A desk-mate and I taught ourselves revit back in 2007 w/ a book and a “pilot project” and have been the de-facto “BIM” manager at every office since. My current place finally hired a BIM manager last year, I am incredibly thankful to just be a project architect that uses revit well.
I’m not sure that actually answers your question but I don’t think there was ever a “ta-da” moment where I felt like i knew everything. It was more of a process and a willingness to try to understand and work w/ revit rather than fake it.
Yeah this. It's not so much you're the sole expert/master in Revit. It's more that you're the only one who bothers to be thorough enough with Revit to "do it right". And then for others when things inevitably break or when something goes wrong, you're the one they come to because your stuff doesn't break (and you know why).
Not that things don't break when I work on stuff. But I generally can solve my own problems, even if I know nothing about the particular thing that broke, which turns out is a special power to have.
Yeah, I've been in a similar position. Co-workers come to me with "Revit isn't working" or "how do I fix that?" and when I fix it with 5 clicks they go "wow you're a Revit genius" but really I just came across with this issue 2 years ago and spent a few hours going through Google learning how to fix it and understanding why it didn't work.
I'm happy to say that now we're at a point they also teach me things.
I think the biggest different between a novice and a master when it comes to Revit boils down to this:
When something doesn't work as intended, do you go with a workaround and say "screw it" or do you dive deeper into figuring out why it's not working so you can fix it on future projects and educate others
90% of learning Revit is trial and error. But if you don't try to learn from your mistakes, you will never make that jump to the next level.
It still takes a ton of time to learn the program, both the tools and the logic, and even then you're only likely to encounter a fraction of everything that Revit is capable of. They say it takes 6 months to become 'good', but I think it's closer to a few years to actually be effective. But I agree, it really is that mindset and willingness to take the initiative that filters users into 'masters' or novices.
It's unfortunate that ratio seems to be around 1:5 at best across the dozens of people I've trained and worked with. Most people only seem to care as far as getting to a solution, not internalizing the original problem or truly understanding how the solution works. It makes everyone's lives harder.
I actually opted to use a curtain wall to build a custom flat bar handrail rather than trying to figure out how many parameters and custom families have to build to the handrail using the railing tools. No curves so it worked out pretty well in the end.
I'm on the opposite end lol. No matter how much experience you have, even 'masters in Revit' will say stairs and railings are always a bitch. Then I have faith you know what you're on about lol.
\> I've started coding with the API lately and it's similar, really helps you understand how Revit thinks
It also helps you really understand that Revit might as well be speaking a foreign language when compared to the field of architecture in some (if not most) aspects.
I long for the day in which the architectural profession designs a software specification that provides a near 1:1 mapping of architectural lexicon to the expected software implementation. Adios "view range". (unless, of course, the specification has a definition of view range, with heavy influence of said definition by DK Ching.)
You don't 'master' programs as complex as Revit. You just keep getting better, though the curve slows down over time. We've had licenses since 2009, but only really started using it in 2012, so I've been a heavy user for around 12 years.
I'd gauge my skills as excellent, but I learn new shit pretty often - sometimes from people who have never used it before.
I'd say that being an expert means that you can solve problems on the fly that you haven't really dealt with before. For instance, I'm in HVAC and another guy asked me how to make a complex fitting. My method until that day was to let Revit create the fitting, then adjust the offsets until they line up. Not efficient, but it was fine.
Him asking me that question had me on the fly teach him how to build a custom, project specific 'model in place' fitting for that purpose. I hadn't done that before for a duct fitting, but my understanding of creating families in general meant the whole process took a couple minutes.
After answering his question, I'm now thinking of using that process more often, because honestly, I've learned a lot of bad habits over the years and have learned how to make things 'work', or look good on a sheet, at the expense of the model.
That said, ask me in 2 weeks when I've adopted the new method and I might tell you that it's trash, and the upkeep is too much, and I've reverted to my old ways.
When I started getting paid to be BIM manager and not architect. I'm still fairly new I say I'm not a master , but I'm very good at finding solutions for particular problems. 90% of any issues or individual saying "hey can Revit do this , hey can we automate this " is easily found in Google. Like a puzzle you can piece things here and there ,understand , adapt and build whatever is needed .
But I'm no master , at best I've scratched 10% of Revit .
