This page provides information on the Scatter subtab in the V-Ray Appearance Manager.
Overview
The Scatter subtab displays a list of manually added families or faces of them. They are associated with V-Ray Scatter (created in the Asset Editor) and serve as its hosts. A common example would be to pick the toposurface (or a floor, depending on how your Revit model is built) and scatter trees on it.
UI Path
||Appearance Manager|| > Families tab > Scatter subtab
Search Bar and Filters
Show Families
Filters the list of objects based on the following options:
All – Shows all families that are currently loaded into the Revit project file.
Used in project – Shows all families that are already placed into the Revit model.
Search Bar
Allows searching for specific family items by name or whole family categories. Search for Families by name or element ID in the Filter search bar. Selecting one or more families in the Revit viewport activates the filter as well.
Adding Scatter Hosts
The Scatter subtab loads empty prompting you to select a geometry from the Revit model and add it to the list.
Add whole families or only selected faces of them. Use the Add Scatter Hosts button for that.
Left click on that button allows adding families. You can add them in any of both ways:
- select a family and click the button to add it;
- or click the button, select a family and then press the Finish button which appears in the lower part of the Revit ribbon.
Right click on the button expands the Pick Face tool which allows selecting only a face of a family. This is useful in cases where you need to scatter objects only on a specific surface, for example on top of a floor or only on one side of a wall.
To select a face, click Pick Face, select a face or multiple faces and press the Finish button to finalize the selection.
Pick Face is not allowed for families which have already been added to the host list. Remove the family from the list to be able to select only faces of it.
Assigning multiple Scatters to multiple faces of the same family is not possible either.
Mind that only the following family types and their faces can be picked as Scatter hosts:
- Floor
- Wall
- Roof
- Ceiling
- Curtain System
- Curtain Panels
- Column
- Ramp
- Stair
- Toposurface
- Mass
To delete an already added item from the list, select it and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. When a Revit family instance or selected face(s), which has been added to the list, is deleted from the project itself, it would also be removed from the list.
The button appears next to each host in the list. It allows for applying V-Ray Scatter (created in the Asset Editor) to preferred hosts. Another way of associating a Scatter with a host is by drag and dropping it from the Asset Editor over the respective host slot. To remove the association between a Scatter and its host, use the Unassign V-Ray Scatter button.
The scattered items are only visible at render time and only over the surface of the selected host.
The Scatter Linked files mode button specifies how V-Ray scatters coming from linked files are treated. The functionality provides three methods for scatters display with respect to the host file or to the linked file.
Discard – All V-Ray scatters existing in linked files are discarded.
View & Override – Linked V-Ray scatters can be viewed, rendered, or overridden with scatters created in the host project.
Read-only – Linked V-Ray scatters are rendered but are hidden from the list. An override is not allowed.
Scatter Actions
After scatter is associated with its host, control the scale and rotation range of the scattered objects from the designated sliders.
Scale – Specifies a scale range for the scattered objects.
Rotation – Specifies a rotation range for the scattered objects.
Scale Multiplier – Specifies a uniform scale multiplier for the scattered objects. This value is combined with the random scaling, so that once there is a suitable Scale range, it allows for scaling up and down the whole composition of scattered objects.