Power Up Your Stingray Projects! Create Smooth Revit Workflows and Take Advantage of Your Models’ BIM Properties

PRESENTER 1: So today, what we're going to be talking about is how to take advantage of your Revit model and pull that data into Stingray and then actually do something with it.

So that's our class summary. The real goal here is to make sure that at the end of this, you have an idea of the workflows between Revit and Stingray. And I'm going to be saying Stingray a lot, because that's the one that comes to mind. If you're also thinking of Max interactive, at the moment, pretty much the same idea. And I'll go into that a little bit more in a bit.

Another thing we're talking about is how to actually pull your data from Revit into the other tools, so you can actually take advantage of it. I'll go over a couple of different ways that we can actually utilize that and different things we can do and how we can sort of automate some of these processes.

Yeah, everybody said they know how to survey. So that's awesome. All righty, so getting started. What we're going to be doing is going through a bunch of different tools and software. So I'll be looking at Revit Live, Dynamo Max, Stingray and then actually creating a space from that. But then how to actually do something in there that is not just turn this on and off, maybe change the material, but actually do that based on the data that we had inside of our models.

Now in terms of why we want to look at this. Just out of curiosity is anybody here doing anything with Lumion, or NScape, or Live? Awesome. Anybody here doing anything with VR, whether it's-- OK, awesome. We're in the right room. Anybody with game engines? Wow, cool.

Now the reason why I bring this up is the main thing that we're looking for here is to, from an AEC, we're not necessarily looking to make a first person shooter in our building. If you're doing a lot of military work, maybe you. Are but the main thing is how can we take what we've already put a lot of our effort into. And benefit from that. And a lot of these tools are more focused on the visualization aspect. There's nothing wrong with that. But we won't want to lose our efforts. So for all the years that we've been getting presentations on the benefit of BIM and why we do BIM, everybody is probably sick and tired of that sore tooth diagram.

Same idea, but now I'm focusing it more on the visualization aspect. I want to make sure that I'm applying that idea of maintaining my information and the integrity of it as I work.

So from this, we're going to be using a couple of different tools. So Rivet, of course, and Stingray, of course. One workflow we're going to look at is using Live. And the workflow from live is actually going to go through the Cloud, hit the Stingray. And that has the ability to push back from Stingray or Max Interactive back into Live.

Now the other option that we have is to go through 3D Max. So that can go into there. And again, Stingray can then modify things and send it back and forth between Stingray Max.

So if there's more edits or tweaks that I want to do, I can actually work on that.

Now the nice thing about this is that it's an easy pathway and sort of pipeline for geometry materials and visualizations, but not so much without extra effort for the data. So for this, what we're actually going to be using is Dynamo. And that's going to sort of stream a lot of our information from Revit into Stingray.

Yeah, now from that will allow us to port out to Windows. We can then send our information to mobile devices, as well as VR. And if I'm remembering correctly, you can also do HTML onto the web, as well.

Cool. Now for this, I have three different workflows that I'm going to be focusing on. And I came up with three different workflows for a few reasons. Number one, when I first submitted this class, Live was not a free tool. So you actually had to pay for that Not everybody did. So let me make sure I have an alternative.

For anybody who's not aware, if you own the AEC collection as of I think it was end of August, the beginning of September, you now have access to Live. And every time you do a run to the Cloud, that's also free. They're at least currently not charging you for those runs. So if you want to run your model into Live, without Stingray, go for it.

Now with that, I still have a lot of clients who do government work. So anything going to the Cloud is kind of a no, no. And even though I like Live, there are still a few things that are-- I don't want to say problematic. But there's limitations. So I like having other alternatives. And it's not like I have to do one of these and not the others. As we talk about this. I want to mention that there's going to be aspects of each workflow that I want to focus on. And the end result is each one is going to have their own pros and cons.

So when we start looking at the first one, the nice thing about the beginner workflow is that it's simple, keeps it easy. It's going to leverage your knowledge that you already have. And I'm going to guess everybody here already knows what they're doing with Revit. So let's focus our efforts and time in organizing our content there. So that way, when we get it into Stingray, we're only doing a couple of basic things. We're not trying to go too crazy.

