Why our Revit Families are the best?
Table of Contents
In today’s blog post, we’re going to take a moment to do a bit of shameless self-promotion because we think we’ve earned it and by the end of the article, we hope you will agree.
We are experienced
We have been creating and selling professional families since 2016. Additionally, Brenton Wiberg, our founder and primary family creator, has been creating families professional since 2008 and has logged in over 30,000 hours in Revit. We continually learn and implement the best modeling practices and techniques into our Revit families.
We listen to our clients
We love to improve! There is always more to learn, so we not only continue to educate ourselves in Revit, but we also love to collect feedback from our thousands of users. We keep a running list of all our user’s requests and regularly update our families to meet their needs, thus the families you see on our site not only have all our experience built into them, but also hundreds of features requested by designers like you.
Additionally, we use our own products in our sister companies to produce architectural construction documents. The library we built for our own use is the same library we are making available to you, so we know it works.
We are consistent
We are not a Revit component marketplace where many different content creators sell their own content. This is an important thing to note. This means that all our content is very consistent. Not only in the way it looks, but in the way it functions, in the way it’s named, in the way the parameters are organized, etc.
This provides a very consistent, stress-free family placing and designing experience for you. It also means that if you’ve used one product line, like our doors, you can be sure our other lines will match, both in functionality and graphics.
This is something you can’t achieve by collecting free families online or by purchasing families from marketplaces where each family is created by different authors.
We solve large problems
You may have noticed that we don’t sell single families. For example, you can’t just buy our “Barn Door” family by itself. This is because we try to provide wholistic solutions and workflows to large problems rather than treat the symptoms of those problems.
If you want a quick fix, we feel like there are plenty of free families and content creators who already exist that can provide you with momentary relief.
Most likely if you’re searching for a “Barn Door” family, that’s just what you need today. Tomorrow you’ll also need another type of door, and it’s not going to match the other doors you already have in your model.
What you really need is a whole library of good doors that all function properly and similarly to one another and that all share the same modeling practices and graphic standards. This not only eliminates your immediate pain, but also all future pains. You won’t have to search for doors again if you already have an entire library at your disposal.
We avoid “Super Families”
The line between providing all the options you need in a family and over filling a family with features and geometry is a fine one. We try very hard to give you all the functionality we can without bloating or complicating the family beyond what is needed.
Many family creators like to make “super families” that cram all styles, features, and options into one file. We understand the temptation, but the amount of nested families, geometry, and parameters starts to add up quickly with this method. We feel this approach overcomplicates the user experience and bloats the family file.
To reduce the amount of time fiddling with parameters inside the project and to streamline the use of the families, we break our families out into styles. Over our many years of gathering user feedback, we have found this provides the best experience for you and helps keep your project file running smoothly.
We think Revit families should be easy to use
Another pitfall that is common among family creators is overcomplicating the families beyond practical use. The type of methodical, detail-oriented mind it takes to create feature-rich families is akin to a computer engineer’s mind. Which means it is the tendency of many creators to lose sight of the family from the user’s perspective. They get so in the weeds of functionality and naming conventions that they develop a system that is difficult for a normal Revit designer to use.
Our goal is to create families that are both highly parametric, but also intuitive to use. We don’t want you to have to spend hours reading a user’s manual in order to get started with our content. You should be able to simply download and start using. To achieve this, we have implemented several standard practices:
1 – Straight forward naming conventions
Our parameter and family names are straightforward. We try to name families to describe exactly what they are and label parameters to help you understand what they control.
We do not append prefixes and initials to everything. If you’re into placing your firm’s initials in front of everything, we don’t fault you, we just won’t add our company’s initials to your downloads.
We also don’t muddy the parameter names and meanings with _ (underscores) and unrecognizable abbreviations. We try to keep a healthy balance between being brief yet still detailed enough that you can reasonably surmise what the parameter controls.
2 – Parameter tool tips
When we think a parameter may lead to confusion, we add a “Tool Tip” description so that when you hover your mouse over the parameter name, a box will pop up giving more details about the parameter in question.
3 – We limit the amount of sections where we place parameters
To help you understand which parameters are meant for you to adjust, and to help limit the amount of places you have to look to find them, when we create parameters, we typically only place them in one of 4 sections:
- If controls the overall dimensions of the family, we place it in the “Dimensions” section.
- If it controls the material of the family, we place it in the “Materials and Finishes” section.
- If it controls graphics or other supplementally functionality of the family, we place it in the “Graphics” section.
- If it is not meant for you to change, or is controlled by programming, we place it in the “Other” section so that you know you don’t need to worry about it.
4 – Parameters are organized by functionality
Many creators organize their parameters in each section alphabetically. While this is easier to do, it makes using the parameters less intuitive. We organize our parameters by what they control, with the most used parameters first and the least frequently used last.
5 – More instance parameters
Historically it’s been a common practice to make the majority of parameters in a family to be “Type” parameters rather than “Instance”. This means each time you change one of these parameters you not only have to open the “Type Parameters” dialogue box, but you also need to create a new type of the family. We tend to think in the opposite direction: Most of our parameters our instance so that you can simply adjust the family using the “Properties” panel and without having to create a new type. This is much faster and less cumbersome.
6 – We provide a sample project file
With each of our product lines, we also provide a Revit project file that displays all the families in the download and also gives practical examples of their use.
7 – We provide video tutorials
As described above, we do our best to make our families intuitive and easy to use, but we also know that some things will still need to be explained. For this reason, we provide a series of video tutorials for each product line so that you can quickly learn how they work and get any questions you have resolved.
Ryan Welsh (verified owner)
Another amazing Revit Family from Revit Family Biz! I have purchased and used the cabinets, interior/exterior doors, windows, and railing families for the past few months and have been impressed with how user friendly each family is to use and the details on each family and how great everything renders. I mainly construct residential projects and for the electrical starter pack I mainly use the light fixture families and, as with all the other Revit Family products, the light fixtures are very easy to use and install on my projects. The details of the light fixtures are very good. I do look forward to the addition of additional add on packages for some additional options on the light fixtures. But this electrical starter pack was a great addition to my collection of families that I use for all my Revit projects.