ACA: Editing wall styles Video Lecture | Become a Pro: Autocad Architecture Tutorial - Design Softwares

this video will focus on customizing
wall styles both in terms of the
structure or components and also in
terms of the display properties or
materials I've drawn a couple walls here
using the standard out-of-the-box wall
styles one of the stud four and one of
the CMU eight furring you can apply any
of the things that I'll go through to
any of the other styles obviously that
are here on the walls tool pallet what
most companies do is to have basically
taken the wall styles that come with
AutoCAD architecture and then they kind
of modify them to work in a way that
they want and that can mean changing the
thicknesses that can mean changing the
display properties copying the styles
and modify them to create their own
styles depending on what type of work
they do etc in the process they can also
make their own custom tool palettes in
order to access these custom tools so
this kind of gives you an idea of how a
company might start to work with that a
little in the end it's somewhat
subjective in terms of what hatch should
appear in a masonry wall should there be
hatch in a stud wall yes or no what is
the proper pattern color and all those
things every company has their own kind
of preferred methods for those types of
questions or options if you select a
wall you can get to edit style options
from either the ribbon or by
right-clicking and going to edit wall
style once you're in the wall style
properties dialog box you have several
tabs here that allow you to get to how
that wall style is made up the general
tab includes the name of the style so if
you were to copy the wall style and make
your own then you could apply the name
right here in the name box if you are
going to take a wall style and modify it
to create something completely different
then usually it's a good idea to use the
copy style button up on the ribbon you
can also get to that from the
right-click popup menu as well this will
copy the original style in order to
leave it intact essentially so that when
you modify the properties you're kind of
making your own style rather than
editing the one that was out of the box
the components tab includes basically
the structural parts of the wall style
itself so in a wall style that is made
up of several components like the
masonry inferring one you can see here
that it has CMU then it has stud and
gypsum wallboard those are shown in the
wall style when you zoom in you can see
there's the CMU component the stud
component appears as somewhat of a
cavity because really that's furring
strips and then the gypsum board
component there as well the width is
pretty clear what that refers to most
companies use widths that are nominal so
the CMU is listed as 8 inches rather
than 7 and 5/8
even though that would be the actual
thickness in the same way a lot of
companies use nominal thicknesses for
the stud and gypsum wallboard components
as well so they end up with a kind of
rounded off thickness because if you
were to add up all these it doesn't come
out quite as evenly that way the edge
offset refers to the position of the
thickness relative to a baseline you can
kind of see that in this little picture
over here on the side see that red line
is kind of the the baseline or the zero
point in terms of the construction of
all those components so from that the
CMU component goes down 8 to where the
baseline of that individual component
starts and then the 8 inches thickness
is applied so for me to explain how the
edge offset concept works what I'm going
to do is flip this wall around the other
direction real quick
so consider this line as the baseline so
now when I edit the style it'll be a
little bit easier for me to explain how
this works so if the baseline is here so
for the edge offset go down eight inches
because it shows negative eight and then
the eight inch width is applied so now
if you look at the stud component you go
down
eight and seven eighths so that's
putting the bottom line here of the stud
component that pink line right there and
then seven eighths is the thickness so
by going down eight and 7/8 the 7/8
width places the top edge of the stud
component flush with the bottom edge of
the CMU component and the same concept
works for the gypsum wallboard going
down nine and a half places the edge
offset face of the gypsum wallboard
right there where my mouse cursor is and
then the 5/8 thickness is applied in an
upward direction so the top edge of the
gypsum wallboard is flushed at the
bottom edge of the stud component
basically the only important part of
this is that if you're going to
construct a wall style that those
components match up properly in terms of
where the thicknesses occur relative to
the baseline so if I were building this
wall style to me it'd be easier to flip
it around the other direction because
then you don't end up doing all the
negative math so you can build it in the
opposite way so let the baseline be at
the bottom now the edge offset of the
seam you can be zero and then you add
eight inches for the whip then the edge
