial is commercial. Having tutorials for both, I think, reveals more of the possibilities of the program.

Speaking of possibilities, I did the online cost estimating review seminar on Monday. WOW!!! :lol: Talk about revealing possibilites! Revit is flat amazing in the things you can use it to do.

I would like to second the request for worksets and add a request to add instruction in setting up projects to have multiple buildings referenced together.

Thanks for asking for our input.

[gregcashen]

Yeah, but given that there is a commercial cd tutorial available (albeit for a price of $100) from scott onstott, and that I could only post my 1 most desired tutorial, I figured residential was the way to go. There simply is nothing like it and rather than have 2 commercial tuts out there, we could all be happy...smiley happy people...happily slaving away in front of computers for days on end without any indication that the sun still exists :D Both would be better :!:

[GS Fulton]

1) Do you think an online tutorial called, "Creating Your Office Template" woulld be useful?

Yes, very for people starting out. I struggled with it for a while until I downloaded a template from one of the two Chris's (Y or Z). That was when the light went on and I make huge leaps in productivity. It wasn't just using the new template, it was mostly seeing what could be done. The tutorials had very little about that. Also, the tutorials dutifully explain step by step how to do things but they never explain anything.

2) What tutorials would you consider useful in the "Getting Started" tab?
a) Explain why there are model and drafting lines and when to use
one or the other.
b) Explain better concepts such as instance parameter and type
parameter and when to choose one over the other. Schedules
can be a real pain if you don't understand these ideas.
c) Tutorials that thoroughly cover the things that architects do.
Framing plans, electrical plans, foundation plans, etc.
d) Thorough explanation of not just how to build families but why
(see 'b' above)

3) In general, if you could ask for one new tutorial, what would it be?
(Yeah, there's Pandora's box!)

An overall tutorial covering the major principles of the software with no step-by-step instructions for doing anything, just a thorough overview of all the major concepts that make this software so powerful. Takes months to figure it out otherwise. Explain exactly what families are and what they can and can't do. No how-to's just concepts and why's.

Nice to see someone from autodesk asking.

George Fulton

[PeterJ]

I missed out on a classical education so I've been working to catch up! I looked at your avatar and saw it was you immediately....check out the likenesshttp://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/penthesilea.JPG

I really don't see a huge divide between residential and commercial work. We do both here and while we don't do what the Americans in the group refer to as Victorian style stuff we do enough where we are working with bespoke elements for detailing, but that is no different to the commercia work we undertake. Like I said before the more taxing conceptual issue is how to work with phasing.

Pete

[BomberAIA]

There are different ways of putting a multifamily project together. I would like to know the best way. In Acad, xref seems to me to work better & faster. I would love a turtorial, step by step on a multifamily project.

[Phil Palmer]

A residential type 'getting started' project would be OK but can you also somehow incorporate the use of worksets.
This is an area that a lot of users appear to shy away from.
A clear worked example of the use of worksets would be very usefull.
Worksets are good even for a single user project and should be explained.

[sbrown]

I think the assisted living type project would be the best, it hits on most of the aspects of revit that don't work properly so you will be forced to teach us the best work arounds. Hopefully these areas are fixed in 6.0 so this tutorial could show us how to do it right now.

1. Groups: how to use them, what they can and can't include, when can they be copied, rotated and mirrored, can they be placed on diff. levels.

2. model linking: should we use this instead for typ.unit plans, if we should how and how would revit propose we do our schedules.

3. Residential style framing(I don't think most of us need this, but I've heard lots of questions)

4. Commercial area, ie a commons bldg/facility with laundry, restaurant, rec. area(you could use some curtain wall in this area to show the ins and outs of curtain walls.

4. Site, Site and more site, what is the best practice for using dwg imports, especially from civil engineers when they have gobs and gobs of data and no way to list what layers are what and there are items at x=0 and x=5,000ft above sea level(yes I am in Colorado) Do you draft you arch. site plan over the import, do you adjust all the linework on the import(if they used a good layer strategy) What is recommended to model, what should you draft. I've figured many of these things out from long hours of trial and error but it would have been nice to have a do's and don'ts. I know its not good for selling your product to point out its limitations and weaknesses, but we all love revit and have sold out to it, now we need to know what it CANT do, so we don't waste our time trying.

5. Worksets I have no idea how you could do a real life senario on this topic, but it is sorely needed. Our experience with worksets has been poor to unbearable with the occasional "hey it didnt crash" moments of joy. Hopefully new releases(the one that just came out) will fix much of what was causing our problems.

[bclarch]

An overall tutorial covering the major principles of the software with no step-by-step instructions for doing anything, just a thorough overview of all the major concepts that make this software so powerful. Takes months to figure it out otherwise. Explain exactly what families are and what they can and can't do. No how-to's just concepts and why's.

I'll second that. Revit forces you to change the way you approach the design and documentation processes. It is important to get a handle on those differences in order to maximize your productivity in Revit. There was a thread not too long ago started by someone asking about getting started with Revit. There were comments on learning methods and strategies that might be applicable for this topic.

Edit: Found the thread. Click Here (http://www.zoogdesign.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=632&highlight=&sid=6ce0c1de1724d0d0a019944bfda77567)

OK Steve or Chris, how do I change the link to a nice clean "Click Here" link?

[christopher.zoog51272]

OK Steve or Chris, how do I change the link to a nice clean "Click Here" link?


You can use the following code:

[code:1:5524c04ba4][url=www.websitelinkgoeshere.com]What you want the link to say goes here[/url][/code:1:5524c04ba4]

i'll go ahead and fix it.

