11/30/2005-3:00 pm - 4:30 pm Room:N. Hemispheres (Salon E1) (Dolphin) Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort Orlando, Florida Materially Speaking: Autodesk Architectural Desktop and VIZ Render Kirk Johnson - Corgan Associates, Inc. BD34-3 This session explores the material components included in Architectural Desktop and VIZ Render including surfacing, sectioning, cut-plane, and boundary definitions. Specific attention will be given to using, creating, modifying, and managing material definitions utilized in Architectural Desktop and VIZ Render. About the Speaker: Kirk is a practicing architect and architectural educator. Currently, he is a senior associate at DuBose Associates, Inc. in Hartford, Conn. He also teaches architectural design, rendering, and presentation courses at the University of Hartford. Kirk has practiced architecture for 23 years, used Autodesk software for 17 years, and has taught architectural design and modeling for 15 years. He holds professional degrees in both architecture and business, and lectures frequently on design-related business topics. This is Kirk's fifth year presenting at AU.
What are materials? Architectural Desktop materials are digital definitions of real-life materials that display themselves through a collection of display settings such as plan, section, elevations, 3d views, and rendering. Architectural Desktop contains a collection of pre-defined materials that ship with the product that may be utilized in the design of buildings. Architectural Desktop and VizRender also provide additional toolsets to create new materials and edit existing ones. These expanded versions may be stored in individual projects, files, styles, libraries, or office standards. Additionally, these materials may be added to custom tool palettes that provide even greater flexibility and ease of use. Typically, materials are assigned to objects by styles and specific components, such as glass in a window or wood in a door. Materials come primarily in two separate categories. One is for displaying the work inside Architectural Desktop and the other for creating high-quality renderings and animations within VizRender. This session explores the concepts of both typologies. How are materials defined? Materials within Architectural Desktop are defined within common components of an object style, which in turn display in eight major two-dimensional and three-dimensional categories. Additionally, some of these material definition display typologies are for rendering and others are for linework. The eight major groupings of material definitions are listed and discussed below. Plan Hatch This material determines how a particular style, such as a wall style, portrays itself in a sectional plan view. An example will be a brick or concrete hatch pattern in a plan view. Section Hatch This component is used for delineating sectional hatch patterns defined within a section cut line in 2D, 3D, and live section objects. Surface Hatch This material component is used for displaying surface pattern linework of three-dimensional objects in model, sectional, and elevational views. An example is a brick pattern illustrated on an elevation or axonometric. Surface hatches are components that are not within a sectional cut line. Each object has a set number of faces such as top, bottom, right, left, front, and back. You can specify the surface location of a surface hatch pattern as in the sides, top, and bottom locations of a brick wall. You can also exclude surfaces from displaying the material. These are controlled in the material definition. 3d Body These are used for object components representing boundary linework in three-dimensional model views. Examples of this are the boundary definition of a wall, window or door opening. Section Body This material component applies only to live sections and controls the display of objects outside the live section. In other words, it is the part that is sectioned away. A section body can be displayed as a hidden or displayed component. You can further control the items in front of and behind the section cut line. Section Boundary This material component applies only to live sections controlling object display within the outline of objects cut by the section. 2D Section. Elevation Linework This component is a subset of the surface hatch and applies solely to the surface linework display within 2d section and elevation objects. 2
Render Material This component controls three variant elements of materials to be used for rendering or shading. The three elements are surface, live section surface, and live section boundary definitions Where do I find the materials? Material definitions may be viewed, utilized, and stored in several different manners and locations. Additionally, there are multiple ways to import material definitions into drawings. Style Manager The style Manager contains definitions for objects and multipurpose objects such as materials. The style manager allows easy drag-n-drop and cut-and-paste options between drawings. Content Manager The Content Manager contains pre-defined catalogs for use within ADT and VizRender. The content manager functions similarly to a web browser. Object Style An object style contains