Tutorial - Floor or Ceiling? What to do...

I ran into an interesting cunundrum that many of you may have run into. If you followed my Student to Student Revit guide you will see the two main ways to create floors in Revit Architecture. Typically, you would create a solid floor and within those floor properties add the many materials. We will use a typical floor structure of 3/4" Finished Floor, 3/4" Sub-Floor, 2x10 Studs, and perhaps Gypsum Board for the level below's ceiling. Hm... But then how do you add a recessed light to the floor in the Gypsum Board added for the level below (when it is hosted to a ceiling). Well, you would remove that structure from the floor and create a ceiling made up of only the gypsum board. Place that underneath the 2x10 solid structre of the floor above.

You continue to design, model, and build. Now... It is time to do some renderings. You set up a camera in the kitchen where there are about 12 recessed downlights you have added into your model. Then you click render. Dark!?! Not a single glimmer of artifical light in the scene?

• Click here to see a video of why these lights are not showing and possible solutions.
  

So, what is the correct way to construct a floor in Revit? A solid floor with joists, a void with beam systems, or place the joists as part of the ceilings? Realistically, I would say using a beam system for the fact of realism, 3D sections, and analysis.