So a lot of this is going to be baby steps. It's our first project. I want to turn things on and off based on my information. I want to click on an object and say, that's a wall. That's on this system. But I don't want to script anything. I don't want to deal with programming. I just wanted it to kind of work and then not even know how it works. So that's going to be our basics one.

Now the other one is the live one. A lot of this is going to be automated. And again, everybody here if you have the AEC collection, you already have access to this.

Now the cons with this is that we don't have a lot of control in terms of how it handles the geometry. Has anybody here ever went from Revit to 3D Max? Perfect. So when you go from Revit to 3D Max have a few options as to how it handles your geometry. One of those options is do I want a group of by material, do I want a group of by the family type, or not group at all? There is some grouping involved when you go through the Live process. And that can cause a few problems in terms of how I actually am able to grab that intelligence or information.

Now the 3D Max advanced one, this is going to give you the most control, because you're doing the most work. The quote, unquote "con" is that you're also going to have to do the most effort to get that data. None of this is out of the box. And all the little plugins and tools that we have here? They are available. I know there's been some issues with data sets and stuff on the AU site. They are up there. Don't know when they're going to be available. But they are up there. And when they are available, you'll have access to the Dynamo graphs, as well as the flow nodes that we're using here to do all this.

Now two quick things. I mentioned Live is free. And I also mentioned something about Max interactive. So right now all the software that I'm using is sort of the current version except for Stingray. I'm using version 1.08. The current one is 1.9. Was anybody in Marcello's class on Tuesday?

Some of the stuff I'm going to say is going to be different. And the main reason is, if you remember, he said that he was using the next version, sort of the beta of that. So they streamline a few things for that. So that's why when I start talking about the Live process, it's going to be more effort. But they've cleaned that up. And we'll get that eventually.

So one of the things, that one of the reasons I'm using 1.8 instead of 1.9 is when I'm using Revit Live with Stingray or Max interactive, they need to be version matched. So think of it like using Rivet NEP and Revit Architecture, essentially. I can't be using 2017 and 2015. It's not going to really work. So I'm using the previous version of Stingray or Interactive, so that way I can work with Live. So if you're not doing that, then who cares. Go to the latest version.

And now the other thing too is Max interactive, again, if you're on the NEC collection, you've got Max interactive. You don't have to purchase Stingray as a separate tool. At the moment, it's really Stingray with a new name, find replace. However, that's actually going to be more focused as time goes on for the AEC crew. So Stingray is going to stay a game engine. And it's going to be more focused for like indie games. And I don't think they're going to be looking to take on Unreal, at least next year.

But the Max interactive is going to be focused for the AEC crew. I want to get into VR. I want to get into an interactive experience, simply and smoothly, with my workflow. So that's going to be that. So I keep saying Stingray, because that's the name I'm used to.

So as with anything, there is going to be some preparation involved. It's not just going to be hit a button and everything works, at least not yet. At least until we finish programming.

So the process of getting from Revit to Stingray is a little bit convoluted. But there's three main things that I want to focus on to clean things up and make sure they actually work appropriately.

So one of them is going to be on materials. I have to worry about my lights. And I also have to worry about my families. Depending on what my intention is with the family and also how that family is created and what it actually is. From a material standpoint, what I need to do is make sure all my materials are set up as standard materials. So Stingray can't read things like multi materials or protein materials. So it only works with the standard. So I have to make sure I'm modifying that.

So the other thing I have to do is for my lights. Again, the version I'm using right now is 1.8. So that doesn't work with like IES or photo realistic lights. So when I bring my lights in the Stingray, I'm probably going to have to tweak them a little bit, so it doesn't look like I'm standing next to the sun.

However, 1.9 they did add the ability to have real photometric lights.

Now in terms of families, does anybody here typically use RPCs in their project? OK, sorry.

The reason why I apologize is that essentially, in Revit, they're great. I look at this on the left hand side. And I've got to sort of like basic tree cardboard cut out in a tree, in a car. And then when I tell it to render it, I actually have something that looks like a real thing.

The problem is when I'm sending this either via-- sorry, when I'm sending this via Max, all I'm going to get are these little sort of place holders. If you go through the Live process, and you're using the out of the box RPCs, they'll actually convert that through the Cloud. So otherwise, what you can end up doing is it'll show it inside of 3D Max. Wrong one. There we go. It'll show those little elements instead of 3D Max. So if you're comfortable with Max, you can always do like a find these and then replace it with a different object. Or you can not use RPCs in the models that you know you're sending to Stingray.