offset for the stud it could be eight
inches because that starts the stud at
the top of the CMU and then your width
is 7/8
then you're on offset for the gypsum
wallboard let's start right at the top
of the stud so that would be eight and
seven eight and then you can add the
thickness on top top so it's a little
less math that way the concept of the
priority is so that when you have
different wall styles that intersect
together understanding which one gets
prior
ready over the other so the easiest way
to see that is for me to draw a stud
wall that intersects with this wall so
when you look at this see how the stud
wall passes through the gypsum board
component of the masonry wall that's
because of the priority settings the
same thing would occur if I draw another
seam you will that intersects with this
see how the CMU component passes through
the stud component and through the
gypsum wallboard component so which one
gets priority kind of like when you're
driving and you reach an intersection
who gets to go first to see the CMU has
a more important priority than the other
two components of this wall the
horizontal one in this case the stud is
a more important priority than gypsum
board but it's not more important than
the stud component and that's because
we're talking about studs meeting with
studs essentially similar materials so
that's what the priority component is
all about so when you look at the wall
style a lower priority number means a
higher priority there's a little
backwards that way you can just think of
it as a ranking system so CMU having a
priority of 300 means that it will take
priority over any studs or gypsum
wallboard when you have those walls
intersecting with one another now on to
the materials and display properties the
materials are currently what are
dictating how the wall displays both in
plain view and also in isometric view so
you can see there's CMU component stud
component and gypsum wallboard component
in addition to shrink-wrap which is the
outer wrapper in a sense of the wall so
the CMU component is getting its pattern
in the plan view from this particular
material definition and that's true for
the stud and the wall board as well that
also is true if you look at an isometric
view because the CMU wall has a CMU
running bond pattern in the wall the
stud wall over here that I have to
decide is much more boring it doesn't
really have a lot going on but we can
fix that if you want so let me
go back to top view for now so if I want
to edit how this appears I have a couple
choices I can change what materials are
here I can edit the materials that are
here or I can override any of that by
editing the display properties so first
let's see what are our material choices
so if I look at the CMU material
definition I can hit the pulldown and
see what my other options are there's
not a whole lot here right now the metal
stud systems stud component or material
definition is the one that's being
applied to the stud walls at the moment
so where do these get their information
from I'm going to cancel out of here for
a second go to the manage tab on the
ribbon and then a style manager style
manager is a great place to see
information about all the styles in your
current CAD file they're organized into
three categories architectural objects
which are walls and doors and windows
and the real physical parts of the
building
documentation objects which are
schedules things like that and then
multipurpose objects which include
material definitions so I can hit the
pluses to expand this to kind of dig
down to where the actual masonry CMU
pattern is there now on the right
it's currently showing bold as the
medium detailed display representation
and that's because that's what I have
current down at the lower right that's
normally what you keep active when
you're working in a plan view so I'm
going to leave that and just hit the
edit properties a display properties
button on the right side so this is
where the hats is actually being derived
from for the surface hatch so by surface
hats that means the isometric view that
I showed you a minute ago or for example
an elevation view the plan hatch is the
one that is being applied to the
floorplan view the section hatch would
apply if you were to cut a building
section through that wall so if I want
to update the appearance in plan I can
go to the plan hatch display component
click on the pattern and then I can
choose whatever I want so if I want to
make it a predefined I can hit
Brow's on the right and then choose
whatever pattern I want maybe I'll
choose one like this that's well that's
normally used for metals but I just want
to show you the concept now so I'll hit
okay okay okay and okay and there is my
pattern so you can see it's relatively
easy change you just have to dig down
deep enough to get to those settings now
it's a little odd the orientation of the
hatch a lot of times you would prefer to
be diagonal so I'm going to go back to
my materials under manage style manager
so I will leave this on user single and
put my angle on 45 so that it is at an
angle relative to the wall and leave
your orientation on object so that if
