ACA: Display Properties & Materials Video Lecture | Become a Pro: Autocad Architecture Tutorial - Design Softwares

in this video I'll discuss editing the
display properties of object styles in
AutoCAD architecture there's two
different important aspects of editing
object styles that you should think
about the first is more obvious in
that's plan view it's normal for a floor
plan to communicate graphically some
basic level of design intent for example
in the sense of wall hatch these are the
basic out-of-the-box hatch patterns that
Autodesk assigns to the wall styles that
come with AutoCAD architecture so this
particular wall style is the cmu8 and it
has kind of the diagonal crosshatch and
this wall style is the concrete eight
and it has kind of a simple concrete
pattern and then this is the standard
stud for wall which has no hatch and
then I have a standard wall style
generic one at the bottom if so many
glances at this plan they're gonna be
able to easily tell that this is a
concrete block wall and this is a stud
wall assuming that there's sometimes
some type of legend on the plant based
upon how the hatch is displayed in the
wall style now the wall hatch is driven
normally by the wall style but it is
possible to also use display
representations to edit the wall
patterns as well so if I change from
medium detail which it's the standard
floorplan view to high detail you'll
notice that the hat gets denser because
high detail would be used in a floor
plan that's at a larger scale so the
hatch pattern gets a little denser for
that on the other hand if I go to low
detail then it turns off all the hatch
because it's assuming a floor plan at a
smaller scale maybe sixteenth or
something to where you wouldn't want
that hatch to be shown at all the real
important part of why I'm bringing this
up is there's kind of three high
hierarchical levels of editing hatch in
your walls you have the overall display
representation which has the ability to
override all the walls in your plan you
have what the styles individuals
settings by what you see now where we
have the block wall versus concrete
versus stud and then it is possible to
override it for one specific wall that's
not normally done very often because
that's why we have wall styles is to
kind of make them all look consistent so
you can do it but it's not very common
you'd really want to so those are three
important ways to think about editing
the display properties most of the time
you're going to edit the wolf style
probably in order to set up a pattern to
look a certain way for each wall style
and your drawing but a lot of times
companies will switch between display
representations in order to make their
plan print easily in a certain way like
for example if you're printing a
schematic design plan where you're
really just talking about the overall
the out of the rooms you might want a
generic hatch and all the walls to look
consistent so you might have a schematic
design display representation that does
that and then you go back to the regular
medium detail one when you're ready to
move to technical drawings that's a
common way to use the display
representation to where you would have
that option in addition to how it's set
up in the style now the whole other
issue with display representations and
objects is the surface patterns if I
look at this in the isometric view you
can see how the block wall looks like
block it has a running bond pattern the
concrete wall has this little texture
that is supposed to look like concrete
and then the stud walls are a little
more simple generic so you also have the
surface patterns so that's the other
thing to consider so now that I've
really confused you I've made a little
chart here to help you to understand
what I'm talking about with the
hierarchy so if you want to edit all the
walls in the whole project then you
would edit your display representation
if you want to edit all the wall styles
that use the same material like my
example with block then you would edit
the material definition and apply that
to those wall styles if you want to edit
one wall style only then you would edit
the wall styles display properties and
if you want to edit only one wall
then he would edit the object display so
I'm gonna go through these last three
choices the display representation will
be a separate video because that's a
little bit more complicated
so you have a materials tab so you can
see how it says components CMU and then
it has a specific material definition
that's assigned so this allows you to
basically set up component of the wall
actually is in terms of CMU and then
control that overall in a global manner
so that if you have a lot of different
types of CMU walls on that material is
going to be applied to all those
different styles so the advantage to
using the materials is if you had three
or four wall styles that are all the
same material for example 8-inch block
and 12-inch block and then maybe 8-inch
block with furring on one side you know
that could go on and on Fernando sides
and 12-inch with fur and all that you
could have eight different styles that
all had block so then anywhere that you
had block you would want it to look the
same if that's the case then you would
want to just assign a material here and
let that drive how it looks on your plan
because then if you decide you want to
make the block look different you only
go one place to change that and that's
the material editor rather than each
separate wall style
now in order to demonstrate the purpose
for this I've added a couple more walls
so now we have a block wall with furring
and also a block wall with brick so if
I'm edited in all the walls that use the
same material and I want my concrete
block to look different in terms of the
hatch then it only makes sense for me to
edit the material definition and apply
that to these three wall styles so what
I'm going to do is go I can either get
to it from my wall style
or I can go to the maintenance tab on my
ribbon and then the style manager style
manager allows me to get to my material
definitions and then I can go up
multi-purpose objects expand that with a
little plus and then find the material
definitions now I can expand up and then
these are the materials that are
currently loaded into my CAD file so I
can see that there is the masonry unit
masonry CMU stretcher running that's the
material that's applied to those wall
styles right now and the reason I know
that is because I saw it earlier when we
were in the wall style editor so I could
theoretically just edit this here if I
wanted what I usually like to do is make
a duplicate version so if I wanted to
revert back to the original settings I
always have that option that makes me
sleep a little better at night that if I
screw up something I can always revert
back so what I'm gonna do is right-click
on this and do copy and then over in
that white area I'll right-click and
paste so now I have a number two version
on the general tab I can change the name
I'll just put a Jeremy on the end of
that so it's easy to remember now on the
display properties tab I can get to my
edit button on the right so these were
already all checked here for this style
override this refers to the style of the
material and not this style the wall so
I don't need to worry about that I'm
just gonna hit the edit button on the
right side and then now I'm editing the
pattern that applies for that material
the CMU material so I have the hatching
tab you can see plan hats
surface hatch and section hatch so just
like it sounds the plan hatch relates to
your hatch in plan view your surface
