Creating and applying materials for rendering

Any referenced datasets can be downloaded from "Module downloads" in the module overview.

Create materials - Exercise

Revit gives you a great choice of standard materials, but sometimes that simply isn’t enough. Sometimes you need to make your own! There are a few ways to do it. In this exercise, you will use an image and map it to a new material.

To create a material, follow these steps:

  1. Open Revit.
  2. Open the Small Medical Center.rvt model from your project files. If you did not complete the previous exercise, open Small Medical Center-Materials.rvt instead. 
  3. In the Project Browser, select the SECOND FLOOR BREAKROOM 3D view to make it the current view if not already active. 
  4. Select the floor and note that the type is Generic – 12″. 
  5. To change it, you will create a new type of floor. In Properties, click Edit Type. 
  6. In the Type Properties dialog box, click Duplicate… to create a copy of the floor type. 
  7. In the Name dialog box, enter Hardwood and click OK. 
  8. Click << Preview to expand the panel to show the section of the floor. 
  9. Click Edit… in the Structure row to change the structure of the floor type.



  10. In the Edit Assembly dialog box, change the Structure [1] material by clicking on the ellipsis in the Material cell. 
  11. In the Material Browser, type CONC in the search panel, then select Concrete, Cast-in-Place gray.



  12. Click OK. 
  13. Change the Thickness of the concrete slab to 6″. 
  14. Select the top Core row, then click Insert to add a new layer above the core. 
  15. Change the Function of the new layer to Substrate [2] from the drop-down list. 
  16. Change the Material to Plywood Sheathing and change the Thickness to 1/2″. 
  17. Insert another layer above the Substrate layer and change the Function to Finish 1 [4], as shown below.



  18. In the Material cell, click the ellipsis to browse for materials. 
  19. At the bottom of the Material Browser, click Create New Material, as shown below.



  20. Rename the new material to American Cherry. 
  21. On the Appearance tab, click (no image selected) under the Image field and select american_cherry.png as the material. 
  22. Click on the image preview to launch the Texture Editor dialog box, and do the following (as shown below): 
    1. Toggle on Link texture transforms. 
    2. In the Scale section, set the Sample Size to 36″ (3′) for Width and Height. 
    3. In the Repeat section, both Horizontal and Vertical should be set to Tile. 
    4. Click Done.



  23. Expand the Bump section and check the checkbox, then select american-cherry.png. In the Texture Editor, set the same settings as used previously. 
  24. On the Graphics tab, in the Cut Pattern section, set the Foreground Pattern to Wood1. 
  25. In the Surface Pattern section, set the Foreground Pattern to 4” Parallel (model).



  26. Click Apply and then OK to finish composing the new material. 
  27. Set the Thickness of the Finish layer to 3/4″. 
  28. Click OK twice to finish. 
  29. Click Modify to apply the new floor type. 
  30. Select the three different cabinet types along the wall and change the Door/Drawer Material of each one to Cherry, as shown below.



  31. When finished, your model should look like the image shown below. Save the file.