Is there a publicly available Revit project file that contains all the latest enscape assests loaded in and placed? I find the default asset browser UI and workflow so slow and tedious to browse through the different vegetation assets to select and place down. I saw one on this forum a few years ago but its not available on dropbox anymore.
we maintain our own - for a number of reasons:
- we category-swap the Enscape .rfa to closer align to function (people and cars to entourage, furniture to furniture, etc) because we only need plants to keep the planting category’s scaling feature (this in addition to using a modified .rft family to change hosting / always-vertical behaviour)
- we don’t need/use all assets (US style vehicles, etc) so a Chaos-provided model of everything wouldn’t serve us all that well
- we “enhance” our .rfa w/ additional properties , i.e.
- night/day, hot/cold, standing/sitting/walking, etc for people
- season’s for plants (this really should come to us ootb though)
- we compose “scenes” (as model groups)
- we use our “collection” file as a test-bed for the dynamo scripts we write for our viz work (scatter, swap, cameras etc)
setting up something similar isn’t tricky, it’s just a bit boring to begin with - but we’ve found it to be quite beneficial, and I’d highly recommend you give it a go.
Is the intended workflow that the Enscape container file is opened by users as an alternative to using the asset browser UI? (And presumably then just copy/paste what they want?) Or more as a working file for managing the Revit family files, with all of the individual family files saved back into a shared folder for users to browse (via potentially ugly thumbnails)?
To my (still developing) knowledge, the .rfa files are created fresh in a project when the asset is placed, using the default Enscape planting.rft as the base. To place any customised assets (i.e. customised .rfa) it is the family files themselves that the users must be working with, ergo the entire asset browser UI is largely irrelevant?
We often change hosting or add rotation rigs, and have long considered injecting custom parameters into the files to allow for visibility to be controlled via filters rather than a dedicated Design Option, but it’s been a rather ad hoc operation. The time for a formal overhaul is nearing though…
And in terms of customising the assets en masse, I see a few different paths (or a combination):
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Replace the default planting.rft with “template X”, then place all X assets into the project. Then replace the default planting.rft with “template Y”, and place all Y assets into the project. And so on.
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Place X asset into project, edit the family, then save as multiple times adjusting the AssetID hash/guid for each file. (And/or duplicate types and adjust the Asset ID - having one family file for multiple similar assets would certainly clean the UI up.
(I can even see a world where an instance integer parameter is tied to predefined AssetIDs (via Lookup table) and the result would be one family with one type with an instance integer that cycles through different assets… but I digress)
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Place all X assets into project as the default planting.rfa, then run some script to mass change category, rename, and inject parameters and values
A penny for your thoughts?
(in a Revit) context?
The “library” can be accessed via multiple-vectors, depending on environment and need. Direct-to-server (perusing thumnbnails*), or proprietary means (Kinship, Kiwi Codes’ Family Browser, etc)
*(if?) your .rfa were setup (extensively enough) you’d be able to do most (nominal) “things” with type-catalogs - for “scenes”
Failing that, (if?) you had a well maintained model-group library you can use those as “drops”… but all these (large investment in the short-term) workflows are a long way off what the likes of Blender’s Geo-Scatter plugin can deliver. Chaos need to recognise - and act - that the likes of D5 are already well ahead of things in this respect…
Mind, I don’t want - or care for - random’ised asset generators - however articulate their rulesets might be… given “viz” asset placement (of fluff) is, imo, genrally (still) not sufficient, or nuanced when it comes to defining “what-goes-where” (based on conditions/requirements) so I stick with my homegrown scripts for now, and finesse accordinly.
In terms of how “we” do it? We don’t use the asset-library tool itself, “just” the guid of the enscape assets - ported into our own “widgets” - that serve as “proxies” - i.e. no crunchy Enscape geom. whilst in Revit , “just” the Enscape asset (in Enscape)
In a Revit context, yes. I assume we’re on the same path here - Revit fams/geometry as usual, linked to assets via the guid, and loaded into projects as needed. For some of the more ‘entouragey’ stuff though it’s not immediately obvious when looking at .rfa files what the final rendered form might be (short of viewing directly in enscape).
Some people are more particular than others when it comes to the specific plant or person they want to see, so I was just curious if you were employing some manner of still interacting directly with the Revit families (perusing thumbnails or proprietary addin or what have you), yet still maintaining an ability to know what the asset appearance is going to look like (which is the main reason some people still want to interact with the Enscape asset-library).
The only methods that come to mind are opening the container file and launching in enscape to preview and then copy/paste, or generating static thumbnail images. Neither of which I really feel like entertaining.
I think the likely scenario for us will be a generic (e.g. “Man_Sitting”) .rfa, within which there are multiple Types (or some other swapping logic) tied to various guids, and people will just have to roll the dice in terms of what Man_Sitting is actually going to render as.
…unless somebody has a better solution 
Yeah I hear you - accepted, mine’s a janky-but-works “solution” - at least until Chaos - if they were cough serious about improving Enscape in anyway - to enhance the asset library content (and viewer) to be more akin to - err-- i started this sentence with the platform name in my head and now I’ve lost it… sketchfab? the one that has a “click on an asset and spin it around preview” in-browser viewer?
either way, same-same, no matter how well implemented a “solution” like that might end up, it’d still incur access/load-time overhead, and STILL dump fractured faceted geom. into our projects (revit or otherwise)
so, er, I’m gonna stick with my widget workflow - and continue to improve my asset-naming taxonomy.