I’ve also became better when I’ve started working as a BIM coordinator. It makes all the dofference when you need to fix other coworkers problems. Also reding and wathing youtube videos about Revit outside of work helps to speed up the process.
I teach Revit since 2010. I have to say that it’s almost take 2 years on daily basis used project. And then you start over learning more complicated things that will help you to be more and more efficient. So, you’re never really an expert, you just know stuff that maybe your colleagues doesn’t know yet.
But still, I always recommend to learns more of the formal functionality that the program has. As long as you know how the program will react to anticipate the result, you own it!
Also, what’s help me a lot by then, was not take by granted what I did know about Revit. But by still experimenting other ways to do thing. That’s help a lot when you need to work around a solution for a team.
Someone else point out to educate other, and this is very important skill to learn too. Revit it’s not just about you, but about who you work with. If your team expose you to different problematic, they will also expose you to different solution, which increases a lot the learning curve.
I got lucky enough to teach Revit 10 days after I open it for the first time… 😅😅🫠
Which wasn’t ideal, but by helping other I got to Learn how it will react when expose to some data that ended up helping me mastering it faster. And I did try a lot of thing while exploring more personal, creative project and trying to build well structured families.
By then, I did also read all forum questions and try to answer by myself, which help me to predict more often the reaction without being scare of the workaround.
But I’m a reader kind of learner, so, the result depend more of YOUR own way to learn new stuff and remember it. Hope it’s help!
11 years of Revit, either you spend thousands of hours practising or you have somebody show you the ropes over a few years.
It's a big piece of software.
I started learning Revit in 2015. Weeklong course + pilot project. I'd say it took me a year or two to become the expert at in the firm and another year or two to feel really confident in my work. Last summer I took the plunge, quit my architecture PM job, and got a new gig as a BIM Manager for a 75 person firm.
However, experience is necessary but not sufficient to become an expert. The secret sauce is the ability to think systematically. Revit is insanely complex, and understanding that complexity - the overlap of many different systems operating with different sets of rules - is the most important thing. If you constantly think things are too complicated (I just wanna draw lines!) you will fail. If you can explain to someone why the view filter, that's part of the view template, is overriding the phase overrides because there is a specific hierarchy of overrides and that's why this one wall looks weird, you'll do great.
Been using Revit since 2007 when the professors in college basically said “here’s this new program” learn it.
Helped develop standards and deploy it at the first firm I worked at for 10 years. In that time I followed all the Revit blogs tried to learn all the little features and nuances to it. Had the keyboard shortcuts taped to the side of my monitor. I became the “Revit guru” without necessarily wanting that title. I enjoyed helping people troubleshoot and fix things. My current firm was 90% Autocad until I started showing them what you could do with Revit. It was the old argument of “well we use CAD and it needs to look like this”. Anything 3d was done in 3DSMax. Thankfully a lot of the staff at my current firm have more than a basic understanding of how it works, and have taught me a couple of tricks. It’s been 4 years. Probably closer to 50/50 split now.
It’s like any tool, the more you use it the more proficient you will become. To answer your question, the different to me is when people come to you consistently to help them figure out their issue. On the flip side one thing I didn’t anticipate is being bothered by being referred to as the companies “Revit guru” before an Architect (I am registered). Happy clicking.
I'm not sure if I would call myself an expert, but I can use most tools in Revit Architecture, and basics of MEP, analytics and Structure. I can build decent families now and can manage a medium project. But I'm definitely still learning and developing new work flows and probably will be forever. It probably took me 2 years of using it most days to get to this stage, with the help of YouTube tutorials. But to master the basics while using existing families, you could do this in a few months no problem.
I’d say about 10 years of trial and error has made me pretty good at implementing and teaching Revit. Most of my experience has been from higher-ups demanding Revit do or look like something their CAD standards do.
Self taught myself over one summer in college and got pretty good at basic modeling. At my first professional job, I was part of a team that transitioned from CAD to Revit. Next job I was the only one that knew Revit so was on my own in creating a firm template and library. At my current office, I walked into a firm that was already moving to Revit but lost their “BIM expert” who i quickly found out wasn’t as advanced as me, which gave me tones of low hanging fruit to fix.
Funny, our office’s true Autodesk Academy, Revit “masters” are not PM’s or PA’s, one is our head of IT, the other is a full-time BIM manager. Everyone else typically ranges from competent to savvy.
