BIMtopia
Module 4 - Design Project Brief: Lights, Camera, Render!
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Module 4 - Design Project Brief: Lights, Camera, Render!

Overview

In this assignment you’ll create views of your proposed design for a vacation to share your design ideas.  You’ll create:

  • annotated plan views with dimensions and model element tags
  • schedule views summarizing model element information in a tabular form
  • exterior and interior camera views using Revit’s visual styles as well as rendered versions of those views

The focus of this assignment isn’t on creating additional model elements – rather, the focus is on refining your existing building model to create interesting and inviting views that help explain your design ideas and sell the design concept.

Getting Started

Use your project file from Module 3 as the starting point for your work.

What’s Expected

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Plan Views

Create annotated floor plan views of the upper and lower levels of your proposed design. Be sure to include:

  • Dimensions to the faces of all exterior walls and interior walls that intersect with them
  • Tags on all door and window elements
  • Tags in each interior room showing the name and square footage

Duplicate these plan views with detailing (to include the annotations), then using Visibility/Graphics overrides to create two new versions:

  • Duplicate Version 1 - to share with your clients that showcases how the spaces will be used. It should include all the furniture, fixtures, and casework elements.
  • Duplicate Version 2 - to share with the constructors that focuses on the building elements.
    • This version should include only the building shell -- for example, the wall, door, window, curtain wall, floor, roof, and stair elements.
    • Hide the interior elements such as the furniture, fixtures, and casework in these views.
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Schedule Views

Create these schedule views summarizing the elements in your proposed design:

  • Door Schedule showing the doors on all levels
    • Include these fields:
      • Mark
      • Family and Type
      • Width
      • Height
  • Window Schedule showing the windows on all levels (you can exclude any curtain wall panels)
    • Include these fields:
      • Type Mark
      • Family and Type
      • Width
      • Height
    • Create a new calculated field to compute the approximate Glazing Area of the windows (using the simple formula Width * Height).
    • Add a Grand Total line to the Window Schedule.
    • Calculate the sum of the Glazing Areas.
  • Wall Schedule showing the total areas of each wall type to assist with cost estimating.

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3D Camera View - Using Revit’s Visual Styles

  1. Create a stylized exterior camera view of your proposed design using Revit’s visual styles.
    1. Place a 3D camera to create a new exterior perspective view. Try to create a ground-level perspective view that simulates how your clients will actually perceive the house.
    2. Experiment with Revit’s visual styles and Graphic Display options to create a stylized view that conveys the feeling that you’d like to share. Try:
      1. Choosing a Silhouette line style to emphasize the edges of your building elements.
      2. Casting Shadows or turning on Ambient Shadows to create a soft lighting effect.
      3. Enabling Sketchy Lines (and adjusting the level of Jitter) to create a hand-drawn effect.
      4. Creating a Sun Setting to accurately display the sun and shadows for a particular location, date, and time.
      5. Diminishing the intensity of the shadows cast.
      6. Using a background image – a gradient, a sky, or a photographic image.
    3. Once you’ve found a group of settings that you like, you can save them as a View Template to make it easy to apply them again to other views.
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3D Camera View - Using Rendering Tools

Create a rendered exterior view of your proposed design using Revit’s internal rendering engine, Autodesk’s Render in the Cloud web service, or another rendering tool of your choice — for example, Twinmotion or Enscape.

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If working with Revit’s Internal or Cloud Rendering tools
  • Use the same exterior camera view that you created for in the previous step.
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Enhance this exterior view by:
  1. Assigning or adjusting the materials as needed (where the default gray material is displayed).
  2. Adding trees, and plantings, and exterior furniture. For trees and plantings, you can use the RPC tree and shrub components from the Plantings folder in the Revit Content library.
  3. Adding vehicles. You’ll find vehicle components in the Revit Content Library, the BIMtopia Library, and on RevitCity.
  4. Adding people. You can the RPC Male and RPC Female components from the Entourage folder in the Revit library.
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Render this exterior view using Revit’s Internal rendering engine or Cloud Rendering tools.
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If using Revit’s Internal rendering engine:
  • Render the view and save the rendered image in your Revit project.
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If using Autodesk’s Render in the Cloud web service:
  1. Choose the:
    1. Output Type: Still Image
    2. Render Quality and Size
    3. Exposure: Native (as you’ve set it in Revit) or Advanced (for enhanced control of the exposure settings – especially useful in dimly lit environments)
    4. File Format for the resulting image
  2. Click Start Rendering and return to work. The cloud rendering service will notify when the job is complete.
  3. When complete, switch to the View tab and open the Render Gallery. Then, download the rendered image to your computer.
  4. In Revit, switch to the Insert tab and open the Image tool to import your cloud rendering image file into your Revit project.
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If working with another Rendering tool — Twinmotion or Enscape
  • Open your Revit in the Rendering tool environment.
  • Moved you viewpoint to position similar to the camera position that you used for your Stylized view in the prior step.
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Enhance this exterior view by:
  1. Assigning or adjusting the materials as needed (where the default gray material is displayed).
  2. Adding trees, and plantings, and exterior furniture. You find tree, shrub, and furniture components in the Enscape Asset Library and the Twinmotion Library.
  3. Adding vehicles. You find tree, shrub, and furniture components in the Enscape Asset Library and the Twinmotion Library.
  4. Adding people.
    • If using Enscape, you can use the RPC Male and RPC Female components in your Revit project, and these people components will be substituted using Enscape’s people elements.
    • If using Twinmotion, you can add static or animated people components from the Twinmotion Library.
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Render this exterior view using Twinmotion or Enscape:
  • If using Twinmotion or Enscape:
    • Using the Twinmotion or Enscape tools to save your rendering as an image file.
    • Return to Revit, and import the image file into your Revit project.
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360 Degree Panorama View