[christopher.zoog51272]

I think the assisted living type project would be the best, it hits on most of the aspects of revit that don't work properly so you will be forced to teach us the best work arounds. Hopefully these areas are fixed in 6.0 so this tutorial could show us how to do it right now.

1. Groups: how to use them, what they can and can't include, when can they be copied, rotated and mirrored, can they be placed on diff. levels.

2. model linking: should we use this instead for typ.unit plans, if we should how and how would revit propose we do our schedules.

3. Residential style framing(I don't think most of us need this, but I've heard lots of questions)

4. Commercial area, ie a commons bldg/facility with laundry, restaurant, rec. area(you could use some curtain wall in this area to show the ins and outs of curtain walls.

4. Site, Site and more site, what is the best practice for using dwg imports, especially from civil engineers when they have gobs and gobs of data and no way to list what layers are what and there are items at x=0 and x=5,000ft above sea level(yes I am in Colorado) Do you draft you arch. site plan over the import, do you adjust all the linework on the import(if they used a good layer strategy) What is recommended to model, what should you draft. I've figured many of these things out from long hours of trial and error but it would have been nice to have a do's and don'ts. I know its not good for selling your product to point out its limitations and weaknesses, but we all love revit and have sold out to it, now we need to know what it CANT do, so we don't waste our time trying.

5. Worksets I have no idea how you could do a real life senario on this topic, but it is sorely needed. Our experience with worksets has been poor to unbearable with the occasional "hey it didnt crash" moments of joy. Hopefully new releases(the one that just came out) will fix much of what was causing our problems.

Agreed, these senior housing projects are part commercial and part residential. We often use residential type wood frame construction, but on a very large scale. We also utilize commecial elements like curtain walls and storefronts, and we do full commercial grade kitchens in these buildings. It really is a mixed bag, and could be great way to kill a few birds with one stone.

[Dean Camlin]

I agree, an assisted-living project would be a good general introduction. It should also be multilevel, because if there's one aspect of learning Revit that seems difficult (besides families) it's modeling stairways.

[Scott D Davis]

one aspect of learning Revit that seems difficult (besides families) it's modeling stairways.

Lets hope that the Help Files for Revit 6.0 show us how to use the new and improved stair tools, which are now so intuitive and easy to use that they really don't need a help file!

[Steve Jager]

1. Templates, yes!
2. How does one go about creating multiple design schemes
3. What is the best way for multiple users
4. Ground up complicated residential project with sloping site, gooie trim(big time) multiple wall types top and bottom
5. Foundation plans, something is missing
6. Rotating a model after the owner decides it should be the other left side

[bclarch]

[quote:f8752a80cd="Dean Camlin"] one aspect of learning Revit that seems difficult (besides families) it's modeling stairways.

Lets hope that the Help Files for Revit 6.0 show us how to use the new and improved stair tools, which are now so intuitive and easy to use that they really don't need a help file![/quote:f8752a80cd]

Let's hope that stairs are fixed. Learning how the stairs should work is not difficult, getting Revit to produce them correctly is a challenge.

[JamesVan]

I'd love to see a more comprehensive Curtain Wall tutorial that explores panelization, butt-glazed systems, etc. The 'in-fill' and 'tiny shed' tutorials are just not enough to allow our designers to get a grip on these powerful objects.

[trombe]

Panthesilia,

while still a beginner in Revit, I would really appreciate a much more in depth explanation on the use of Reference Planes, particularly with regard to their use in complex roof design and solid modeling.
An example of this might have to do with the use of reference planes to control and modify multiple ridgelines on gable roofs, hip roofs, mono pitch and the like.
The Reference Planes Help Section, is very brief and insufficient to get to grips with the concepts and, pracital application. I contiinue to struggle to find relevant and / or helpful information on this subject although I have monitored 3d faq.com ( posting produced a nil result), RUGI, zoog and the autodesk revit user group BB.
I hope I am not making an unreasonable request, but since this elementary ? tool would seems to be a significant player in the creation of custom objects and families as well as Instances and general editing across the board, a far better information base and tutorial would be greatly appreciated.
signed still struggling with Reference Planes
trombe
NZ

[brittany.fortin1768]

Wow. You all provided some fantastic input.

What's important to note is that the tutorial I am referring to is merely an "introduction" to the product. For obvious reasons there are limitations to the amount of detail I can expose them to. An all inclusive, top to bottom, process based project would be a thousand pages and a different project. It has been discussed as an option for a future release.

I do like the idea of an "assisted living" type of project. I will try to find something that is not explicitly residential or commercial yet provides training for both.

Thank you for the resounding yes on the Office Templates tutorial. Your input has been appreciated!

Thank you all very much,

- Britt

[rgecy]

As a beginner to Revit (3 months now) I was awed at the powerful tools and ease of use I have found. But I was skeptical initialy because it seemed to be more Commercial Oriented. I have been swayed back though once I got past the learning curve. There is no doubt you can design almost any structure from the ground up with this product, but I think Revit has some work to do to help the Residential field become more productive.

Some issues I have yet to overcome are:

1. Complex roof joins. Multi-level and offset eaves.

2. Creating a Roof or Floor Framing Plan without having to resort to 2D drawings as well.
( I like the idea of having auto framing for walls and roofs and these structures being parametric to the design vs. 2D and static) Many local codes depts are now requiring more details in this area.

3. Definately need an easy way to mirror a project!

Hope this helps!