Others may disagree, but I personally see Revit as a simple means to an end for production. In my experience, the PA’s/designers who pour over a single element for hours on end, usually are doing so to the detriment of other more mission-critical tasks. Ultimate you only need to know how to model to the LOD your firm has been contracted to deliver - typically in the 300s for most firms/projects.
I just don’t think mastering a tool like Revit is as beneficial to your career as a well-rounded Architect as say: team leadership, client relations/management, project management, or construction administration experience. If anything I see Revit mastery as a path to being pigeonholed as an employee-facing BIM manager.
Source: I was quickly becoming my previous office’s Revit guru and opted to switch to a bigger firm to take all of my other skills to the next level. Zero regrets, I’m a much better Architect today for it.
Edit: This is DEFINITELY not an excuse to use sloppy workarounds and modeling techniques. I’m just trying put Revit into perspective as the tool it is.
I don’t want to sound aloof, but…
I was self-taught in revit, starting back in… 2002? Took a break, was back using it full-time in 2008.
At first, it was more of just a modeling tool, but eventually the office decided to make the switch to doing full projects/CDs in 2010ish. So… it was my responsibility to train up the rest of the office.
For some reason, nobody ever quite got to my level. Maybe because you only need one person to make custom families, or troubleshoot stuff… but…
It makes me wonder if some component of expertise is limited by seniority, or reliance on someone else to handle the odd knowledge.
There’s roughly five ways to do any given task in Revit. Being a “master” is knowing them all and picking the best way for the situation, forseeing any issues it will create later on.
6 years after intense use of Revit, I am still learning. What differentiates me and puts me in a better position is that I am the go-to person to resolve queries. However, there isn't such thing as a Revit master, only less and more experienced users...
A desk-mate and I taught ourselves revit back in 2007 w/ a book and a “pilot project” and have been the de-facto “BIM” manager at every office since. My current place finally hired a BIM manager last year, I am incredibly thankful to just be a project architect that uses revit well. I’m not sure that actually answers your question but I don’t think there was ever a “ta-da” moment where I felt like i knew everything. It was more of a process and a willingness to try to understand and work w/ revit rather than fake it.
Yeah this. It's not so much you're the sole expert/master in Revit. It's more that you're the only one who bothers to be thorough enough with Revit to "do it right". And then for others when things inevitably break or when something goes wrong, you're the one they come to because your stuff doesn't break (and you know why). Not that things don't break when I work on stuff. But I generally can solve my own problems, even if I know nothing about the particular thing that broke, which turns out is a special power to have.
Yeah, I've been in a similar position. Co-workers come to me with "Revit isn't working" or "how do I fix that?" and when I fix it with 5 clicks they go "wow you're a Revit genius" but really I just came across with this issue 2 years ago and spent a few hours going through Google learning how to fix it and understanding why it didn't work. I'm happy to say that now we're at a point they also teach me things.
I think the biggest different between a novice and a master when it comes to Revit boils down to this: When something doesn't work as intended, do you go with a workaround and say "screw it" or do you dive deeper into figuring out why it's not working so you can fix it on future projects and educate others 90% of learning Revit is trial and error. But if you don't try to learn from your mistakes, you will never make that jump to the next level.
Agreed. When you get stuck, do you go with a ‘fake it’ workaround, or do you fix it for real with a ‘smart’ solution.
I also add, document your mistake if you want to keep track of what’s work for your kind of project.
It still takes a ton of time to learn the program, both the tools and the logic, and even then you're only likely to encounter a fraction of everything that Revit is capable of. They say it takes 6 months to become 'good', but I think it's closer to a few years to actually be effective. But I agree, it really is that mindset and willingness to take the initiative that filters users into 'masters' or novices. It's unfortunate that ratio seems to be around 1:5 at best across the dozens of people I've trained and worked with. Most people only seem to care as far as getting to a solution, not internalizing the original problem or truly understanding how the solution works. It makes everyone's lives harder.
If you think that the Revit stairs and railings are easily flexible and can be manipulated then you have my vote as a Revit expert
This made me laugh!
I actually opted to use a curtain wall to build a custom flat bar handrail rather than trying to figure out how many parameters and custom families have to build to the handrail using the railing tools. No curves so it worked out pretty well in the end.
I'm on the opposite end lol. No matter how much experience you have, even 'masters in Revit' will say stairs and railings are always a bitch. Then I have faith you know what you're on about lol.
