Creating Non-Hosted Families from Hosted Versions

I just recently discovered this gem and it seems there are a few people that know about it. Perhaps it was discussed in a forum or some other place, but since I never came across this nice little tip, I thought of sharing it here.

In this post, I talked about a “pseudo face-based family” and this week while I was not even thinking about Revit or anything work-related for that matter, I just had a thought and wondered whether the hosting extrusion could be deleted (I know, my brain is weird sometimes!). So I tested this out and then realized that the resulting family is no “pseudo-anything”, but simply built into a host-less template with the Work Plane-Based option enabled.

So the highly-intuitive process (sarcasm anyone?) of taking a family that is built in a hosted template such as face-based, wall-based, ceiling-based, etc. and produce a non-hosted copy is as follows:

1. Place an instance of the family you want to hack in the drawing area. You can insert multiple ones at the same time;
2. Save the file and close it;
3. Open a new Revit file from no template. This ensures it is completely empty and Revit will thus create this hacked copy when we do step #6;
4. Link the previously saved model into this new file;
5. Go to the Collaborate Tab>Copy/Monitor>Select Link and pick the linked file. Once in C/M mode, click Coordination Settings and make sure that the family types you want to hack are set to “Copy Type”;
6. Click the Copy button and pick the families you want to hack;
7. Finish and exit from this mode when you’re done.

The copied families that Revit created are hacked versions and no longer built inside of hosted templates. Now simply edit the families, delete the extrusions, set them to not be work plane-based and save them…done!

Now I ask, if Revit is able to do all this, why not give us a stupid button instead of this frustratingly long and obtuse workaround?!

Creating Non-Hosted Families from Hosted Versions

Oh, that Options Bar

The Options Bar catches all of us by surprise. No matter how many times we glance at it, there's always something new to discover, regardless of the number of years or months you've been using Revit.

I've been slowly modeling our house in Revit. Slowly, because you know how it works: the last thing you want to do on your weekend is more Revit and Architecture haha. Plus you realize that what you'd like to do to your house is probably not something you can afford! But now I have other reasons for needing floor plans, so I have a good incentive to get it done. As I was working, I needed to edit a window, so away I go into the familiar family editor. Inadvertently, I selected the opening and something caught my eye. Now you might have been aware of this, but I have to confess that it was the first time I saw it! And no need to check whether it's a new feature...it was there in 2008 and 9.1! Sheesh.


You can set an opening cut in hosted families to be transparent in 3D and/or Elevation. Above you can see the default settings. The reason I wasn't aware of it was possibly because material transparency is not respected in elevations. A common technique to get window glazing to show transparent in elevation is to use a 3D view oriented to an elevation, and thus the opening shows transparent due to the setting above. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

So hopefully you'll learn two things from this post:

1. Opening transparency in hosted families can be controlled for 3D views and Elevations;


2. Keep an inquisitive eye on that Options Bar because you never know what could be hiding in plain sight!

Oh, that Options Bar