Now the other thing is our elements that we want to animate. Has anybody here ever done an animation inside of Navisworks? Cool. Have you ever tried to animate a door?

Yeah, once.

So a lot of this is because of how the object is actually handled. And if you send it a typical family from Revit into Stingray and you try to animate in Stingray, this is essentially what you're going to end up getting. It's going to treat it as one big object. And not necessarily a bad thing, depending on what the family is or how it works. But if I want to treat this as separate elements, I am going to have to do a little bit of extra effort.

Now from that, if I'm inside of Revit, and I open up the actual family file. So this isn't really going to work if I'm doing it from the project. So I take the family, export that out as an FBX. And also if anybody here is familiar, you have that shared checkbox. If I do have shared elements in this family that are nested, those will abroad be brought into Max as separate elements and treated separately, as well.

But from here, what I need to do is go to Max. I'm going to end up creating dummy elements. So think of it like this. I'm creating folders, so that way, I can actually create a structure. So once I've got my dummy elements, the one that's called door there and panel, I take the geometry that was brought in from the family export. And then I could just drag and drop it into that folder structure.

What this has done is taken all the stuff that was on the same level. They were all technically at the root of that file. And now I sort of organized it how I want. This way, when I bring into Stingray, I can control it. Then for the people who are comfortable with Navisworks, or maybe you need to do something that's interactive, and you're getting files from other people. So you might not actually have that Revit file.

In those cases, if I'm working inside of Navis, and I've got that format already there, if you export from Navisworks to an FBX, it comes in with that hierarchy. So that I can manipulate that, as well. So again, my focus here is going to be on Live and Max. But that by no means means that's the only route. I can still get there from a lot of different tools, even if people are giving me an NWC or NWD. I can still bring that in and actually create an experience based off of that geometry.

And then once I've got that and the Stingray. And I'll go over the unit editor a bit. But you can see how when I select up here, it's treating those as two separate objects. So I'm able to actually work with my geometry separate and apply different things to it. So far so good. Any questions on anything?

AUDIENCE: I have a comment. I do a lot of work in Revit [INAUDIBLE].

PRESENTER 1: I'm sorry. I missed that.

AUDIENCE: I bring the doors in as-- I reference the doors into the frame so when it goes into Max, they're already separate. I don't have to go through that process over.

PRESENTER 1: Yep. Exactly, correct. So the question was. I'm sorry?

AUDIENCE: Put a door swing on it, everything else already.

PRESENTER 1: Perfect. So the question was if he's already got the door, instead of having it be one family, all the geometry in the same spot, I mentioned before about that checkbox for shared. If it's actually treated as a separate element. So he's nesting the panel into the frame, then you won't have to deal with all this. So this is the typical example, where you've actually got all the stuff in the same, all the geometries live and together.

Now a couple of other things with this. I'm mentioning families, lights, and materials. As I work through this process, a lot of how I manage that content is going to depend on my strength. If I'm really good with Revit, and I know how to do three things in Max, and that's importing and exporting, then I'm probably going to handle all of my materials in Rivet and just convert them into Stingray.

If I work in maybe the media department of my office, and I just get the files from somebody else, I'm really good in the Max, probably. So what I'm going to end up doing is my managing my lights and my materials there. So I can change all of these things in either of these programs. I can modify my materials and the lighting inside of Stingray. I can do it inside of Revit. And I can do it in Max.

What you want to do, kind of like, think of it like a Revit project. I've a BIM execution plan to make sure everybody knows what we're doing. When I'm doing this, I want everybody to know where we're managing things. So we're not replicating our efforts. I don't want to spend an entire day fixing all my materials in Rivet and then find out that once I've it into Stingray, they changed it again there. So you want to work things out so you're doing it once where you need it to be. So now for the Max workflow.

If we're talking about the Max beginner workflow, what I'm going to end of doing is taking my Revit model. And I want to actually set up specific views. Reason I'm doing this is because I'm going to export my geometry from each of you, separately. If anybody here has ever used BIM 360 Glue, now you can kind of parse out your model that I upload all these different views to Glue as separate files, essentially. Same exact idea.

