Some of these are new to the Revit 2011 release; other tips have been around for some time.  I’ve included a number of items to keep in mind for renderings, presentations, materials and more…

1.  Consistent Colors

The advantage to this visual style is that the shaded color always matches the material setting.  Regardless of how the object is oriented to the light source, the color will be the same from view to view.  I’ve included a comparison image from shaded with edges and consistent colors below:

 

2.  Ambient Occlusion

Ambient occlusion can be enabled under the view properties > Graphic Display Options.  Keep in mind at this time you cannot print ambient occlusion, per this technical solution.

3.  Override View Graphic Display Options

For each view you can modify or create new Properties > Graphic Display Options.  This allows you to create or tweak modified sun, sun intensity, indirect light, shadows, and ambient occlusion settings.  I’ve included a quick video example below [no sound]:

Video Example

4.  Shared Revit 2011 Material Libraries

A few quick items to reiterate here.  The Revit 2011 material libraries are shared by Revit 2011, AutoCAD 2011, 3DS Max 2011, and Inventor 2011.  They cannot be moved from the default location, nor can they be modified in 3DS Max and then loaded back into Revit 2011.  Additionally I’ve included a previous post, with some comments and an AUGI link here.

5.  Rendering and Existing Phases

An often overlooked issue related to phases in the Revit view is the phase filter.  If a phase filter is set to use the Overridden default, the existing objects will use the Phase – Exist material when rendering.  To render the views without phase filters you can temporarily change the Phase Filter > None and render the view will default materials as shown below:

Existing – Phase Filter Show All                Existing – Phase Filter None

 

6.  Sun Path Visibility in Animation?

While you can use the new sun path tool to assist in setting up your solar study, when you export a solar animation the sun path representation will not be included in the resulting video.  Currently the sun path is for view manipulation only and will be excluded from the resulting video file.

7.  Save to Project as Image…

Quick tip which is easy to overlook, you can save any project view as an image now to the project by right-clicking on the view in Project Browser > Save to Project as Image...  These images will be organized under Project Browser > Renderings.

8.  Shadows and Relative to View

When shadows are enabled in a 3D view you probably have noticed that as you spin the model the shadows turn with the model.  If you would like the shadows to accurately hold the same location as you move around the model, ensure that under Graphic Display > Sun Setting > Relative to View, is un-checked:

Video Example

9.  Material Preview Quality & Shape

Under Materials > Render Appearance, don’t miss the down arrow which contains the shapes for material preview along with an option to preview at draft, medium, or high rendered quality:

 

10.  More tips...

For #10, I’ve grouped a number of posts which could have easily been #10:

Rendered Walkthroughs & Dividing up the Rendering Process

Rendering & Materials in Revit 2011

3 More Revit Rendering Tips

The following render appearance images are missing

Locate the Image File Location for the Render Appearance when Rendering