Here is the video on YouTube. Enjoy.

I got lots of replies on this one, including this video response.

And here is part 2 from me:

And dare I say, here is a better solution by Jay Zallan:

This update weighs in at 26 pages and is posted as a downloadable PDF document. It gives a rundown of many new features. The focus is on the platform and architectural features. I do not cover structural or MEP in this document. The document is intended for owners of “The Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit Architecture 2013 and beyond“. However, I have provided it as a free download here for anyone to download. If you have a copy of the book, you can use this document to learn what’s new in the 2014 release of the Revit software. After each feature description, I list the chapters, topics and pages in the book where the feature is discussed. In the case of totally new features, I either suggest locations in the book to try them out or simply note that the feature is new. (The Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit Architecture 2013 and beyond is not a command reference and makes no attempts or claims to cover every tool and feature, so some new features are not accentuated if they do not fit the scope of the book.)

If you do not own a copy of the book and are just curious about what is new in 2014, please feel free to download the document anyhow. You can use it without the book to explore the new features in 2014.

(But of course I think you will enjoy it more with a copy of the book, so please note the handy “buy the book” link in the righthand margin… )

Simply select your mass, and then on the Properties palette, click in the Material field and then click the small browse icon. This will open the material dialog where you can choose a material. Make sure the material has a color assigned to it or it will still look boring gray. I also like to make sure to check the “Use Render Appearance” checkbox (on the Graphics tab of the editor) to make sure that the shading color matches the render color. I am not sure why all materials don’t do this by default???

If you want to assign the material as a parameter, click the small gray button to the far right instead. You can even use the Paint command to paint just one surface. (Both shown in the figure above).

These colors/materials will persist when you load this mass into a project. (As long as Show Mass is on that is…)

Hope that is useful for some. Thanks.

The first thing you want to do is decide how you will apply this custom parameter. It can be a Project Parameter or a Shared Parameter. There are arguments to made in favor of both approaches. In the steps that follow I am showing it using a simple Project Parameter. This means that we do not need to bother with the shared parameter setup. But if you already have a shared parameter file and prefer to do it that way, just choose the shared parameter radio button at the top instead of project parameter. The rest of the steps would be the same.

If you always want to use this organization in your projects, save this in your office standard project template file. That way all new projects will already have the custom parameter. Let’s get started:

On the Manage tab, add a Project Parameter

• On the Manage tab, click the Project Parameters button.
• In the “Project Parameters” dialog, click the Add button.
• In the “Parameter Properties” dialog, choose the kind of parameter at the top (I chose Project Parameter for this example, but as noted, you can choose Shared Parameter instead if you wish).
• Type in a name such as: “Sheet Folder”
• Change the Type of Parameter to Text.
• On the right side, from the Categories list, check the Sheets box.
• Click OK twice.

Create a custom text Parameter for Sheets

The parameter is now ready. Next, you create some sheets and apply this new value to them.

• Create some sheets. (or work with existing ones)
• Select one or more sheets and then on the Properties palette, locate the new Sheet Folder parameter and type in a value such as: “Plumbing” and apply it.
• Repeat for all the sheets.

Input values in the new Parameter

Now we will create the custom browser organization. You can find  this command on the View tab, on the User Interface drop-down.

Create a custom Browser Organization

The Browser Organization can use the custom Parameter

• On the View tab, click the User Interface drop-down and choose Browser Organization.
• Click the Sheets tab and then click the New button.
• Give it a name and then click OK.
• In the “Browser Organization Properties” dialog, on the Folders tab, choose the new custom Sheet Folder property for the first Group by item.
• If you wish, you can choose additional Group by criteria such as Sheet Number.
• For Sheet Number, you can even tell it to only use the first few characters by choosing the “Leading Characters” radio button and then setting it to a number such as 4. (this will display only the first four characters of the value – sheet number in this case).
• Click OK.
• Check the box next to the new sort to make it active and click OK to see the result on the Project Browser.

Sheets now sort based on the custom Sheet Folder Parameter

That’s it. You can do other customizations if you like, but that is the basic process. The only thing to be aware of is that since this is a custom parameter, Revit will not know about it and assign values automatically. In other words, each new sheet that you create must be assigned to a Sheet Folder or else you will see the ??? group in your browser and the unassigned sheets will appear there. Hope that this tutorial is useful.

The two new courses are:

Migrating from AutoCAD to Revit

This course shows AutoCAD drafters and designers how to migrate their CAD workflow to Autodesk Revit software. Author Paul F. Aubin details how to transfer your files and explains key distinctions between the packages. Along the way, learn how to customize the Revit settings for optimal control, get a basic handle on the modeling tools, and adjust yourself to the differences in visibility, plot style, object creation, and the user interface.

Phasing and Design Options in Revit

Phasing in Autodesk Revit allows you to show the complete life cycle of a project, such as a before and after or existing and proposed status, while design options allow you to save multiple iterations of a concept in a single project file. In this course, Paul F. Aubin shows how to use phasing and design options to organize multipart, multifaceted projects in Revit. The course also covers adding and assigning phases to views, scheduling phases and designating future work, working with design option sets, and presenting complex designs to clients.

Both of these course are around 2 hours in length. They focus on specific topics rather than a comprehensive look at the software. If you want a more general look at Revit Architecture overall, you can check out my other courses at lynda.com including Revit Architecture Essentials. There are also a few other courses on Revit there by other excellent authors as well. And if you want to learn more than just Revit, lynda.com is the place to go. You can learn about nearly anything you like with new topics being added every day. I highly recommend it.

Comments and questions welcome. Please enjoy the new courses. Thanks!

**Edit** By the way, this rendering was done directly in Revit. The two renderings were composited together in Photoshop. I tried Steven Shell’s method, but I was unhappy with the break line, so I resorted to Photoshop. Otherwise, it is all Revit.**

The part that I am the most dissatisfied with so far is that all of the leaves are surfaces instead of solids. I have tried various approaches to create solid leaves, but always get the “can’t create form” message. If I build scalable rigs as nested profile families, the create form button does not like them. It seems to choke on the Reference Lines in the nested family. I can use traditional Generic Model families, but it is much trickier to make them parametric since I cannot do the Reference Line rig approach there. Finally, this file is currently HUGE!. 13.8 megs!!! Clearly I need to get that down to a more manageable size. I also still need to make the Course detail version and the materials still need work.

So, I will continue to hammer away at this. But in the meantime, enjoy some images of what I have so far.

For those of you that made it to #AU2012 this year, I hope you enjoyed the conference. We had a great time as always. We gave out discount cards at AU for 40% off our MEP book titles. I just got an email about some trouble folks were having getting the code to work. I have updated the site and everything should be working now. My apologies for any inconvenience. The discount code is: SGESYKP2 and entitles you to 40% off the cover price for any of the MEP titles on this site sold through the CreateSpace eStore. (Please note that this code does not apply to the books sold through Cengage Learning or on Amazon).

The code will remain active at 40% through the end of this week and then it will drop to a 20% discount. Thanks very much!

My classes have gone well and I have had really good audiences. So I thank you all for that. Well, that’s all for now. I’ll post a more complete report after tomorrow. If you are here in attendance, try to swing by my session in Mandalay Bay C tomorrow morning (if you can drag yourself out of bed early…)

Boarding pass printed, class materials uploaded, schedule downloaded to iPhone, handouts annotated and printed for my classes, backups of everything on a thumb drive, cleared to do items till I return, books and giveaways all set, packing almost complete, ride to the airport scheduled…

I am good to go. If you are going to be at AU, please drop by one of my sessions if it works in your schedule. Click here for more details. See you at AU!