Mass objects - Revit Tutorial

- [Instructor] You're typical Revit family, which is usually considered a component family, is made up of either mass or void objects. Let's talk about mass objects. The first kind of mass object that you can find underneath the create tab is called an extrusion. An extrusion, as the picture kind of indicates, is a series of lines which get extruded upwards to give it some elevation or thickness. To draw an extrusion, start by selecting on extrusion, then, where we have the draw tools, let's select on this rectangle tool. Click once, come over like this, then click again. Now, the exact size of this rectangle for this exercise doesn't really matter. Just draw in a rectangular shape. We can see that currently that the depth of this rectangle would be one foot. If we wanted to change the depth, we could come up here to the options bar and then change the depth to be whatever depth we would like it to be. In this case I'm typing in two feet. Next, I'm gunna click on the big green check mark and now it's kind of hard to tell what's happened but it has automatically created a rectangular extrusion which is two feet in depth. To see that extrusion, or box, we can go to our 3D view. So, come up here and select on the default 3D view and this is the box that we just drew and this object is considered a mass object and there's a variety of other kinds of mass objects that we can draw as well. Let's go back to the floor plan view. Go to the reference level view. If this object is selected just click off of it. Now the next thing I'd like to create and since I said we'll create it we need to go to the create tab, is considered a blended object or a blend. If you select on blend, we first need to draw the base or the bottom of this object. Let's start off with another square or, in this case, it's called a rectangle. If we select on rectangle, click once just somewhere over here and then draw either a rectangular shape like this or like this. Next, that's considered the base, now we need to draw the top, so, we select on edit top. Now we can draw another rectangular shape if we wanted to or, in this case, let's draw a circular shape. So select on circle, pick a spot somewhere around this area, click and draw a circle of about that size. One thing I want to point out is, just like the square, this shape has depth to it. So, this depth is one foot. If we wanted we could change it to two foot but I'll just leave it at one foot for right now and click on the big green check mark. If we take a look at it by clicking on the default 3D button, zooming out, we can see that we now have a square shape that transitions to a round shape. What also makes this kind of special is that we have arrows. If you click and hold the mouse button down on the arrow we can then control where that circular shape is located at. So we can give it some extra height. If we then click on the object, we can now see that the circle is five feet, two and five thirty seconds inches above where the base is at and we can adjust it manually as well through the properties. We can move that back down to two feet, then either click on apply or just move our courser out here into the drawing area and now that shape complies to the way that we drew it. A few more shapes that we can draw. Back in the floor plan view. I'm gunna come back to the create tab. There's an option here for something called a revolve. Now, actually for the revolve, I think I'll draw that inside of an elevation view. So under the project browser I'll come here to front, select on revolve. Now I want to draw the outside of the way that this object will look. For instance, maybe I want to draw this inscribed polygon. Now it doesn't necessarily have to be down here on the line. If I wanted an object that's floating above where the floor level is at I can draw an object up here. I can draw it out. If I want it to have more than six sides I can come up here to the options bar and change the, any number of sides that I would like. In this case I just changed it to be eight. Next, I'm gunna draw what's called an axis line. And the axis line means that this boundary line that we just drew will then revolve all the way around that axis line. So I'm gunna click, click again, then click the big green check mark. See how that shape has now revolved itself all the way around? And if we look at it in a 3D view, we now have that sort of circular shape floating there in air and if I click on it, I could then sort of move it from side to side or wherever it is I wanted to sort of move it out of the way to. If we look at it from up above, I can click on it here. Notice that I'm really just moving it from side to side. As it stays along basically the same plane that we drew it on. Now, the next thing I'll do is I'll just come up here and I'll just click the little X here on this view. You can see how it's kind of floating up here in the air. I can drop it down if I wanted to. I'll come over here to create and there's another option called a sweep. Now a sweep allows you to draw a shape and then it follows the path that you draw. So, to finish off the sweep, we'll come up here to sweep, we'll sketch the path that that sweep needs to follow and I'll just draw a shape like this. That's good enough for me. I'll click the green check mark to that. Then we need to draw a profile shape. Now, if we have a profile shape already loaded in we can just click right here, then choose that profile shape or we can edit the profile. Now it's asking where do you want to draw the profile shape in at because that profile shape is actually gunna be at this location where this red dot is at. The floor plan view's okay with me so I'll just select on open view and the shape that I think that I'll draw is just some odd shape that I'll just create and feel free to draw whatever odd shape that you think may look interesting and you're not just limited to, necessarily, just one line going around. You can have multiple different ones. The only key to this being that none of these lines can cross one another so you need to be able to follow it around from start to end going all the way on around. Click on the big green check mark. Click on it one more time and we now have a sweep. If we take a look at it in the default 3D view, we can now see there's that object that was just created and it swept itself along the path. Finally, there's an option here for swept blend. Now, swept blend is probably the only one that's just a little bit unstable so you always need to be careful when you're drawing swept blends that you don't have too complex of shapes because sometimes Revit struggles in making them but, for the most part, it can make your swept blends just fine. If we select on swept blend, we can sketch a path. The path I think that I'll make will, this case be, an arc. Green check mark, now there's two profile shapes and those'll be the two shapes that we blend together. I'm gunna select profile one and I'm gunna edit that profile shape. Okay, now the next thing I want to do, is I need to get into a view where I can actually edit that profile shape from, so now I'm gunna be here in elevation view. I can just double click on front. I'm gunna draw a circle of one size, click the green check mark, select the second profile. So, make sure to click on select second profile. I'm gunna edit that profile shape and we could tell that that's the profile shape that's being used because the red dot has shifted over to the other side. I'll draw another circle. This one'll be a little bit bigger. Click on the big green check mark, click on the big green check mark. Now, if we look at this in the 3D view, if you hold down the shift key and then the wheel of your mouse, you can now take a look at all the different shapes that you've created and, by using all of these solid forms, this is the basis by which all of your Revit components are created.