Creating an in-place mass

In this lesson, we're going to be creating an In-Place Mass. Adding a curtain system to a straight wall is just boring, adding a curtain system to a funk free form shape is fun. The thing is, when we get in the nonlinear, non-uniform shapes. We need to think literally outside-the-box. That's where the families comes into place. Is it evolved over the years, and I've had a love hate relationship with them. I hate them when they first come out and I love them once I figure out how to use them.

Luckily, you're taking a video tutorial, so you can skip right to the love part. The objective of this lesson is create a bumpy in-place mask using the massing tools that Revit provides. To get started open the file you've been working on and follow along. In the project browser, lets make sure we're in the west elevation. On the Quick Access toolbar, let's go ahead and click Close Set In Windows with this little red x here. Again, on the Quick Access toolbar let's click the 3D icon.

Click into the drawing area and type WT, that's window tile. It's easier if we can see exactly what's going on. We're going to start adding shapes here and they're going to start showing up in 3D going back. What we need to do is start adding a different shape to each reference plan we had put in earlier. So let's get started. On the Massing and Sight tab, go to show Mass by form and floors. Now, let's click on in place mass.

And this is going to actually start an in-place family. The name will be structure. Click OK. Now, here's what we want to do. We want to draw a nice arc that comes all the way across here at these reference planes and we want to draw a line across the bottom. All these shapes, just like Sketch mode, need to be in completely loops with no gaps or overlaps. So click the model button. Immediately, Revit wants to know what work plane we're working on, and that's a great question.

So we're going to come down here and say well, we want to go to reference plane one. Click okay. Click on start and radius arc. Let's do in here to make sure we're nice and tight. Click that intersection come all the way over here pick this intersection. Now I'm going to bring it right on up to here. Now we're still running. If you're not, make sure you have your chain turned on. Let's go ahead and click on the straight line.

Let's run it back to here. Hit Escape a couple of times. Type za. You can pan around to kind of get a good view of what we're looking at here. Here's our first shape. Pretty cool. Okay. Now, we need to manually set our reference plane, because if we start drawing more lines, Revit is going to thing we want it on number one.

We don't, we want to move back now to number two. So click Set. Notice, once we click Set, it shows us which plane it's on. Let's go to reference plane two and I'm just going to move it back. I'm going to hit OK. And I'm, I'm going to orient myself in the correct direction just to make sure I'm good. Now, let's start another shape. So again, go to model. Go to Start-End-RAdiu.

Now I'm going to pick the same end point here. Now I'm going to pick the same end point here. This time, I'm going to to go way up to here. Now, I'm going to draw a straight line back to here,. And hit Escape a couple times. Let's keep rolling.

Set. Let's go to reference plane three. Hit OK. model, let's sketch something out, Start-End-Radius. I'm going to go from here, make sure that you're on the same point, to here. This time, I'm just going to bring it up to the this one. I'm going to do the straight line (audio playing) to here. And hit Escape. You can kind of get a look in 3D, it's going to be neat, neat. Okay.

Let's set it back, to four. Hit OK. Let's go to model. Go to Start-End-Radius Arc. I'm going to pick the same point. I want to pick this point. This one is going way up top. And draw a straight line and bring it back to here. Let's escape a couple of times, let's set our reference plain. Its got a five.

A few more. Hit OK. model, Start-End-Radius Arch, same point, same point. This time I think I'll pick this one. I'm going to go with a straight line. Bring it back to here. Hit Escape a couple times.

One last time. Set. Reference Plane six. Click OK. Start-End-Radius Arch. Same points. This time we're going to go to the lowest one. And the variable one. I'm going to click this end point, now I'm going to hit Escape a couple times. I'm going to go into my 3D view and double-click on the blue area, and make sure this is the current window.

(LAUGH) This is going to be a funky shape. What we need to do is hold down the Ctrl key and select one, two, three, four, five, six. Make sure you don't miss any like I just did. Now, just simply click Create Form and Revit's going to create that form. It's pretty funky. So what we need to do now is just click on Finish Mass. So make sure that Revit has it formed in there.

And it's a little bit transparent now, but we can change that. With it still selected, click Edit In Place. Let's change our view style to Shaded. It's a little bit hard to see, but once we get a curtain system on it, it won't be too bad. Go ahead and select it. Generally, I'll try to grab it from the bottom, wherever you see the whole thing outlined. Now that's to highlight it. What we want to do now is click on divide surface.

Now we can start to kind of spell out what it's going to look like a little bit. It's going to look cool is what it's going to look like. So what I want to do is, the border tile, let's go partial. All grid rotation, let;s go 45 degrees, let's scroll down to the U grid, the layout, lets go with maximum spoacing. And the distance, let's go with four feet.

Grid rotation, let's go 45 degrees. Let's keep scrolling down. The v grid, which is the opposite direction. Let's go with fixed distance. The distance will be four feet. And the grid rotation, let's make that 45, and hit Apply. Scroll down. Looks good.

Wow. That's coming out really cool. If we click off of it or hit Escape, what we can do is click Finish Mass, and then we've got it. We got the form started. We're in great shape. Now, that's a funky shape. I suppose that wasn't to free form. Remember you can pretty much draw out any shape you want and form them together.