Revit 2009 Material Library Location

[tonyisenhoff]

When pushing out our Revit deployment, I'm questioning whether I push the rendering library to everyone's local machine, or put it on the network & adjust the path in Revit's options.

I know with Accurender, if you put the materials on the network, rendering was very slow. Any reason we don't put the materials on network with the new Mental Ray rendering engine?

I know you can't predfine the path for rendering in the deployment, but I can take care of that in the Revit.ini

[Scott D Davis]

Other than only having to install it once, ther is no reason to put it on a network. It's a read-only library. If installed on each machine, it will be the same on each and can't be modified.

I would create a meterials project that would store all my firm's custom materials, and put that in a network location so others could access it.

[tonyisenhoff]

Did you think about this?

The deployment image is larger.
Deployment time on each PC will be longer
~750 MB of data on each user's PCWhy not just have one copy on the network instead of duplicating that on each PC (150 PC's in our case)?? Unless as I stated earlier, if rendering is slower...

[Scott D Davis]

I have heard that it could be slower to access it form the network, but I have no evidence to back that up at this time. With your arguments, it makes total sense to put it on a network to save install time and space. I can only suggest you try it on a few machines first, check the access time, and see if its too slow for your needs.

[jeffh]

I believe Scott is correct. The rendering times are significantly slower when the rednering library is located on the server. Since all materials are project based there is no reson to place the shader library on the network. Modifications and custom materials are made at the project level.

[wadeshuey]

Hey Scott

Dose this mean that the library that comes with Revit is the only global render liberty we can use? or it there away to add to it.

With Accurender we can customize a material map and set it in for a library for future use (Globe use of the same edited material that i can use or any one in my office can use on any project) it seems this new rendered that Revit has you use their out of box material and modify that material (like adding the Dunn Edwards RBG or adding a stone map). Is there and way to add the material to the base 700 stock materials after I modify it. Or do I need to start making huge pre set material list inside Revit and transfer project standers project to project. (If so that sucks)

Wade

[Scott D Davis]

Hey Scott

Dose this mean that the library that comes with Revit is the only global render liberty we can use? or it there away to add to it. .... (If so that sucks)

The sucky one....at least for now. :) The render asset library is read only and there is no way to add to it. Materials are stored with objects, so either in Families or Projects, which is cool because you don't have to send the Mlib from Accurender along with the file any longer. Also, objects people share on Revit City or AUGI or other sites will have the custom materials embedded in them.

Make a "Materials" project in Revit that is a bunch of small wall segments with your custom materials applied. These can be copy and pasted from the "master" to other projects in your office.

[Wes Macaulay]

There are a couple of downsides to the new renderer and now y'all are going to hear about them.

1 In this release we cannot make a global, office-wide material library like the mlibs we could make with Accurender. This means that you must copy materials between projects by copying an object with the material you want from the project that has it to the project that needs it. I believe the Factory may be adding office-wide materials to a future release.

2 You CAN put shaders/textures on a network path so that your material definitions that use non-OOTB textures don't have to copied from machine to machine. The performance hit that I saw when I tested it was measurable, but I can't remember what it was ;-) Which means I need to do it again!

3 We are going to have to rebuild our texture/material libraries in Revit, and probably have a project file somewhere on the network for storing them. C'est la vie for this release...

4 All trees supplied with Revit are RPC. Which means you don't get the trees' representation in the render being shadowed the same way. I like how the procedural trees cast shadows and how they receive shadows better. But they had a serious performance price tag.

All in all though, you still have to like the new renderer over AR!

[tmomeyer]

There are a couple of downsides to the new renderer and now y'all are going to hear about them.

1 In this release we cannot make a global, office-wide material library like the mlibs we could make with Accurender. This means that you must copy materials between projects by copying an object with the material you want from the project that has it to the project that needs it. I believe the Factory may be adding office-wide materials to a future release.

<snip>

3 We are going to have to rebuild our texture/material libraries in Revit, and probably have a project file somewhere on the network for storing them. C'est la vie for this release...

And, S. Davis said, "Make a "Materials" project in Revit that is a bunch of small wall segments with your custom materials applied. These can be copy and pasted from the "master" to other projects in your office."

Question, If you're copying materials that are 'embedded' in (walls) in one project to another, are you using / what is the Options, Rendering tab "Add't'l Render Appearance Paths" used for?