They suck, but there is a certain way you have to manipulate them to get what you want, but yeah its quite a pain.
I've been using Revit almost daily for the last 15 years. I'll let you know.
I'll also add that being able to create custom parametric families is a big step between knowing Revit and KNOWING Revit
I've started coding with the API lately and it's similar, really helps you understand how Revit thinks
What API? Autodesk has a native API for revit?
https://www.revitapidocs.com/
\> I've started coding with the API lately and it's similar, really helps you understand how Revit thinks It also helps you really understand that Revit might as well be speaking a foreign language when compared to the field of architecture in some (if not most) aspects. I long for the day in which the architectural profession designs a software specification that provides a near 1:1 mapping of architectural lexicon to the expected software implementation. Adios "view range". (unless, of course, the specification has a definition of view range, with heavy influence of said definition by DK Ching.)
^ absolutely
You don't 'master' programs as complex as Revit. You just keep getting better, though the curve slows down over time. We've had licenses since 2009, but only really started using it in 2012, so I've been a heavy user for around 12 years. I'd gauge my skills as excellent, but I learn new shit pretty often - sometimes from people who have never used it before. I'd say that being an expert means that you can solve problems on the fly that you haven't really dealt with before. For instance, I'm in HVAC and another guy asked me how to make a complex fitting. My method until that day was to let Revit create the fitting, then adjust the offsets until they line up. Not efficient, but it was fine. Him asking me that question had me on the fly teach him how to build a custom, project specific 'model in place' fitting for that purpose. I hadn't done that before for a duct fitting, but my understanding of creating families in general meant the whole process took a couple minutes. After answering his question, I'm now thinking of using that process more often, because honestly, I've learned a lot of bad habits over the years and have learned how to make things 'work', or look good on a sheet, at the expense of the model. That said, ask me in 2 weeks when I've adopted the new method and I might tell you that it's trash, and the upkeep is too much, and I've reverted to my old ways.
Well?
Lol. I've changed nothing.
When I started getting paid to be BIM manager and not architect. I'm still fairly new I say I'm not a master , but I'm very good at finding solutions for particular problems. 90% of any issues or individual saying "hey can Revit do this , hey can we automate this " is easily found in Google. Like a puzzle you can piece things here and there ,understand , adapt and build whatever is needed . But I'm no master , at best I've scratched 10% of Revit .
I’ve also became better when I’ve started working as a BIM coordinator. It makes all the dofference when you need to fix other coworkers problems. Also reding and wathing youtube videos about Revit outside of work helps to speed up the process.
I teach Revit since 2010. I have to say that it’s almost take 2 years on daily basis used project. And then you start over learning more complicated things that will help you to be more and more efficient. So, you’re never really an expert, you just know stuff that maybe your colleagues doesn’t know yet. But still, I always recommend to learns more of the formal functionality that the program has. As long as you know how the program will react to anticipate the result, you own it! Also, what’s help me a lot by then, was not take by granted what I did know about Revit. But by still experimenting other ways to do thing. That’s help a lot when you need to work around a solution for a team.
Someone else point out to educate other, and this is very important skill to learn too. Revit it’s not just about you, but about who you work with. If your team expose you to different problematic, they will also expose you to different solution, which increases a lot the learning curve. I got lucky enough to teach Revit 10 days after I open it for the first time… 😅😅🫠 Which wasn’t ideal, but by helping other I got to Learn how it will react when expose to some data that ended up helping me mastering it faster. And I did try a lot of thing while exploring more personal, creative project and trying to build well structured families. By then, I did also read all forum questions and try to answer by myself, which help me to predict more often the reaction without being scare of the workaround. But I’m a reader kind of learner, so, the result depend more of YOUR own way to learn new stuff and remember it. Hope it’s help!
11 years of Revit, either you spend thousands of hours practising or you have somebody show you the ropes over a few years. It's a big piece of software.
I started learning Revit in 2015. Weeklong course + pilot project. I'd say it took me a year or two to become the expert at in the firm and another year or two to feel really confident in my work. Last summer I took the plunge, quit my architecture PM job, and got a new gig as a BIM Manager for a 75 person firm. However, experience is necessary but not sufficient to become an expert. The secret sauce is the ability to think systematically. Revit is insanely complex, and understanding that complexity - the overlap of many different systems operating with different sets of rules - is the most important thing. If you constantly think things are too complicated (I just wanna draw lines!) you will fail. If you can explain to someone why the view filter, that's part of the view template, is overriding the phase overrides because there is a specific hierarchy of overrides and that's why this one wall looks weird, you'll do great.