hatch relates to the pattern and that I
showed you an isometric view and your
section hatch relates to the hatch as
you'd see it in like a building section
for example let's say I don't really
like this pattern I can click on the
plan hatch and use your double and then
change this to predefined and then
browse for the pattern I want and maybe
I'll do something
maybe I'll just choose something like
this and then change my scale let's try
10 and see how that looks when you have
a pattern that is directional you would
want your orientation to be object so
then if you have a wall that's rotated
to an angle like 45 you don't want your
hat to disappear so then you put it on
object orientation the Hat rotates with
the wall so that it is always visible so
I could change these other settings if I
wanted obviously the layer tab allows
you to assign layers and visibility
colors and line weights to those hats as
well so you have the plan hats their
section hatched and surface hatch again
you can customize that as much as you
want it I'm pretty self-explanatory one
option that a lot of people do is
they'll assign a specific layer to some
aspects like the hatch so that you could
turn the hatch on or off by layer that
way and then you could also control the
line weight easier overall in your
project by having it set to a layer and
then the line weight would be by layer
that's a very common solution all right
so I'm gonna hit OK and then I just have
to remember that I have created a new
material so now I just need to go and
assign this material to the wall styles
so now I can hit OK and then I would now
edit the wall style and find my CMU
component and choose my new material
that I just assigned and there's my hat
it's a little close together so
obviously I'd probably want to go back
and adjust this scale a little maybe it
was better at 20 than 10 now I have to
edit these 3 different wall styles to
assign that material so you might be
saying what's the point in editing the
overall material if I have to go and
assign each one this way but the point
is that things don't stay the same when
you're in the design world the hatch
will change perhaps so now now that I
have that assigned to those wall styles
I could go back to my style manager and
tweak in that one spot in the material
editor and then it would trickle through
all the walls of all the styles that
include CMU and that's especially
valuable if you're working with a
template because then you can
set up a template that has the materials
assigned you want but if you didn't need
to change it it'd be very easy to do so
that would be how you would handle
editing materials when you have multiple
styles that use the same material the
same works true for my isometric view
remember that was also visible there in
my material definition so if you wanted
to change that pattern you could also do
that in the same manner
so I'm gonna start by editing this style
so I'm gonna select this block wall
style and do edit style on the display
properties tab you have the plan line
which is kind of highlighted in bold on
the right end you have a style override
box that's very important because if you
just start editing by hitting the edit
button on the very far right then you're
going to be editing an overall display
representation which means you're not
editing this individual style at all
you're editing all the styles so that
may not be what you want to do most of
the time when you want to edit the style
you would then check the box to create a
style override and then you editing only
this one wall style of cmu8 once you
have created that style override and you
have the box checked then you can use
the edit button on the right
all right so now let's talk about
editing one specific wall style so let's
say that I decided this is still seeing
you but maybe I want it to look
different so I'm gonna now edit the
style instead of using my materials tab
I'm gonna use the display properties tab
so now I have my plan line which is bold
and I'm going to create a style override
for that individual style so I'm gonna
check the box and by default you have
this by material column checked and
that's important because that right now
that's overriding whatever you were
whatever you would normally select here
so I'm gonna uncheck the buy material so
that now I'm taking charge of what I
want this style to do in terms of the
graphics so you have boundaries there's
three here because there's three
components in the wall block the air
space and the chipboard well the air
space or referring and then I have three
hatches so if I'm trying to edit the CMU
hatch I would hatch one CMU I can turn
the hatch on or off change the layer
change the color does this look familiar
it's just like the material set up but
now I'm only making it to one wall style
instead of all of them so that's the
difference and then I have my hatching
tab with the same abilities I can change
my hatch here I'm gonna go ahead and
change that just so you can see what's
going on maybe I'll just choose a solid
fill for this case I'll just leave it
Orange I guess for now just so you can
see what's going on so that editing
ability is the same way as my material I
just have to uncheck the buy material
column here in order to override it so
now I can hit OK and okay and now I have
applied that to only that one wall style
just remember if you go back and need to
edit things after you've applied a style
override you don't want to uncheck this
you want to just use the edit button on
the right there
right so now let's say that I want to
override it for one specific wall I'm
gonna make another copy of this so you
can verify that I'm overriding so now I
have three walls of the same style so I
can select one of these and I'm gonna
right-click and go to edit object
display you'll notice I had edit wall
style there as well and that's what I
used to do before the ribbon existed it
was use that and now I'm gonna do edit
object display and here you can create
an object override so notice how you can
also override which material is applied
or you can use the display properties
tab so again you have the option to use
either materials or display properties
if I had a different material that just
wanted to apply instead a block for
example for this specific wall I could
check the box here and then pick a
different material that would work like
I could change it back to the original
block pattern right there by picking
that material on the other hand if I use
the edit or if I use the display
properties tab then I checked the box
for style override and then again I set
up what I want here for that individual
one object I'm gonna cancel this and
then use the material in this case just
to show you how that's working so I'm
changing it back to the original CMU
material for this individual object and
if I'm gonna use the material here I do
need to go back to create an object to
override and check my by material box
I'll need to recheck these otherwise
it's not going to allow the material to
apply so if you're using the material
you got to make sure these are checked
the only reason they're not is because I
just unchecked them in the style manager
so now I'm gonna hit OK and okay and now
that has changed back to what it was so
I've updated my chart here just to
review a little so if you're editing all
the walls of the same material you want
to work in the wall style editor
materials tab and or the material styles
which you can get to you in the style
manager and if you're editing only one
style then use the wall style editor and
the display properties tab