See the Help file for Rendering tab and "Best Practices..." what does it mean to store image files for each project in a specific location..." Is this an alternate method to storing the materials as 'embeds' in wall segments?

Thanks, Tom

[iandidesign]

Similar to Tom's question, if the materials are now truly project based (i.e. stored within the RVT file) then why would rendering times be longer when using a network library? I can imagine that browsing such a library might be slower (depending on network speed), but once the material is loaded into the project why is the network library being accessed during rendering? :?

[Scott D Davis]

what does it mean to store image files for each project in a specific location..." Is this an alternate method to storing the materials as 'embeds' in wall segments?

If you use your own images for the materials, such as JPGs for the material apperance, or a grayscale image as a bump map, then these images need to be stored in a central location. Others that use this custom material need to add the path to these custom images to the library paths in Revit.

If you use the assett library and only change the color or other settings of the material definition that comes with Revit, then no special path is needed. It's only when you start replacing the images that come with the assett library with your own.

[tmomeyer]

If you use your own images for the materials, such as JPGs for the material apperance, or a grayscale image as a bump map, then these images need to be stored in a central location. Others that use this custom material need to add the path to these custom images to the library paths in Revit.

If you use the assett library and only change the color or other settings of the material definition that comes with Revit, then no special path is needed. It's only when you start replacing the images that come with the assett library with your own.

So... how is this setup or organized? It sounds like it's a folder titled [Company Name] Rendering. Then under that folder are there empty (to begin with) folders named to match what is under C:\Program Files...\Data\Rendering\... etc: 1 each for Environments, Lights, Maps, Materials, RenderSettings, RPCs, Shaders, SwatchScenes? And, etc... under Materials, folders named Ceramic, Concrete, etc... to match the 'out of the box' folders under program files?

And... I noticed you didn't touch the other suggestions to put materials on short wall segments and store them in the project?

And... if they're stored in one location on the server with all company rendering customization, how do you know what to send out to someone when you send out the revit model file?

And... Does storing them on the server possibly slow down the local rendering?

Thanks, Tom

[ron.sanpedro]

Did you think about this?

The deployment image is larger.
Deployment time on each PC will be longer
~750 MB of data on each user's PCWhy not just have one copy on the network instead of duplicating that on each PC (150 PC's in our case)?? Unless as I stated earlier, if rendering is slower...

We are doing it this way, with good results so far. I don't believe that rendering times are affected in any way, because the full render material information lives in the project file. It is a tiny bit slower when changing a render material, because at that point the library on the network is being accessed. That said, if your network is fast enough for a large model to STC in a reasonable amount of time, it seems likely it is also fast enough for the occasional render material manipulation.

And one other reason for a shared location. If Autodesk updates nothing but some render material library stuff, and god forbid makes it available as a content download rather than a full Revit build, you can download once from the web, dump it on the server and instantly everyone is working with updated data. As far as I am concerned, if everyone is supposed to be using the same stuff, it belongs on the server as a single instance of data. Especially when that data is not being hammered regularly. Render materials fit that description.

Best,
Gordon

[tmomeyer]

<snip> As far as I am concerned, if everyone is supposed to be using the same stuff, it belongs on the server as a single instance of data. Especially when that data is not being hammered regularly. Render materials fit that description.

So... on the server I assume you have a Revit 'out of the box' Rendering folder and subfolders... and a company specific Render folder for customized render items. Skip back to my question about folder structure for the company render 'stuff'. Do you duplicate the 'out of the box' folder / subfolder names... reason I ask... there's a lot of folders / subfolders, but maybe if you set it up once, it just moves forward thru all the new builds, etc.

Thanks, Tom

[twiceroadsfool]

Am i missign something? I dont think you CAN put it on the network with the MR library in 09, can you? When we did our first 09 deployment, i tried to do it exactly like the mlibs of old, and there was no place to path it. It was ALWAYS looking locally. The answer at the time (beta) was that you couldnt do the network thing right now, period.

Did that change before full release?

[josh.made4worship]

You have to go in and modify the deployment Revit.ini file manually. Unfortunately, there is no way to assign the Render paths using the "create deployment" interface.

[jeffh]

You have to go in and modify the deployment Revit.ini file manually. Unfortunately, there is no way to assign the Render paths using the "create deployment" interface.

It is NOT recomended to place the Mental Ray shaders at a network location. This will affect rendering time performance. All materials are created/modified at the project level anyhow. There is no reson (except storage space) to locate the Mental Ray shaders on a network resource.