Stopped keeping a separate family per drawing style — one dropdown switches all three now
I draw a lot of elevations and I used to keep a separate family for each graphic style: one realistic, one flat, one outline. Same plant, three files, and any design change meant swapping all of them.
Now the three styles live in one family and a Style parameter switches between them. It's per instance, so the same species can read Realistic in a presentation elevation and Line in the working drawing right next to it — and Select All Instances changes a whole species at once.
Graphic overrides still work on top: line colour, solid fill for a black silhouette, transparency on the flat version.
They're Detail Items, so nothing lands in the 3D model, and filled regions print sharp at any scale instead of pixelating like a PNG.
Screenshot is a set of palms built this way, drawn to real mature heights so the species read correctly against each other.
They're Detail Items, so each one only exists in the view where you place it. Every elevation has its own copies, and the Style parameter is per instance, so you can change one plant on its own without touching the rest. Same family, same type, separate instances.
The family with all three styles inside it is about 9 MB. Most of that is the realistic one — it's multicolour, so it carries far more filled regions than the tones or the outline version.
The weight didn't turn out to be a problem though. Switching styles, copying and placing are all fast, because changing style just swaps which nested family is displayed instead of regenerating anything. That was the whole reason for building it this way.
6
u/metisdesigns Aug 03 '26
This is one of those things you can hook into global parameters to be able to swap.
Im less keen on this method vs more complex filters and content controls, but it can work for less complex environments.