Again, I'm trying to take my time and spend more of it inside of Revit, because that's where in this example, my strengths lie. So rather than me having to deal with things and a lot of customization on the Stingray side, I'm formatting things here. So I can create filters. I can create my views. And then I'm actually going to break up my model. So that way, each piece that I want to manipulate is parceled out. If I were to turn on and off my interior walls, that's separate. All my structure. That's separate. My systems, maybe I have one view just from mechanical supply. Another one for hot water. Another one for cold water, exhaust, and so on and so forth. So that way I can actually tweak all these things much more easily on the back end.

Now on the advanced side of things, I don't really care. I'm just going to take the model, send it all the way up there as one big thing, because I'm going to treat all the objects as individual objects. So I can push, pull, or manipulate them as individual pieces.

Now for this to all work, there's a few things I need to do in 3D Max. I mentioned before the materials. And one of the things I'm going to end up doing here is use the scene converter. This is under that rendering pool down inside of 3D Max. What this is it going to do is allow me to convert a lot of different things inside of Max. For my process, all I really care, typically, is about the materials. I want to make sure that I'm changing whatever is possible into a standard material.

So you can change other things, depending on your comfort level of Max, your knowledge, and what you're trying to achieve. But for this, I'm this going to change that, tell it that I want to actually convert the scene. And that'll actually take all those materials that would have shown up as either white or just kind of weird looking and actually set them up so they go into Stingray correctly.

Again, if my comfort level is more inside of Stingray, I might just manage the materials there. But I want to determine where I'm doing that.

Now the other thing here is the ability to send to Stingray. And if you're talking Max interactive, same exact thing. It just says, interactive, on the top. Again, same workflow right now.

Now within this, I have several different pieces. You've got your live camera tracking. What that does is that, once I hit connect. So let's say I've got 3D Max open and Stingray or Max interactive open, that allows me to connect the two programs together. So if I want to do that live camera tracking, that allows me to orbit around whatever I'm interested in, in one program. And it mimics the camera in the other. So if I'm really good in one program and not the other one, every time I try to zoom in, I end up going right past the object. But I know I can do it really good in the other program.

Perfect. Link your cameras. Go to the other program. Orbit, navigate, and set that up. And I know I can see it where the other one is.

So let's say I am taking an object from Stingray. I brought that into 3D Max. And now I want to work on it there. I can orbit around that individual instance inside of Max and still have the camera orbit around that same instance inside of Stingray. So it makes it a little bit easier to see what I'm doing.

Now the other pieces here are where we do the bulk of our transmission. So by that, I mean I'm actually sending my geometry from one program into the other. And these are actually very different. If you look at the send all, what that does is that sends either everything that's in my Max file or everything I've selected from Max into Stingray. But it doesn't put it in the project. Sorry. It doesn't put it in the view that I'm working on. And I'll go more into what I mean by that in a bit.

Essentially, it takes it and loads it into the project. So think of it this way. If you're working in Revit, all that would do is load the file, load the family. Doesn't put the family in the project. But it loads it into it. So then I can place it later on. That would be the send tool.

The level send doesn't just send the content over there. It sends it there and actually places it in the exact same location. So if I have all my stuff setup. I've got all these elements inside of Max. And I can see them all lining up, all the coordinates are correct. If I do level send, it not just sends it into my Stingray project, it places it in the correct location.

So depending on what I'm working with, I might go one or the other or again, a mixture of them all.

The key thing on this is that how I actually bring this into Max determines how that tool actually works. So if I'm using the import, I have a couple of options here. If I use the element, sorry the Revit preset, and I do the send single unit, that's, sorry. The send tool, that will create a single unit, meaning that I could have 100 different objects or families or walls or whatever in Max. It kind of binds them all together into one group. So kind of like you make a block or something.

However, if I do level send in that instance, all those individual pieces, the doors, the walls, the ducks, they're treated as individual pieces. So I of have to determine how I want to work on things.

Now down here, if you notice the link, those are also doing level send single unit. Reason for that is when you do a link, what it ends up doing is putting the name of the file at the root of that Max project. So when I use the level send, it sends that. And the rest of these are sort of nested into it.