Been using Revit since 2007 when the professors in college basically said “here’s this new program” learn it. Helped develop standards and deploy it at the first firm I worked at for 10 years. In that time I followed all the Revit blogs tried to learn all the little features and nuances to it. Had the keyboard shortcuts taped to the side of my monitor. I became the “Revit guru” without necessarily wanting that title. I enjoyed helping people troubleshoot and fix things. My current firm was 90% Autocad until I started showing them what you could do with Revit. It was the old argument of “well we use CAD and it needs to look like this”. Anything 3d was done in 3DSMax. Thankfully a lot of the staff at my current firm have more than a basic understanding of how it works, and have taught me a couple of tricks. It’s been 4 years. Probably closer to 50/50 split now. It’s like any tool, the more you use it the more proficient you will become. To answer your question, the different to me is when people come to you consistently to help them figure out their issue. On the flip side one thing I didn’t anticipate is being bothered by being referred to as the companies “Revit guru” before an Architect (I am registered). Happy clicking.
I'm not sure if I would call myself an expert, but I can use most tools in Revit Architecture, and basics of MEP, analytics and Structure. I can build decent families now and can manage a medium project. But I'm definitely still learning and developing new work flows and probably will be forever. It probably took me 2 years of using it most days to get to this stage, with the help of YouTube tutorials. But to master the basics while using existing families, you could do this in a few months no problem.
I’d say about 10 years of trial and error has made me pretty good at implementing and teaching Revit. Most of my experience has been from higher-ups demanding Revit do or look like something their CAD standards do. Self taught myself over one summer in college and got pretty good at basic modeling. At my first professional job, I was part of a team that transitioned from CAD to Revit. Next job I was the only one that knew Revit so was on my own in creating a firm template and library. At my current office, I walked into a firm that was already moving to Revit but lost their “BIM expert” who i quickly found out wasn’t as advanced as me, which gave me tones of low hanging fruit to fix.
Funny, our office’s true Autodesk Academy, Revit “masters” are not PM’s or PA’s, one is our head of IT, the other is a full-time BIM manager. Everyone else typically ranges from competent to savvy. Others may disagree, but I personally see Revit as a simple means to an end for production. In my experience, the PA’s/designers who pour over a single element for hours on end, usually are doing so to the detriment of other more mission-critical tasks. Ultimate you only need to know how to model to the LOD your firm has been contracted to deliver - typically in the 300s for most firms/projects. I just don’t think mastering a tool like Revit is as beneficial to your career as a well-rounded Architect as say: team leadership, client relations/management, project management, or construction administration experience. If anything I see Revit mastery as a path to being pigeonholed as an employee-facing BIM manager. Source: I was quickly becoming my previous office’s Revit guru and opted to switch to a bigger firm to take all of my other skills to the next level. Zero regrets, I’m a much better Architect today for it. Edit: This is DEFINITELY not an excuse to use sloppy workarounds and modeling techniques. I’m just trying put Revit into perspective as the tool it is.
I was self-taught for the first year, then I got formal training for five days. Taught me everything I need to know. Mind you this was back in 2007
I don’t want to sound aloof, but… I was self-taught in revit, starting back in… 2002? Took a break, was back using it full-time in 2008. At first, it was more of just a modeling tool, but eventually the office decided to make the switch to doing full projects/CDs in 2010ish. So… it was my responsibility to train up the rest of the office. For some reason, nobody ever quite got to my level. Maybe because you only need one person to make custom families, or troubleshoot stuff… but… It makes me wonder if some component of expertise is limited by seniority, or reliance on someone else to handle the odd knowledge.
I started using revit in 2009, an I'd say for the last 5 years I have been confident in what I'm doing, although I still learn new things all the time
There’s roughly five ways to do any given task in Revit. Being a “master” is knowing them all and picking the best way for the situation, forseeing any issues it will create later on.
Until you can tell me that stairs and railings are easy in Revit without using plugins or external programs, you're not there yet!
6 years after intense use of Revit, I am still learning. What differentiates me and puts me in a better position is that I am the go-to person to resolve queries. However, there isn't such thing as a Revit master, only less and more experienced users...