material definitions. To import a previously defined material definition, simply copy the object containing the definition into the current drawing. This step creates the object and the material definition. ADT includes out-of-the box over 200 object styles containing material definitions. AEC Material Tool Palette This tool allows you to define your materials into palettes of your favorite materials. This tool also allows you to apply materials directly to objects through either the style, component, or override. This tool palette allows direct import of materials from an outside library file. The standard installation location of the file is: c:\documents and settings\all Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT2006\Enu\Styles\Imperial. Create AEC Material Worksheet New to 2006, this tool streamlines the process of creating an AEC material from a VizRender or Viz2006 material. To access the worksheet, simply drag-n-drop a material from either VizRender or Viz2006 directly into the ADT drawing session. The Create AEC Material worksheet will appear allowing you to immediately define a new AEC material, based off a template material, and then create a new AEC material tool 3
Material Definitions Now that we have looked at the material overview, lets see how this process works by first of all viewing a material and secondly observing how the material is assigned to an architectural object. In these steps we will look at the Standard material definition, which is assigned to all objects that are created using the Tool Palette Design Tab. The standard material mimics a real-life medium grained gray chipboard material. The easiest way to access a material definition is through the Material Definitions within the Style Manager by using the following basic steps. 1. Create a new drawing with the default AEC template. (If already in a drawing that has used a default ADT drawing template, this step may be skipped). The material style is defined in the template file. 2. Select Format.Material from the pull-down menu system to access the Style Manager. Multi-Purpose Objects. Material Definitions. Note that you can also go directly to the Style Manager. Material Definition section. 3. Select a Material 4. Modify the Properties Material Tool The Material tool is new to ADT 2006, which allows the user to apply materials directly to objects within the drawing editor, coupled with the ability to apply the selected material simultaneously to multiple components. These assignments may be applied at a style level or object override level. Additionally, the material tool lets you load new material definitions from the entire program defined material database library. The following mini-tutorial indicates how a material definition works with Architectural Desktop objects using the Material Tool found in the Design Tool Palette. 1. Using the Design Tool Palette, create a series of objects such as walls, doors, windows, and floor slabs. Note that all objects created with this tool palette are created with the Standard material definition. 2. Click a 3d view such as SW isometric from the View Toolbar icon. Alternatively, you may select the option from the preset views located on the pull-down menu system. 3. Click the Material Tool located on the Design Palette. The tool tip on the icon will read as Material: Applies a material by default. 4. Pick an object. This action will open the Object Material Worksheet. The Apply Material to Components dialogue box will open offering two options to select. The first, named- Select Components to Apply Material: presents a drop down listing of available materials defined in the program database. The second option lists the object components that may have materials already assigned and provides three ways to apply the material. Style: Applies the material to all objects of the same style. Object Overide: Applies the material to only the selected objects. Leave As Is: Maintains the current material setting. 4
Creating materials within Architectural Desktop The most efficient manner of creating materials is to use an existing material and modify it. The other alternative is to create it from scratch. The two-step methodology for creating a material from scratch within Architectural Desktop is listed below: 1. Define the material: This step creates the container naming information for the new material. a. In the style manager, right click on the Material Definitions and select New from the listings. b. Enter a name for the material definition. 2. Define the parameters of the material a. Layer, color, linetype b. Pattern Definitions: Plan, Section, and surface hatch patterns of the material. c. Boundary definitions of the material 3d body, section body, render material definitions Editing material definitions within Architectural Desktop The most effective manner of globally editing a material definition contained in the current drawing is to utilize the Style Manager. Another effective manner of editing a material definition is to adjust the object style containing the material. The following min-tutorial illustrates the process of editing an object style. 1. Right click an existing object within the drawing environment. Select the Edit Style option. 2. Click the Material tab. 3. Select an object component. 4. Click the Edit Material button to the right of the current material definition column. 5. Define the display parameters such as layer, color, and linetype in the first tab. 6. Define the hatching parameters in the second tab. 5