If what I want to do is I want to use the Max link. I want to make sure that as my project is changing, that I'm not having to redo all my work. I just when I hit Refresh and everything that moved in my project updates, I just have to unlink it. It doesn't break the ex ref, essentially. It still is going to be linked to the Revit file or the FBX. But now it puts it at the root of that file. And it treats them as individual objects.

And another thing, is anybody here really good with Max script?

OK, yeah. That's why I didn't spend too much time on this. So if you notice over here I say properties are available or not available, certain ways of importing your Revit geometry into Max, you actually will see your Rivet properties inside of there. So if you're really comfortable with Max script, you can write something from Max that pushes it to Stingray. It just depends on where, again, your comfort levels lie. And we still have any questions? Ah, quiet. Sorry, yes?

AUDIENCE: What do you mean by standard materials?

PRESENTER 1: Oh, it's not standard in terms of it has to be red, green, or blue. Standard is the nomenclature for that kind of material. To be completely honest, I don't know enough about the different kinds of materials, like what really differentiates standard from protein to multi and--

AUDIENCE: When you say "multi," do you mean multi [INAUDIBLE]?

PRESENTER 1: Yes.

AUDIENCE: Those can be a set of standards, correct?

PRESENTER 1: Mhm.

AUDIENCE: So that [INAUDIBLE]?

PRESENTER 1: When you do the scene converter, which fixes that, it'll come through. But you do have to run the scene converter. Otherwise, the results that you get will be a little weird. So the question was asking if the multi materials will or will not come through. I've seen it where the one that I want, it looks OK. And I've seen ones where it doesn't. I don't know the rhyme or reason off the top of my head. But I just always run the converter. Or before I got aware of that, I would bake the materials on.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

PRESENTER 1: Yeah, all the objects come in with the material from Revit. I just have to make sure that they continue across correctly.

Now to get to Stingray. So easy one here is from Live. You've hit the go Live button. That's kind of all you have to worry about. This will come through and give you your options. It'll tell you what you're working with. It'll tell you, OK, do you want to make this a fine level of detail? I can't find these specific materials. It'll go through the process, upload that to the Cloud, and then download that.

As it is currently. So this is where it differs from Marcello's class, when this comes down, you get an LVMD file, live model file. I have to actually open this up another 7 Zip or change that file format to a zip. And then from there, I extract that data into Stingray. And then from here, I'm just going to move my level file into the actual level folder in the Stingray project. That makes it easier to manage it. And it's with the rest of my level files.

Now in terms of setting up the Stingray project, when you first get here, you get your different kinds. You have the ability to add an existing project. If I used Live, I have that file that gets downloaded, I can open up that file as an existing Stingray project. I still have to extract it, currently. But then I can open it up by default.

If I don't want to do that. If I want to have a new project and maybe link in Live or I'm working with Max, then I can say new. And then I pick one of the templates that I'm curious about. So depending on what you're trying to do, if I'm working with an infrastructure or a civil project, and I want to drive the site, I'm going to pick the vehicle one. If my goal is to use virtual reality, I'm going to pick the correct virtual reality. And when I say correct, am I using a Vive, am I using an Oculus Rift. It'll start with a lot of default information to help smooth out the process.

So think of it like this, where if you're using Revit, and you start off with the out of the box template, you're not going to have your office standard tools. But you can always put them in there. It's the same thing. If you start with empty, all that means is you're starting from scratch and you have to do a lot of effort. So you can start with the vehicle one and turn it into VR. It's just going to take more effort.

And for everybody who is not used Stingray, keep an eye on the online projects. This is great, because it has a lot of nice examples. And granted, a couple of them are sort of video games. Don't disregard those. Look at how the game is built. If you want to change from level to level, a level really is nothing more than a design option, a location in your project. I want to go from my third floor to the fifth floor. Each one could be a separate level. So a lot of the things that you'll see inside of these, especially the Vive museum example, they're very good just to see, OK, how would I do this? That's how they built it here. So they're good to sort of disassemble. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Marcello mentioned a live template. That's also something that's coming?

PRESENTER 1: Yeah, that would be in the 2.0 version that he was showing, yes. So like right now, I mentioned they have the LVMD file. I can't remember the format. But the format name changes. And that template, that UI, is going to be one of the options.

