Creating an RPC Family

Use the Family Editor to create a Revit family for entourage, including people, cars, plants, and office clutter. In an RPC family, you can specify an ArchVision RPC file to use for the render appearance.

Note: To create a Revit family for entourage that will use a source other than an RPC file for the render appearance, see Creating an Entourage Family.

To create an RPC family

1. Click NewFamily.
2. In the New Family – Select Template File dialog, select RPC Family.rft or Metric RPC Family.rft, and click Open.

   By default, a placeholder for a person displays in the drawing area. (You can see it more clearly in an elevation view.) However, you can change this entourage family to be any type of object, such as a tree, chair, or car. When you select a render appearance for the entourage (described in Step 4), the drawing area displays an appropriate placeholder for it.

3. Create family types, and specify their parameters.

   For example, suppose you want to include a variety of red ash trees in a project, so you create an RPC family named Red Ash. You define 3 family types named Tall, Short, and Autumn. In the type parameters, you can specify a different height for each tree type.

   How?

   For instance, to create the Tall family type for the Red Ash tree family, do the following. (Repeat these steps to create family types for Short and Autumn.)

   1. Click Create tabProperties panel (Family Types).
   2. In the Family Types dialog, click New. In the Name dialog, enter Tall and click OK.

      In the Family Types dialog, Tall now appears in the Name field. (As you define more family types, they appear in the pull-down list for Name. Choose the desired family type name from the list to define or modify parameters for it.)

   3. In the Family Types dialog, for Height, specify 50' (15.24 m).
   4. Click Apply.
4. For each family type, specify the render appearance.

   How?

   1. In the Family Types dialog, select a family type from the Name list.
   2. If needed, click the Identity Data header to display its parameters.
   3. For Render Appearance, click the button in the Value column.
   4. In the Render Appearance Library dialog, for Class, select <All>.
   5. Select the desired render appearance, and click OK.
   6. Click Apply.

   For example, for the red ash tree family, you specify Red Ash as the render appearance for the Tall and Short types, but Red Ash [Fall] as the render appearance for the Autumn type.

   When you specify the render appearance, the drawing area displays a placeholder for the object in 2D and 3D views. The detailed render appearance displays only in rendered images.

   For more information, see Specifying a Render Appearance for an RPC Family.

5. Specify visibility settings for the entourage placeholder, as follows:
   1. In the drawing area, select the placeholder.
   2. Click Modify | <Element> tabVisibility panel (Visibility Settings).
   3. In the Family Element Visibility Settings dialog, select the desired settings.

      See Setting Family Geometry Visibility.

   4. Click OK.
6. Save the family.
7. Load the family into a project.