Revit and the i7 Processor - Rendering Results

All I can say is wow...

I built a new machine about a month ago and have been using it quite a bit.  Until this week I have not really done to many renderings with it.  Well, all I can say is wow....

A prime example are these two draft (test) images:

The image above is before any touching up and photoshopping (straight out of Revit).  It took 1 hour and 12 minutes on Best.  Interior with artificial and sun.  I can't wait to go at this bad boy with Photoshop.

The image above took 12 minutes!  On BEST.  Interior with Sunlight only.

I ran some other test renderings and compared them to my Macbook Pro.  Here is the result.  I did not save the image but it was an exterior rendering of a library I designed last year (lots of furniture inside, curtain wall, water, blah blah) .  The image was renders on medium, exterior with sunlight only (Revit Architecture 2011)

Macbook Pro : 12 minutes and 37 Seconds.

• Intel Dual Core 2.4ghz
• 4 GB ram
• Nvidia 8600m GT
• Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium

Custom Built Machine : 3 Minutes and 16 Seconds

• Intel Core i7 870 - 2.9Ghz (not overclocked for this test)
• 16GB of Ram
• AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series (1GB)
• Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

So the custom built machine (which cost all but 1100 bucks) destroyed the Macbook Pro (which cost about 2100 bucks).  Let that be a lesson to you.  Of course, the Macbook Pro is still very important in my arsenal because of the portability.  

For those of you who would like to build a custom machine let me know in the comments and I will post the specs in a future post.

10 Rendering Tips

Posted by The Revit Clinic. Some more awesome tips for us Revit Users!

Click here to see the entire post.

10 Rendering Tips

Continuing the series of 10 quick tips, below are 10 tips for rendering in Revit I would like to pass along…

1. Material with Image Transparency

The “Plastic” Material type contains an option for “Render Appearance”, “Type”, “Plastic Transparent”. Along with this you can set the “Color” to “Image File” to utilize an image in the material. With this combination you can make varied transparent materials containing image files.

2. Rendering Lights at Draft Quality?

When rendering at a quality below “Medium”, you may notice artificial lights “Light Source Definition Shape” do not fully match the shape in the family. To have the artificial light shape fully calculated, render at “Medium” quality or above. For additional information I have included the technical solution link below:

Light source definition shape does not match rendering

3. Section Box and Rendering Times

For more complex views, you can reduce the rendering times by enabling the section box in the view. With the section box active, only objects that fall within the section box will be rendered. This includes objects such as daylight portals or artificial lights. For additional information I have included the technical solution link below:

Rendering only objects in current view or linked file

4. Far Clip and Rendering Views

If utilizing a “Far Clip Offset” in a view to render, keep in mind the offset will not be calculated in the rendering extents. The entire view range is calculated in a view when rendering. If you need to exclude something in the distance, use a section box instead from the process in tip #3 above.

See the rest at The Revit Clinic...

The Revit Kid - Rendering Challenge.

This week may be a little slow in the blog postings due to me having to move into my new apartment on Saturday. I will still post as much as possible and inform you all with articles, tutorials, and references.

I thought it would be fun to have my readers do what I do everyday for this blog. Solve Revit problems that are emailed to me. Here is the email from Oswald:

"Hi there revitkid!

Nice blogsite BTW, it really helped me on way in and way out on revit. I just wanna ask how to render an aerial view of a floor plan (so that i can show an overview of the floor finishing materials) using interior artificial lighting only. I tried to hide the ceilings and light components (so that they dont block the view when rendering) but it seems it also hides the light that is coming from the light source. Any ideas? thanks in advance!

More power on your site!"

I immediately have some ideas of how to investigate this problem but no time to sit there and render/examine the problem this week. Email me with your solution and the best one will win a free Lock Noob Revit shirt!

When learning any program it is essential that you problem solve like this. This is one of the many reasons why I love doing this blog. I don't know EVERYTHING about Revit and maybe never will but everytime I get a question that boggles my mind it is just another learning experience and pushes my Revit skills that much further. That isltimately how I learned Revit... Sat there for hours figuring out problems that would arise.

Email me at Jeff@TheRevitKid.com with you solution and images/videos. Good Luck!