Create a rendered interior 360 Degree Panorama view of the main living/entertaining or commercial area in your proposed design using Autodesk’s Render in the Cloud web service or another rendering tool of you choice — for example, Twinmotion or Enscape.

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If working with Autodesk’s Cloud Rendering tools
  • Place a 3D camera in the center of the main living/entertaining or commercial area.
  • Enhance this interior view by:
    • Assigning or adjusting the materials as needed (where the default gray material is displayed).
    • Adding furniture and decorative objects – for example, flat panel televisions, vases, rugs, artwork. Don’t fully decorate the house, but try to infuse with a little life to help us imagine the fun times that will occur there.
    • Adding lighting fixtures - lamps, wall sconces, or ceiling pendants or downlights. Note: for ceiling-hosted light fixtures, you’ll need to add ceiling elements to host them.
    • Adding people - use the RPC Male and RPC Female components from the Entourage folder in the Revit library.
  • Render this view as a 360 Degree panorama using the Render in the Cloud web service.
    • Choose Interactive Panorama as the Output Type in the Render in Cloud dialog.
  • Open your rendered panorama in the in the Render Gallery at: https://rendering-beta.360.autodesk.com/myrenderings.
  • Copy a web link to this rendering panorama:
    • Click the Share with Mobile Device button in the toolbar at the top of the web interface.
      • image
    • Click the Share Via a Public Link button to copy the link to your clipboard.
  • Paste this link into the body of your Notion posting.
    • Notion will ask whether to Create an Embed. You can choose this option to embed the panorama view right on your Notion page.
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If working with Twinmotion or Enscape
  • Use the Twinmotion or Enscape interface to create a Panorama view.
  • Save this Panorama view to the Twinmotion Cloud or Enscape Cloud services.
  • Create a web link to share your panorama view on the cloud.
  • Paste the link into the body of your Notion posting. When prompted, choose to create a link to the panorama view on the cloud.

What to Submit

  1. Place the new views that you’ve created for this module on new Sheets in your Revit project file.

      2. Plan Views

    1. Create a new Sheet (or multiple sheets if needed) and place your 3 floor plan views on these sheets:
      2. ‣
      The annotated floor plan views of the upper and lower levels of your proposed design, including:
      • Dimensions to the faces of all exterior walls and interior walls that intersect with them
      • Tags on all door and window elements
      • Tags in each interior room showing the name and square footage
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      Two duplicated plan views that use Visibility/Graphics overrides to feature:
      • Duplicate Version 1 - to share with your clients that showcases how the spaces will be used. It should include all the furniture, fixtures, and casework elements.
      • Duplicate Version 2 - to share with the constructors that focuses on the building elements.

      Schedule Views

    2. Create a new Sheet and place your 3 schedule views on this sheet:
      • Door Schedule
      • Window Schedule
      • Wall Schedule

      Styled and Rendered Views

    3. Create a new sheet in your Revit project and place your two exterior camera views — the one created using Revit’s Visual Styles and the rendered exterior image (created in Revit or another rendering tool) side-by-side on this sheet.
  2. Publish your new sheets.
    • Use the Collaborate>Publish Settings tool in Revit ribbon to add your new sheets (itemized above) into your Set of views that will published to ACC.
    • Only the views that you explicitly to include in the Publish Set will be published to ACC.

Sharing Your Project

Upload your building model to your folder on Autodesk Construction Cloud Documents and create a new post sharing your project on this linked Notion page.

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Module 4 - Design Project Submissions: Lights, Camera, Render!

Your Notion posting should include:

  • The link to your project file (with the requested sheets published) on the ACC site.
  • An Image / Screenshot of Your Styled Exterior Camera View
  • An Image / Screenshot of Your Rendered Exterior Camera View
  • Your Interactive 360 Degree Panorama View — either a link to a Cloud Service website or an embedment of the view in Notion.

Points to Ponder / Wrap-Up Questions

Please choose 3 of the following Points to Ponder questions and share your comments on this linked Notion page.

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Module 4 - Points to Ponder