Revit 2019 New Feature: Physically Based Material Appearance
What are the key differences between the new appearance material resources in Revit 2019 compared to those in Revit 2018?
First, looking at the material resource panel, Revit 2019’s material browser introduces foreground and background fill patterns for surface and section fills. In contrast, the Revit 2018 material browser does not support these foreground or background fill patterns.
So, what about the materials themselves? In Autodesk products, materials represent real-world substances like concrete, wood, and glass. These materials can be applied to various design elements, providing both realistic appearance and accurate behavior.
However, in certain design workflows, the visual appearance of the project is especially important. Therefore, materials in Revit include detailed appearance properties. It is important to note that Revit LT does not support physical material properties (used for structural analysis in Revit, AutoCAD, and Autodesk Inventor) or thermal properties (used exclusively for energy analysis in Revit).
Accordingly, the Material Editor panel in Revit LT does not show the physical or thermal tabs that are available in the full version of Revit.
Materials can be managed within the Appearance tab of the material editor. Other associated resources for materials are managed under their respective tabs, and each resource can be individually edited when modifying an existing material within a project.
One important point is that some materials display icons on their thumbnails indicating they use older appearance resources. When a new appearance resource is available, it can be replaced to achieve better rendering quality.
Within the Material Browser and Asset Browser, you may notice specific icons on the thumbnails of certain materials and appearance resources:
Materials that use older resources are marked with corresponding icons, while new resources do not display icons. This is because new resources are physically based, optimized for use with Autodesk’s rendering engine, and enhance both rendering quality and realism. They deliver more lifelike visual effects in rendered images, especially when using realistic or ray-tracing modes.
For example, on the left is an older “Walnut Wood” appearance resource, and on the right, the updated “Walnut Wood” appearance resource with the new physically based material system.
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Revit 2019 New Features
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