Revit Society

thanks to therevitkid for pointing me here, i'm a first year building design student (new to revit & building design but not 3d modelling) i hope this forum will take off like the site owner anticipates as i've been looking for a decent forum (as opposed to the numerous blogs) as an alternative to the autodesk forums for a long time.
ok, so my cherry-popping question is: i've recently been playing around with walkthroughs and to my dismay i've learnt there's no animation in revit...so my doors can't open and close...yes i made new doors that are already open but it's just not the same. Now, my latest project is a 2 storey house and i can't seem to be able to get the camera to go up the stairs either...is it possible??? If not should i be transferring it all to 3dsmax and doing it there? What other programs (compatible with revit) does anyone else use?
Ta!

You can change the elevation of the camera and angle so it can go up stairs.
You can export your walkthrough as an avi.
Navisworks can take an exported 3d revit model dwf and do a full walkthrough, animate it easily and it has a gravity feature so it automatically goes up and down stairs.
To just use Navisworks as a free viewer, go to www.autodesk.com/navisworks and download navisworks freedom.

Navisworks Freedom is free and I'm surprised not every Revit users takes advantage of it's amazing ability to do a walkthrough of a building with ease.

Being one of the creators of those numerous blogs, i take exception to the connotation that this website would replace what I and therevitkid do. I think AUGI has done a great job with their Revit forums, but RevitSociety could be our sanctuary with no worries of outsiders.

As far as your door opening question, check out this http://www.aecbytes.com/review/2008/NavisWorks2009.html and Navisworks Review, Simulate and Manage can do the door opening during an animation.

Hi Gregory, thanks for your prompt reply.

Please, under no circumstance think that i'm assuming (ass-u-me) AUGI or the autodesk forums aren't any good or need to be replaced. I have learnt much about Revit from both these sites and many different blogs. As the revit kid's blog is pretty much my favorite (which i check nearly everyday), i mentioned my appreciation in the opening line of my original post. I would hate to think ANYTHING would replace the revit kid! I would even hope the revit kid may grace us with his presence here!

However, as informative, educational and sometimes entertaining as blogs may be, by their very definition blogs are rather one-sided. They are a diary of someone else.
As the revit kid posted information in his blog, leading to this forum, I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Quote: "I have yet to come across a site that allowed me to create friends with other Revit users, interact, post blogs, video chat/IM and post on forums all within one site. It is my goal for revitsociety.com to provide users with this ability."

In a previous life i was modelling and animating in 3D using Maya predominantly, but i have tinkered with 3DS MAX too. I would quite often visit a forum named "CGSociety.org" which you may have heard of. CGSociety.org has the ability to do all these wonderful things such as personal profiles/ galleries, an amazing amount of user input AND feedback, as well as regular interviews with industry heavyweights and Idols, which i also learnt volumes from. It wasn't the only place i would visit, blogs, autodesk forums etc. were part of my routine as well. But I have yet to find a site, blog, whatever that comes close in the AEC community, which seems like a much more insular and fractured industry than the entertainment industry (yes, perhaps it may take me a while to fit in!;), so when i see a forum called "Revitsociety" i think it may be a place which at least aspires to evolve into some of those things quoted above.

I can assure you that I in no way wish ANY website to replace ANY other form of information as it is all of some value, even this brand new website.That said it still remains to be seen whether this site does succeed. I find it hard to believe many, if any, could stand up to AUGI in terms of professionalism and the level of information, but there are many different levels of user that should be considered, all the way down to someone just fooling around. This is the internet afterall and i don't see hard drive sizes getting any smaller. To quote my own post above "as an alternative" was the intenion of what i meant. I'm sure you'll agree the more opportunity people have to learn and share, the better the future for our industry.

Thank you for letting me know about Navisworks and for the aecbytes link, i will check them out. As for the .avi format, that has been working up to a point. Anything more than a few GB and my computer hates it. Yes i seriously need to upgrade!

P.S. for anyone not asleep yet and still interested in my question, i found a way to change the elevation of the camera as per my original post. Walkthrough cameras don't seem to have the functionality of a regular 3D camera. When editing the walkthrough open an elevation view and you can then move your keyframes to the desired elevation. You can also change the target elevation here. Doh! sounds easy, huh?

Just sticking my head into this forum, Labor Day. As I mentioned, I'm just starting up in Revit after a year and a Summer of CAD. I'm glad I have some grounding in vanillaCAD, also glad I didn't spend 10 years using it!
When I graduate in '10, AAS degree, I will be the one to push Revit/BIM/IPD in some shop that is still struggling with the change from pencil to CAD, so I had better be a good salesman as well as a good technician.
Have a great Labor Day!!! Pat A. (and that ain't chopped liver.....)

