Terrible geometry on Revit imports

[philvanderloo]

Why am I getting such jacked up geometry on my Revit import models?

I'm in max 2016 using Revit link import. Trying every import option. Doesn't seem to make a difference on the quality of the geometry

[Scott Schroeder]

Blame Revit. That's just crappy Revit-to-Max geometry for you.

 

Though, what is in the viewport really doesn't matter. It can look like a mess in there but still render perfectly.

[brendanrogers]

Yep thats just how Revit creates its geometry. Its not that well optimised but it should render ok still.

[philvanderloo]

Ya I keep thinking there's an improvement around the corner. My last project had all kinds of light leak issues

Thanks Scott.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I would recommend to export to FBX first, then link to Max organized by Family. Yes REVIT geometry triangulate very bad but that wall looks extra crappy . Unless they have a little angle they should import "OK". Needless to say the people who send me the REVIT models are not good either. Those light leaks are common for mee too. It is hard to tell when you are doing CD's on REVIT if a wall is joint or not, within REVIT environment is very easy to make sloppy modeling without noticing if your task is not model for rendering.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Hey Scott, how do you deal with the wrong scale issue in REVIT??

I am still linking first to max 2014 then open in 2016

[Justin Hunt]

I would recommend to export to FBX first, then link to Max organized by Family. Yes REVIT geometry triangulate very bad but that wall looks extra crappy . Unless they have a little angle they should import "OK". Needless to say the people who send me the REVIT models are not good either. Those light leaks are common for mee too. It is hard to tell when you are doing CD's on REVIT if a wall is joint or not, within REVIT environment is very easy to make sloppy modeling without noticing if your task is not model for rendering.

 

linking the revit file and exporting an FBX is essentially the same thing, ie when linking the revit file , Max takes care of the fbx export.

 

Only advantage with you doing the export is that you can decide what to export by hiding the stuff you dont want.

[elipan]

Set your Max units to inch and display units to what you want. This solved the scaling issue for me

[SgWRX]

I have to set my max units to feet then revit imports seem good. but what i end up doing is leaving my max units to inch, then i grab the entire fbx import and first unlink all. then i reset reset xform then collapse to individual pieces. disadvantage is that all instances get de-instanced.

[jamesgallagher]

I've heard some people use the free Revit to Lumion bridge plug-in to export it, them import that to 3ds. I tried it awhile ago but don't remember being impressed, so the results must not have been very good.

 

There's also some discussion on the UE4 forums about exporting them as DWG solids, this give pretty good results, especially with round objects (it doesn't fix all the problems though). There's no real 'good' solution though that I can find.

[brendanrogers]

FBX is always going to be the better choice for going into 3dsmax. In the FBX export dialog box, you an choose to set the scale of the model to compensate also. But make sure you got your max units setup correctly. We use millimeters here not inches

[Justin Hunt]

it may bring in the model units correctly, but there is still the texture scale issue

[brendanrogers]

I basically do what S. Gru mentioned. Reset x-forms, then collapse objects and re-texture. Then prey they don't want the model changed

[SgWRX]

yep that's why i reset xform.

 

so by the way, does everyone pretty much find it a PIA? i do remodel certain walls, floors and other features to properly texture them, or rather after i build the new geometry i cut it up and apply different material ids etc...

[brendanrogers]

Yeah as mentioned before, it can depend on the actual technique of the Revit user. I find a lot of extra vertices in walls which I'll tend to remove.

I find round columns to be the worst and generally re-create those.

[philvanderloo]

I'm absolutely amazed! I spent my weekend wading through the garbage trying to figure out at least a decent, workable way to get Revit files into max and be able to actually work on them. The harder I try, the more frustrated I get.

Autodesk just failed on this one. So much for the concept of the suite workflow.

[Arnold Sher]

Hi Phil,

 

Unfortunately there is no perfect solution however there are ways to get the model in as clean as possible. We have an in-house guy who is a wizard in Revit and after months of trialing we have worked out a system that works for us. So here is a couple of pointers to help this along:

1. We try to keep the Revit file below 40MB. That usually involves lots of cleaning and purging in Revit to make sure there is nothing in it that we do not need.

2. They nee to make sure that things are all mapped correctly in Revit as that makes a difference when we import into max.

3. Export as FBX... always

4. Import into MAX by material so all things are where are they supposed to be and you do not have a million layers.

5. Now that you see what the meshes look like, and they are all triangulated you can clean it and make it all pretty go to:

-under modifiers -optimize

-punch in under Face Thresh: 0.01

Edge Thresh: 0.01

Bias: 1.00

Max Edge Len: 0.0

Auto Edge: Tick

 

That should sort out all you faces bringing them back to the way it looks when you draw them in Max and you can start working on it. Remember, if it is drawn badly in Revit nothing will help. Essentially the operator is at fault and there is nothing you can do about it except re=draw or better yet, get them to re-draw. Hope that helps and all the best...

[philvanderloo]

Thank You Arnold and everyone else. I think that even though I am pretty proficient in Revit, I need to get a good handle on how to prepare Revit files for import as Arnold suggests. But I still don't understand why I'm unable to make selections in my max file after import no matter which presetting I use.

I go into the layers palette and select Glass to change the material on the windows, and even though I am sure that the Glass material was applied to the window in Revit, it won't select.

If I click on the glass with the material editor eyedropper it, and everything else, is autodesk generic material.

Even if I import by Revit Families and select the window in the layers palette it is autodesk generic. I would expect a multi subobject material that I could select the id relating to the glass and change the material.

Long story short- I can't figure out how to make specific selections after importing Revit files. I've done this in the past but maybe since loading 2016 something has changed?

[CRD]

Check these articles on the Autodesk. They basically say that the native Revit units are always Feet and you should have your Max units set to Feet before import.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-010D97F3-A50E-42D2-BD55-6EB0F239EBFE-htm.html

 

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-67B557D9-EF1A-4AAD-9F38-23AC2E7B8871-htm.html

[ezb]

The Revit FBX export to active FBX link import in 3D Studio Max 2016 is messed up. AutoDesk needs to fix it ASAP.

I've been using this work flow in all of my architectural visualization work for more than 6 years now.

 

The scale issue had always been that Revit units are set to feet, 3D Studio Max and AutoCAD default to inches. Therefore you need to change the 3DS Max system units (not the display units) to feet in order to get the correct geometry and texture scale import.

However, for some reason this setting is now distorted in 3D Studio Max 2016.

 

If you link an FBX file into Max 2016 with system units set to feet your geometry will come in at a scale factor of 3048%

This happens to be the conversion factor for cm to feet.

Therefore, as strange as it sounds, Max 2016 system units need to be set to cm now when importing FBX files from Revit.

Geometry will then be imported at the correct scale.

 

However, that's not the end of the work around....

You'll find that the geometry scales correctly, but texture mapping coordinates are now distorted.

My work around for this issue to to select all "geometry" and apply a reset xform modifier.

Do not collapse the modifier stack for the FBX geometry and the xform modifier will be re-applied to any reloaded FBX geometry.

 

Lastly...

You'll need to remember that if you add new materials and or geometry that was not in a currently linked FBX file, you'll need to add the reset xform modifier to the new geometry modifer stack.

 

Really frustrating.

Hopefully AutoDesk will get this resolved in the next service pack.

[ezb]

Phil,

 

One of the big catches is that you may need to go deep into family objects to make sure the correct materials are applied.

If you have a family that has a parameter variable set to , that geometry will receive a generic AutoDesk material when exported to 3Ds Max. Window system panel types are notorious for this issue.

 

So try to avoid having any family objects that don't have correct material assignments in their parameter settings.