There is no doubt 2020 has been a challenging year for all of us. Over the year-end holiday season, BIMSmith, a free Revit content online platform, hosted a Revit family creation holiday competition. It's a winter holiday-themed for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Year.
The rule is pretty simple. You create a Revit family that displays a seasonal or holiday theme. Then post the images of the family on one of the social media channels that are allowed and tag them. You can submit more than one entry. If the entry is chosen as a finalist, the actual family will be submitted for review. Of course, the work must be your original work.
While many are still working from home or spend more time at home during this pandemic, as a long-term Revit user with a passion for content creation, I thought I'd give it a shot.
My original plan was to submit an entry to beat the deadline on December 22, 2020. I later found out they had extended it to January 15, 2021.
 |
| My first entry (Giant Ornaments) |
That's the time (December 21) I started my winter break from my work. I normally would spend my Christmas break out of town with family, I now had all the extra time on my hands, so I started to think about creating more families for the competition.
I started to build my second one, then a third one, and more ...
By the time I was done, I had a total of 5 entries! I can assure you that wasn't part of the plan, it literally just happened.
Out of the 5 entries, one was selected for the semi-final. It was a neon sign with the New Year 2020/2021 in it. The numbers (lights) lit up and down to represent the transition from the year 2020 to 2021. I actually enjoyed making that family a lot. I plan on writing a post to document the process for the family to share here on my blog.
BIMsmith recently made an announcement for the winners. My neon sign was selected as SECOND PLACE!!! That was pretty awesome. You can go check out the winners and other entries from this link.
 |
| Neon sign created as Revit family rendered as GIF |
You can find my other entries below in this post.
This wired mesh Christmas tree is done as an adaptive component. The spacing of the grid, height, radius are all parametric.
 |
| Wired mesh Christmas tree with lights |
 |
| Rendered in Enscape |
 |
| Rendered in Enscape and images run as GIF |
Santa Claus and Elf sleighs. The sleigh is parametric. The width is adjustable to accommodate more passengers. I also made an option for Elfs.
 |
| Sleigh modeled as family. Rendered in Enscape |
 |
| Details |
I am thankful for BIMsmith to host such an event to encourage Revit users to showcase their creativity in family creation. I am very much looking forward to this competition in 2021.