Provide material editor for Revit as well

SU has similar "problems" - there is so much content in the warehouse and 90% of it is too high rez, poorly modelled, badly scaled, filled with useless geometry or otherwise unusable without editing.

Similarly a good library of bump-maps and textures is normally premium content from third parties.

From a development point of view I would be hesitant in competing with the likes of SUPodium for shipping with textures or models: I would concentrate on improving and adding features to the live walk-through that is at the core and let users worry about what to model and how to skin it. I think that a tool to create multi-layered, seamless textures with associated bumps, transparencies and reflective maps would be cool, but I can do that with image editing software. (But this is just my thoughts.)

In saying that, I have used a few different softwares for the kitchen design industry and each manufacturer has their own libraries of colours and textures for cabinets and worktops - there is a saying about "re-inventing the wheel"...

Revit and Sketchup are two completely different beasts in terms of what you're putting in and getting out IMO. Using Revit is more of a working drawing package with the ability to produce images from whereas I see Sketchup more on the side of a package to help show concepts and that's really where the two material editors should be different.

A lot of BIM information can go into the material inside of Revit, taking that away will have an effect on the information put into the model. The editor for Revit is fine, yes it's more complex than the one the guys have produced for Sketchup but it's meant to be.

There may well be better images in Showcase of Sketchup projects but I think the big reason for that is due to the assets that are readily available from the warehouse and other areas and the ability for Sketchup to map textures. Revit just doesn't have that right now.

We have created some great imagery for projects using Revit solely (a lot of which we cannot share).

Off topic, but the latest release of SU has included more BIM options - In terms of output I think that the main reason Revit has a market share in the architectural field is that Revit has a market share. SU is seen as "a cheap toy" by those that don't use it (or by those who are a whiz in other software and lament most used features), but this might change in a few years - there are already really successful architectural plugins that follow the same 'ease of use' model as SU.

Quote from Pieter

Absolutely true, but it sounds like Enscape might be able to offer a solution for that. If .fbx/.obj proxies become avaiable, we can tap into enormous reasonably priced libraries (evermotion, 3dsky, model+model and the likes). Objects that require precise mapping (beds etc) could then be proxied in rather than try to force it in Revit.

We were able to put out some nice results as well and unfortunately can't share them as well. However, it really felt it took much longer compared to a test project we did in Sketchup. There was a lot of photoshopping involved for the Revit project (placing in all the plants and people in photoshop etc).

Yes the inclusion of a proxy placement would be perfect!

We use Archvision and AXYZ for people/foliage currently, works well, you have to be selective where you show certain things etc but it really does work well.

I know only a close up but if you get textures correct they can look great. 100% Revit.