Creating a Mass

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 I really like massing in Revit, when it works, that is.

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Just like anything else, you need to know its nuances and its quirks.

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Sometimes, something that seems quite simple, Revit will struggle with.

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Other times, Revit can do amazing things in massing.

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The objective of this video is to do something in between the simple and amazing.

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By using the reference planes, we can now sketch the basic form of our mask.

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which will become a roof.

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So let's jump into Revit. To open the model, I could browse out through the open dialog box.

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Or, since it's been recently used, it is here in my recent files.

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I click on the recent files.

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This is a central model. And it needs to create a local copy of it, which is fine.

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And I want to override my existing local copy to ensure that I have all the latest information from the central model.

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I double click on my garden floor plan to make it active.

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And this section that we generated last session actually has a pretty bad name, Section 1.

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I double click it to activate it. And in my properties, I can rename it to a much more descriptive name.

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I will call it Garden Roof Section.

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Now what I want to do is I want to create a few more reference planes to complete the grid.

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This previous reference plane that I generated is a little bit too short.

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So I'm just going to click on it and drag it out with the grip like I'd done earlier.

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And now I want to create another reference plane like that. So in my Quick Access bar I can click on Create Similar.

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I don't want to draw another reference plane.

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I want to pick an existing reference plane and offset it.

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So I click on Pick Lines.

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Set my offset value to 8 feet.

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And as I hover over the reference plane, you'll see this blue dashed line as to which side is going to be offset from.

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I'm going to offset it on the inside, and come over to the other reference plane that I generated, and offset that on the inside as well.

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I click Modify to finish my command. And in my measure panel, I click Align Dimensions, which is also available in my Quick Access bar.

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I want to generate a dimension line from these four reference planes.

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So I just go and touch the four reference planes.

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And then I tell it where I want the dimension to be located.

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So I just click above the atrium roof.

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And now you notice that I have this EQ with a line through it.

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I click on the EQ, which will make these dimensions all equal, so the reference planes are equally spaced apart.

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Pretty cool.

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I click on Modify, and we're just about ready to start creating our mass.

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However, before I do that, I want to generate a customized 3D view.

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So I click on this existing roof.

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And I can go to my section box in my Quick Access bar.

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I hit Escape and ZE for zoom extents. Now I want to increase the size of this section box.

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So I click on the section box.

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And you notice along all four sides there are some controls that allow me to enlarge it or shrink it.

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So I'm going to enlarge the four sides. This one's a bit hard to see.

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And there's also one on top, so I'm going to increase the height of my section box.

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Click on Modify, or hit Escape a couple times.

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And now, as I did previously with the section, I want to rename this to a more informative name.

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Now I don't need these other views open, so I'm just going to hover over Startup, and click on Close, hover Garden Floor Plan,

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and close that, and WT will tile our windows, and ZA, or Z A,

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will do a zoom all of all the windows.

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So, great, we're set now.

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So I have a nice grid over here, and I can see what's going on in my 3D view.

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We actually need one more reference plane.

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In the Garden Roof section, zoom in to the Atrium Roof level.

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RP is for creating reference planes.

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The subcategory is already set to Garden Roof.

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So I'm going to pick an existing line and offset it 4 feet.

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And I'm going to select the atrium roof line and ensure that it goes above the atrium roof line.

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Pretty close to my crop box. It's a modify key.

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Select the crop region and extend it up a bit.

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Now let's click on these four existing reference planes that we generated earlier.

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And just elongate them so that they intersect the newly created reference plane so we have some nice intersections to work with.

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Okay, now it's time to generate our roof mass. Click Modify to deselect everything.

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And on the massing site, click on In-place Mass.

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We are informed that Revit has enabled the Show Mass mode so that the newly created mass will be visible.

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What this means is that Revit has temporarily overridden the visibility graphics by enabling the Mass mode.

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I accept that by clicking Close. And we call the mass Garden Roof.

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On the Create tab, under the Draw panel,

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click on SP blind through points we need to tell Revit which work plane to work on.

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So we click on the name and on the dropdown list we see the six reference planes that we generated earlier.

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Garden-01 to,to Garden-06.

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We're gonna start off with Garden-01 and work our way back.

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So I select Garden-01, click OK.

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And now for the spline, for the odd ones, 1,

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So I just select these four intersections that we generated.

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And hit Escape.

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Hit Escape.

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We want to generate another spline, but we want to tell Revit that we are working in another plane.

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So in my drop down list, I select Garden02.

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And now I go the opposite direction, so from the top down.

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Hit Escape a couple times.

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And you can see in the 3D view how it's being generated.

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I can hold the shift key down and orbit around.

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And we see that, indeed, they are in different planes.

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Going back to my Garden Roof Section view.

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Now, rather than generating more splines like this, I can simply pick lines.

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So I select pick lines.

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I go to Garden-03.

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And select the first one going from the bottom up. Now we see it in our 3D view.

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It doesn't have the control points like the other splines do, but we don't really need them.

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Go back to Pick Lines.

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Select my Garden-04.

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Select from the top down. It appears in my view.

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Go back to Pick Lines. Garden-05. We're just about there.

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Select from bottom up.

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Lastly, pick lines, Garden-06, and select from the top down.

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Okay, now we have our four, our six lines.

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Now what we need to do is to hit Modify to deselect everything.

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I'm going to select the six lines that I just generated.

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Holding the control key down, I'll select them in the sequence they were drawn in.

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From 01 to 06.

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And in my contextual ribbon, I can create a form.

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Look at that. So I can pan around.

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Decent.

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And I click on the green check mark in my contextual ribbon to finish my mass.

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I am warned that the mass is only mesh geometry and can't be used to compute mass floors,

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volumes, or surface areas.

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But later on we will show you how to convert this to a object that can be used within Green Building Studios.

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For now let's save the file.