you do have an angled wall the hats
rotates with the wall essentially
because you don't want your hats to be
parallel with the wall or it starts to
disappear all together so your
orientation normally it's going to be
object so you can hit okay and okay and
now I have an angled hatch relative to
my wall obviously I might want to space
those lines a little closer together so
you can see how it's kind of a trial and
error process to get that set up now if
I wanted this wall to let's say have
stucco on it I can go to an isometric
view because remember this has the
concrete block pattern I can adjust the
pattern by going back to my style
manager
and rather than the surface hatch of CMU
stretcher running I can change this to
predefined browse for my patterns go to
the other predefined tab if I want to
see the pictures and then the AR sand
pattern is a nice pattern for random
dots for example a stucco or something
like that so I can hit okay hit OK
the scale of that probably needs to be
around ten or else I get too many dots
so now I can hit OK again and again and
I get that random dot pattern so you can
see how that generally works the same is
true for the stud walls you can edit the
material I do want to review another
option in terms of controlling the
display properties so I'm going to go
back to top view just to show you the
other choice that you do have so I'm
going to edit this wall style but I'm
going to do it in a different way now so
again the material right now is what's
driving the lack of hatch or pattern in
that wall most of the time architects
will prefer for new walls to have some
type of pattern and existing walls to
lack pattern because that allows the new
walls to graphically stand out and the
existing walls do graphically recede so
that's a little bit of a smarter way to
do a floor plan because you're trying to
emphasize the scope of work of the
project at that time not what is
currently in the building so the other
option is going to the display
properties tab now here you have all the
various display representations and then
style override ability so if I wanted to
override how it was currently set up I
can check the box here for style
override to edit this one specific wall
Styles display properties so I'm going
to check that box and it takes me to the
display properties now if you go back
here later and need to edit things that
box is already checked so in that case
you use the edit display properties
button on the right instead of the check
box so you can see now that the hatch is
grayed out I'm not allowed to change the
pattern that's because it's still being
derived from the material so I can go to
the layer color line type tab and you
can see how this by material box
for the hatch component so if I wanted
to kind of just remove the material I
didn't care about it I can uncheck this
and now I have kind of the more standard
system the older system of visibility
control to light bulb layer control
color control line type line weight and
then the hatching tab allows me to
change the pattern so you can do this
either way kind of depends on whether
you care about materials or not if
you're going to use the materials and
you want that material to be applied to
other types of objects then it makes
some sense to use the materials that are
at your disposal like if that masonry
pattern needs to apply to an eight inch
block wall a twelve inch block wall
eight inch block with furring twelve
inch block with furring etc then it
makes sense to have it all set up in one
place which is by a material because
then it can be quickly applied to the
various wall styles if that's a
non-issue and you just want simple wall
styles that you have more ability to
tweak the line weight of the patterns
and things like that then this is a
little bit more powerful in that sense
of customizing how the display
properties get set up so now I can
remove the material again with the
checkbox right here and then adjust the
line weight the color on and off with a
light bulb etc here in the display
properties for that style and then when
you're done you just hit OK so let me
change this to a solid pattern so you
can see how this works I'm going to
change the color to be a light gray and
if I want it to be a screened gray
depends on what type of CTB or STB plot
style table you're using but generally
what will pretty much always work is to
use a true color gray because then you
can decide exactly how light you want it
and it will be easy for that to print as
a grayscale regardless of what type of
plot style table you're using so now I
can hit OK and ok and okay and then all
of my stud walls now are going to have
that solid fill generally you don't want
to fill anything solid with black
because then we can't see dimension
ticks we can't see anything that crosses
over the wall
but it's pretty common do you use a
solid gray fill depending on what type
of printers and copiers and things like
that you're using a line pattern is a
little safer if you are concerned about
that so that's generally how firms kind
of manage their wall styles and set them
up in a way that works for them