Cool. So within Stingray, we have our typical UI here. On the bottom here, I'm looking at my asset browser. And then the content inside the folder. The asset browser is where all of my stuff is. So again, if you're looking at Revit, if I click on Wall, and I've got my type selector, these are all my different types that I have in the project.

These over here are all the types that I've placed in my level. So these ones actually are somewhere inside of the project. So all of these are listed here. But all of these are not necessarily there. So this is where I can pull from. Anything that I send from Max to Stingray via the Sent portion, they're going to be here. I have to manually put them in my view.

Anything that I went through the level send option gets placed here and here.

Now the other thing here is you'll notice that there is sort of my property editor on the right hand side. When we look at the objects here. So on the upper left hand corner is this the family for scaffolding in Revit. And on the bottom right, it's the exact same object, but showing up inside a Stingray. Now this option went through Live. So I've got all of the properties coming from Revit visible.

Now in this case, the big thing for us is noticing that, hey, the element ID is visible. That's something that I can use to connect the dots between the two programs. So that's one of the ways that we're actually going to be pushing our data from one area to the other. That's how I know, OK, if I want to see this here and here, it's going to go to the correct location. I'm not going to have a scaffold that says it's door 101, which would be bad.

Now from this, when we look over here. So on that side, I can see that I've got scaffolding. And that says 33 4/5/10. And then I have another one that says 5/11. When you're inside of Revit and you copy an instance around, it's going to treat it as completely separate entities.

When I bring this into Stingray, though, what ends up happening is it says, hey, this is the exact same geometry. You just have it five times around here. So they don't load that family in five times. They load it in as one FBX. And then they tell Stingray that, OK, these other instances of it, they have different numbers or different properties. But we only have to track render or handle one instance of the geometry. Does that make sense for anybody?

AUDIENCE: Does it automatically?

PRESENTER 1: Yes. So in this case, that's the FBX file. And I have my import option, so it knows what were my choices when I brought them into Stingray. And then the unit file. So the unit file is actually what I see here that has all the data. Because the FBX isn't containing the properties. It's actually the unit file.

Now the interesting thing about this is that there's a lot of correlation between Revit and Stingray. So if I say Stingray level, here's a way to think of it as like a project. I might have multiple levels in something I'm working on. I might have multiple Revit project files that are linked back and forth between each other. When we're looking at my units, units in Revit or elements in Revit typically have my instance and type. And when I'm looking at my properties in Revit, they're going to relate to script data inside of Stingray or Max interactive.

The neat thing about a lot of this, though, is that it's all just held in a text file. So when I'm actually working on things, and I'm moving it back and forth, this is actually the text file from my level. So it shows me, OK, the name of it is a door. It's simple flush. This is where it is actually placed. So that's the rotation. That's the placement, rotation. And then if we get into any of my properties, it would be listed in an under script data.

So if I'm looking at the actual unit, same thing. This is all the information in a unit that was sent from Live. So all of that property data is actually very accessible. And it's very easy to edit or manipulate. I would not want it to start going in there and typing things without understanding how it all is really formatted. But that's really it. It's not held onto the Dashboard or locked or encrypted. And this is actually how the tools that we're using or showing as an example here work.

So for the Max workflow. This is going to be the Max basics. We need to add the BIM data to this, because again, just sending it over from Max with added level or the send all, we're just getting geometry. We're not getting any of the actual BIM data.

So in this case, we also have to add physics actors. So we don't want to be walking through our level and then have that happen. So a physics actor is something on an object that tells it, I want to interact with it. So if I don't have a physics actor on something, I'm just going to walk through a wall or fall through a floor, if I turn on gravity.

So on the basics workflow, what I'm going to end up doing is selecting the object. And in this case, I have the same piece here, my mechanical system. I can either double click down here or right click on it in the view. And what that's going to allow me to do is open it up in the unit editor. So think of the unit editor as the Family Editor.

So this is where I'm modifying it at the base. So inside of here, I can see all the mesh geometry. I can see script data. Notice materials. I'll get back to that in a bit. But what I'm going to end up doing in here is click on script data and plus and tell it I want to add a string. And then that string, I want to type in what do I want this to be. So the key is sort of the name of my property. And then the actual value of that property is going to be the value.

So again, the basics workflow. I'm not actually connecting it to Revit. I'm not going to worry about plugins or scripting. I'm trying to get the idea of it and get a better understanding of how Stingray works. The Live and the advanced workflow, I'm totally connecting everything back and forth.

