Enscape revit material color not showing correctly

Troubleshooting Rendering Issues: Why Your Materials Won't Show Correctly in Enscape's Shaded View

When working with architectural software like Autodesk Revit, there can be times when things don't quite align as expected – literally or figuratively speaking. One common issue that often confuses users is why certain materials fail to display their intended color correctly within the application's shaded view.

The culprit behind this problem lies not in Enscape itself (a popular real-time rendering and virtual reality plugin for Revit), but rather in a fundamental aspect of how Revit handles material properties. To understand what needs fixing, let's dive into some essential background information on materials in Revit.

Materials vs Rendered Colors: What You Need to Know

In Revit, there are two distinct types of colors associated with any given object or element – the Material color and the rendered (or final) render color. While these terms might sound similar at first glance, they actually refer to entirely different attributes that serve unique purposes within your project.

- Material Color: This is a property assigned directly to an individual material instance in Revit's Materials browser. When you apply this specific material to any element or object within your model, it will inherit the color settings associated with it.

However, here lies the catch: these Material colors are only applied when viewed in certain modes (such as Drafting or Working) but not necessarily during rendering processes.

- Rendered Color: On the other hand, this is a separate attribute that determines how an object will actually appear once rendered – whether it be through Enscape's real-time engine or any other rendering method supported by Revit. The Rendered color can override both Material and Base/By-layer properties depending on their respective precedence settings within your project.

Given these definitions, let's now turn our attention back to the original problem statement: 'Material not showing up in shaded view.'

Troubleshooting Steps:

1. Check Enscape Settings: Start by ensuring that you have properly configured Enscene for use with Revit and that no compatibility issues exist between versions of both applications.

2. Review Material Assignments: Double-check whether the desired material has been correctly applied to all affected elements within your model. Make sure this step includes not just assigning the correct material itself, but also ensuring it's properly linked at each relevant instance across multiple levels of hierarchy (e.g., component families).

3. Inspect Layer Visibility and Ordering:

- Ensure that none of the layers containing these problematic elements are turned off or hidden from view in either Revit's Manage > Layers dialog box.

- Verify layer ordering is correct, with higher-priority layers appearing above lower ones in both the Project Browser hierarchy treeview panel AND within individual drawing views' Layer Transparency/Visibility properties palette.

4. Material Overrides and Override Priority:

Sometimes materials may be overridden at various levels without being intentional (e.g., by using Styles or Templates). To troubleshoot this:

- Open Manage > Settings-Performance tab.

- Scroll down to Rendering section.

- Under 'Rendering' dropdown, select 'Show all options'.

- Look for the checkbox labeled as 'Override material properties based on object/element'.

- Unchecking and re-checking this option can sometimes resolve issues related to missing or incorrect materials.

5. Clear & Re-Import Material Library:

If none of above steps work, try completely clearing Enscene's cache by following these instructions:

a) Exit all instances of Revit.

b) Delete the contents within your user profile directory under .enscape/Cache folder (Windows)/~/.EnsCade2/cache.localized/Caches/com/TeslaSoft/Enscape4.x.x/

After doing so, restart Enscene and re-import any necessary material libraries.

In conclusion, when faced with a situation where materials are not displaying correctly within an EnScene shaded view in Revit, remember to always separate the concerns between Material properties (which govern appearance during non-rendered views) and Rendered colors (that determine final output). By following these troubleshooting steps outlined above – including verifying material assignments, layer visibility/ordering, override settings, and even resorting to a clean slate by clearing EnScene's cache & re-importing materials as needed – you should be well on your way towards resolving this frustrating issue once and for all.

Enscape revit material color not showing correctly