Plant Color Render: Planting F/X for Revit® Plugin
Quick video
- Color Render Overview
- Change Color in Tree and Shrub Families
- Change Color in Groundcover Floor Types
- Example of a Colorized Plan
- Turning Color Render On and Off
- Including Colorized Plant Symbols in the Plant Schedule
- Customizing the Color Wheel for Planting Areas
- Get the Latest Plant Color Symbols
- Related Webinars
- Troubleshooting
Our Color Render tool inside our Planting F/X for Revit Plugin creates a colorized plan of your design by enabling view-specific settings for our plant families and groundcover floor types.
This article provides instructions on how to colorize plants using the Color Render tool. For information on placing your color-rendered plants in your drawing, see our Place Plants in Revit documentation.
Color Render Overview
Open the Color Render tool:
Planting F/X ribbon, Color Render flyout
When you select Color Render, a window will open, allowing you to choose whether both trees/shrubs and groundcovers will be colored, or just one or the other.
Click On to turn Color Render on.
The chosen color will turn on in the current view only.
Groundcover color can currently only be turned on in one view at a time. Turning groundcover Color Render on in a second view will automatically turn it off in the first view.
Change Color in Tree and Shrub Families
Quick video
Our default Planting F/X Tree and Shrub families come with a color render solid fill already available. If yours are missing this fill, you can download the latest updated families by clearing your library.
To edit the color of a tree symbol, you can either:
- Select the family, right-click, and then select Edit Family, or ...
- Click Edit Family in the Modify | Planting context ribbon
The LAFX- top-level family will open in 3D View 1.
Open the Ceiling Plans Ref.Level view, select the symbol family, then right-click and select Edit Family from the menu that opens to edit this family.
The symbol family will open in 3D view again, and you'll need to switch to Ceiling view, then once again edit the Detail family nested here.
You'll now be brought to the Detail.rfa for this family, with the filled region on top of the linework. (It falls behind outside of this nested view).
Select the filled region, then click Edit Type.
Click the RGB button next to Background Pattern Color.
Choose your new color, then click OK.
In the Modify Ribbon, click Load into Project and Close.
Load into the Symbol.rfa only
You'll be asked whether you want to save changes to Detail.rfa. Click No.
You'll see the window asking how you want to load this family into Symbol.rfa.
Click Overwrite the existing version.
Do not select the option to overwrite the existing version and update parameter values.
Now follow the same steps to save this Symbol.rfa family:
In the Modify ribbon, click Load into Project and Close.
Load into the LAFX-****.rfa only
You'll be asked whether you want to save changes to Symbol.rfa. Click No.
You'll see the window asking how you want to load this family into the LAFX-****.rfa.
Click Overwrite the existing version (do not update parameter values).
Finally, follow the same steps to load the updated color into your current project file:
In the Modify ribbon, click Load into Project and Close.
Load Into the Project File Name Only
You'll be asked whether you want to save changes to LAFX-****.rfa. Click No (unless you want to update this set colour going forward and customize our default – we recommend not doing so at this time as we're planning on a much simpler method of changing family colors in the future).
You'll see the window asking how you want to load this family into the project file.
Click Overwrite the existing version (do not update parameter values).
This step might take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how many plants you have placed in your project file, as Revit updates them all.
You're finished, and the color is updated!
Change Color in Groundcover Floor Types
Changing the color for groundcovers is extremely simple and doesn't require you to edit the floor type yourself.
Edit the plant in the Plant Manager or by using the Edit Plant tool in the ribbon on a placed floor.
Click the Color tab under Symbol.
Click the square for the color itself (either blank white, or the currently selected color).
You'll see the available colors to choose from.
Click the color you'd like to change to.
These colors are currently set in Site Color on the AutoCAD side. An equivalent color editor will be arriving in our Revit Planting F/X plugin soon.
Click OK. The color on your floor type will change for you.
You may need to go back to the Color Render tool and turn it on again.
Example of a Colorized Plan
Here is an example of a colorized planting plan in Revit created with our Planting F/X plugin.
Turning Color Render On and Off
To turn Color Render on or off, turn the tool on again and click the On or Off button.
Including Colorized Plant Symbols in the Plant Schedule
(coming soon)
Customizing the Color Wheel for Planting Areas
You can currently only edit the color wheel assigned to planting areas within our Site Color tool in our AutoCAD plugin, which will update the Color Books in the Preference Set on the Revit side that Color Render relies on.
We have plans to create an edit method on the Revit side soon!
For more information and instructions, see our documentation on editing a color on an existing wheel , taking care to make your customizations to the Planting Areas wheel.
Get the Latest Plant Color Symbols
Having issues with your colorized plan? You might be working with outdated color symbols. If so, use our steps to get the latest plant color symbols:
Locate the block in the Revit library and delete that block. Place the block in a blank drawing to download again, edit the family, and close/load into open project to update the family in this plan.
Related Webinars
- Intro to Planting F/X for Revit Plugin: As always, our goal with this plugin is to bring the planting design learning curve as low as possible. We cover installation, Planting F/X projects, the Plant Manager, plant placement as families or floors, group labels, Verify Labels, instant schedules, and rendering options with our default family library. (1 hr 12 min)
- Revit for Planting Design: We focus on more tools and show how to tackle more complex workflows in Revit with Planting F/X. We go over customizing the defaults, implementing some labeling strategies, editing floor types, and working with multiple views. We also showcase some new tools and review our most recent development progress. (1 hr 3 min)
Troubleshooting
Issue: Your plants are rendered in color while working in Revit, and they should not be
Issue: A placed groundcover is no longer rendering in color
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