So once I've done that, I select the object and tell it that I want to create a physics actor.

Now this is a couple of things, floor, walls, I do that so I don't walk through them or fall through them. For the mechanical system, I'm creating a physics actor on it. So if I want to, and in the examples I have, I actually can shoot a ray cast at it. So meaning if I look at it and click on a button, I want you to hit this object and then tell me the name of that object. So that way, I can just click on something in the screen wherever I'm looking and find out which system is it. What's the category. I then remember to save afterwards. And then after, it's going to be visible.

Now for the advanced workflow, we're going to be inside of Rivet. And what I'm going to end up doing here is clicking on Dynamo. And this is going to open up. And one of the two Dynamo graphs that we've actually posted as datasets.

Now the first one here is going to be creating our properties, mainly two different things. We have to put in here. Most everything is don't have to worry about how it works. I just to know where to edit it. This case, we're looking for that level file. So that text file that I had in there before. That's actually it. So I typically don't want to be in the level. You can be. But it can cause problems if you're editing things while this is running.

What I want to do is just point to the level file. And then what I want to do is actually type in the name of the parameter, the instance parameter, that I want to push. So I put that into the code block. And what this is going to do is it's going to run through that level file. It's also going to run through my Revit file. If it sees element IDs that match up, it's then going to say, OK, I'm going to push the category of the object into the script data of Stingray. And I'm going to put in whatever the element inside the code block is, as well. So I'm essentially pushing data from Revit into Stingray, so that we can take advantage of it. So far so good?

Now this allows me to get my data across. The problem I have next is physics actors. When I'm working with a basics workflow, I might have maybe five or six different files, double clicking on each one selecting it and saying, physics actor is not a big deal. When I have 1600 files, I am not doing that. So again, this is basically a Dynamo graph that does that.

And again, all this other stuff over here. Not too worried about that. The [INAUDIBLE] is if you want to test this. So if you do have several thousand objects, and you only want to test the first five, we can actually limit that. But all we're doing is pointing at a folder. When you bring content from Max or Live or anything into Stingray, it actually is putting it into a regular folder. So wherever I put the units, the FBX files, I point at that. It runs through that folder, finds all the objects, and says, OK, I'm making a physics file for all of these. And for a project that has say about 1600 elements, it runs through about two minutes on the Rivet side. It takes a little bit longer to compile it inside of Stingray, though. So these are good things to run and then get coffee.

So those are the two things that I really have to do from Revit to push my data out into Stingray. So that way, I can take advantage of it all and not have to worry so much about I don't want to have to select everything individually. And I want the intelligence to carry across.

So now if I want to actually take advantage of that data. And for time-- yeah, good.

On the beginner process, we have a couple of basic things. And these are out of the box nodes from Stingray. So everybody here is familiar to a certain degree with Dynamo? No? OK. So if anybody here is familiar with Dynamo or Grasshopper, you have the nodes there. Stingray has something called flow nodes. Very similar. This is how I can do graphical programming. I don't need to know how to actually code. I just need to say, OK, I want to use this object. And then I want it to impact other elements.

The two things that I want to work with are a level unit and the get unit string data. So if I remember the string data is actually my property value. So anything that I've put in there, I want to actually get that. I want to close that back. Now the other one is the level unit. Units in Stingray are essentially my geometry, my objects. So what I'm using here is I want to look at those two pieces. And I can create a unit very easily by just saying create level unit after selecting it. And then I'm actually going to connect them together. So really basic one here.

I want to use a keyboard button, which button? Type that in. I want to toggle this, so I don't have to use two things to turn it on and off. So every time I hit it, it goes in a different direction. And I basically just setting the Visibility of that object. So if I'm walking through a space that I have and the ceiling is really nice. But I'd like to actually see where my ducks are. That actually on that key number one, every time I hit it, it turns the ceiling off. It turns the ceiling on. And it's able to do that, because I brought the ceilings in as that individual file. I exported them separately. So making it simple for me to work within Stringray.

Again, don't know Dynamo, maybe. I don't know Stingray. I'm not a programmer. But I want to get close to that result. This gets my feet wet and gets me started on that path, that as I get more comfortable, then I start playing around with some of the more custom aspects.