7. Define the orientation options in the third tab. 8. Define the surfacing parameters such as surface hatch, surface rendering, live section, and 2d elevation rules with the Other tab. Only materials that are currently defined in the drawing are listed as options. In order to access additional rendered materials that are not loaded in the current drawing, you must open the content browser, select a Render Material catalog, and drag the definition into the current drawing environment window. The Create Aec Material Worksheet appears listing VizRender Material options. Extracting material information within Architectural Desktop Material Volume Information can easily be obtained from objects within Architectural Desktop. 1. Material Listing: Displaying a list of object materials. The list includes all materials and volumes of the selected objects. Type MaterialList at the command prompt or dynamic input area. Select the objects you want in the list. Press enter Press F2 to display the text information Copy the information to the clipboard, paste into Word, and print the list if needed. 2. Material Query: Displaying volumetric information of a selected material. This is useful for costing estimation purposes. Rendering Materials Type MaterialQuery at the command prompt or dynamic input area. Select the objects containing the material you want to query. Click OK. Press F2 to display the information contained in the text window. Another material definition typology within Architectural Desktop is the rendering material, which is seen in a shaded viewport within ADT and in the rendering module of VizRender. Although the nomenclature varies, they are essentially the same definition called rendering materials within ADT and simply materials within VizRender. You can drag-n-drop materials freely between Architectural Desktop and VizRender, but the VizRender definition contains much more identifying parameters than the ADT counterpart. Although sharing materials from ADT to VizRender was seamless, sharing materials from VizRender proved more challenging. Sharing between the two programs in ADT 2006 was streamlined from methods in previous editions. With this version of the software, you share the VizRender material with ADT simply by drag/drop a material definition into the ADT drawing window and completing the AEC Material worksheet. 6
Create AEC Material Worksheet New to Architectural Desktop 2006 is the Create AEC Material Worksheet, which enables a more cohesive linkage between ADT and VizRender. The worksheet is invoked upon bringing a material definition unique to VizRender into the Architectural Desktop environment. Assigning Materials in VizRender Materials within VizRender are assigned to objects primarily through the Content Browser and the Tool Palette. The Content Browser is a stand-alone material catalog application that works with both ADT and VizRender. Tool Palette has been streamlined in Architectural Desktop 2006 to either used or unused materials. The steps for assigning materials with the Content Browser are listed below. 1. Open the Content Browser. Select Tools.Content Browser from the pull-down menu system. 2. Select a material from the Render Material Catalog. 3. Drag the material definition onto an object. Use the eyedropper icon with the press.drag.release method. The steps for assigning material definitions to objects with the Material Tool Palette system are listed below. 1. Select an object in the drawing window. Simply click an object to select the object. 2. Select a material from the Tool Palette. 3. Right click the material, select the Apply to Selected from the list of options. 7
Defining Materials in VizRender Materials are defined in VizRender by the following steps. 1. Open the Materials Editor. 2. Name the material. 3. Select a base material template. 4. Adjust the physical qualities (diffuse color, diffuse map, shininess, transparency, translucency, Index of refraction, luminance, etc.) 5. Assign the material. Alternatively, you may use the materials palette to begin material definition using the following process. 1. Right click the tool palette tab. Select the Create New tool option. 2. Select the properties option. 3. Name the Material. 4. Adjust the settings. Editing Materials in VizRender A good place to start with a material is to modify some that are already defined in the program. A useful hint is to make a copy of the material before editing. Another helpful step is to rename the material copy to another name other than the predefined material name. Materials are edited with the Materials Editor. The easiest way to begin material editing is to use the Materials Tool Palette. The steps to edit an existing material from the tool palette system are listed below. 1. Activate the Materials Tool Palette. 2. Right click the material. Select properties. 3. Adjust the settings for the material (physical qualities, radiosity, special effects, etc.) 8