Elton, no worries. Jeff, the Revit Kid is indeed here. I guess I'm on information overload between, blogs, twitter, rss feeds, forums, etc. It's impossible to keep up with all of the information. Yes, blogs can be quite one sided. I make a great effort to add posts from many other bloggers and sources so I try to give my readers a rather robust blog to visit. I'm jealous you visit the Revit Kids's blog everyday and not my Revit3D.com. It's funny because we read eachother's blogs and cross reference information frequently.

I started with just the virtues of Revit, and have morphed into Revit, Navisworks, Ecotect, IES, a host of other programs, Green Building, Sustainability, LEED, Integrated Project Delivery, 2D, 3D, 4D, 5D and 6D (one I made up for IPD), and so many other things.

The reality is that BIM is part of a big database of experience, objects, teamwork, information and people. I liken it to a floppy disc versus the internet. That's the difference between CAD and BIM in my mind. Revit depends on the sharing of knowledge, best practices, past mistakes and putting all of our heads together. It does sound nice to have a "Society" of Revit users. Makes it sound so elegant. No need to clarify anything you said. We're all here to help each other. I've come across so few Maya users, so perhaps you'll be the perfect candidate to help others with conceptual massing in Revit.

RE: Overload keeping up with blogs, RSS, etc. Any advice on how to organize MY feeds, blogs, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Presently using Yoono for Twitter, FB, MySpace, but my RSSs languish unread, as I have signed up for way too many. I guess I just have to actually read them and weed out what's over/under my head at this point.
Couldn't be happier to meet all of you, Pat P.S., sometimes I sign 'Padraig' or Pawrig or even Patrick! Like Shakespeare I play with my name........(s). Ahh, my ArcGIS Explorer update is done. Later, pja

I've found Google's RSS Reader to be a great tool. I've made folders and keep my subscriptions organized. I have an A, B and C list. A list is stuff I want to see every day. B and C are things I look at when I'm bored. Then I have a Revit folder with all things Revit and BIM. That's followed by an All things Revit with a lot more feeds.

You can keep your subscriptions duplicated in multiple foflders, so if you read it in one, it disappears from the others. I've gone so far as to add my favorite tweeters as RSS feeds in a folder called Twitter + so I don't miss anything they say. You can also search for keywords within those tweets. You can do the same with Facebook. A keyword search in twitter can be added as an RSS stream so you don't have to read every tweet.

That's all worked very well for me and it's organized, easy to find stuff and I don't waste time on the sites.

Elton,

Thanks Jeff! i'll have a look now

Jeffrey, i have been forming a better workflow for creating a walkthrough, practice, practice, practice... a slight shame (for compatibilty with school) i still need to use revit 2009 where you don't have an option to select a certain level, although i can still enter the absolute elevation between keyframes. Also i hadn't thought of isolating the path if needed either. Thanks again for the link. :)

No problem!

i do a lot of work during class time at college , which is still using 2009. i have 2009+2010 at home but i can't open 2010 files in 2009...(thanks autodesk). In Maya you can save as *.ma (native *.mb), open the file in a text editor and change the year codes there. Then files will open in older versions. Are there any known workarounds for revit?
Having said that, our school year finishes mid-November so i'm hoping my college will upgrade over the christmas break...great, until 2011 comes out of course ;)
I haven't really had time to explore things in 2010 like the swept blend tool either, but in regards to conceptual massing + content creation i'm considering learning more 3dsmax which is a lot easier when you can create 3d splines or directly manipulate polygons, vertices etc. with one click/drag of the mouse and don't need to worry about reference planes etc. I have a friend doing interior design (where i'm picking up a bit of content creation work, hence some of the walkthrough work too) but as brilliant as Revit is at what it was designed to do, I find it rather limited for modelling!

Next year we will also be learning a program called FirstRate which is in the vein of Ecotect but at a state-wide regulatory level. I see so much to learn i wonder if i'll ever actually get out into the industry!

Oh okay... Understandable... My school was like that as well. They had all the new 2010 licenses but never installed. Of course, I spoke to the head of the department about that!

Hey guys
Here's a complete (old) novice from Inverness in the beautiful highlands of Scotia, it's five to six in the evening here, and I have been trying to find a site where us complete novices can be assisted!
I am a lecturer in construction over here in bonnie Scotland - that's always a problem, our construction is just so different to most of you who are on line, but if you don't mind assisting an old duffer over here in 'old country' I would be more than happy to receive any assistance you might be willing to provide.
Haste ye back
Regards,

Terry