Yes, you can have one or more active subscriptions and still buy objects individually.

Subscriptions cannot be upgraded. To change from one plan to another, cancel your current subscription (you will still have access to the objects you purchased until the end of the subscription term as described in “What happens to my account when I cancel my plan?”) and then buy another subscription plan.

To cancel your subscription, go to the Subscription settings of your Blackbee 3D account, click on the subscription you want to cancel (View button) and turn off the Auto Renew button. Your subscription status will be changed to “Pending Cancellation” (so you can still enjoy the benefits of the subscription you payed for), and once the period you payed for is over, your subscription status will change to “Cancelled”, it won’t renew  and you won’t be charged anymore unless you renew.

Objects purchased/downloaded through any of the subscription plans are only available if your subscription is active or within your grace period (Pending Cancellation). If you cancel your subscription, your downloads section won’t include any objects that were downloaded through a subscription plan anymore. 

Just go to the Subscription settings of your Blackbee 3D account, click on the subscription you want to renew (View button) and press the Renew button.

You will still have full access to your subscription and its benefits until the end of the period you payed for. Once the period you payed for expires, you won’t be able to download any more products through your subscription plan, even if you didn’t download them all during your payed period. Make sure you download ALL your allowed objects while your subscription is active.

Your object downloads reset every month, so if you don’t download all your allowed objects during a period, you won’t be able to download them in the next period, so make sure you download ALL your available objects every period to avoid missing on the benefits of a subscription.

Once you run out of objects to download from your subscription, you can purchase additional objects individually or you can purchase another subscription, this way you don’t need to wait until your subscription renews to get more objects. 

Blackbee3D is committed to continually grow its families’ libraries. New products will be added every week, so check-in regularly to check out our latest additions.

Blackbee3D’s families are carefully created using the best modeling practices. When we create a new family, we take into consideration things like: reference planes (to parametrize the families properly), materials orientations (mappings), details (rounded edges, screws, hinges, etc.), parameters (to create the most flexible family possible) and proper representation (especially for objects coming from other software programs). Our parametric families are high quality families that are flexible enough to adapt to your projects needs. Additionally, we pride ourselves in having the best parametric organic-looking objects in the market, i.e. cushions/pillows, beds, plants, towels, etc., all of these at an unbeatable price point.

At Blackbee3D we cut down on operating costs to be able to offer our high-quality parametric families at very affordable prices. We believe that good families should be economically accessible to everyone in the industry, from students to big studios, since they will make architects/designers workflow a lot faster. At Blackbee3D we want to take care of the details so you can focus on designing.

At Blackbee3D, some of our products are offered in different formats: Revit families (.rfa), 3D Max models for Vray (.max), generic 3D (.fbx), AutoCAD blocks (.dwg), etc. Make sure you read the description of each product to find out what formats are included with your purchase.

Unfortunately, no. Given the nature of the digital content we sell, objects/products/subscriptions cannot be returned or credited towards the purchase of other objects. All sales of items are final.

Absolutely, if the product now comes with materials/textures (not all products had textures added), log in to your Blackbee3D account and re-download your products from your Downloads area. Note: Textures cannot be downloaded on their own, so you will have to re-download the object again (the .zip file includes the textures if the family/3D model includes them).

A parametric family is a flexible 3D object allows the user to change a series of its characteristics using pre-created parameters. Depending on the family, the parameters can control: the dimensions, (in one or more directions), visibility of objects, materials, number of repetitions/objects (in the case of shelves or number of legs in a stool for example), shapes, etc. All projects are different, and parametric families will allow you to customize them to fit/adapt to whatever project you are working on.

Yes, all of our families are parametric. The number of parameters (material, size, etc.) varies according to the family, but they all give a good range of options to the user.

Yes they can, but there might be unexpected results when doing this. Blackbee3D’s families are tested to work ONLY within the given ranges in the descriptions. If the parameters are changed/removed, constraints are broken or new constraints/parameters are added, the family can become unstable and give errors. Make sure you review the family parameters’ ranges in the descriptions beforehand. In case you accidentally break/remove parameters or alter the family in any way, we recommend re-downloading the family from the downloads area in your Blackbee3D account.

Yes. All our families come with materials and/or textures that are render-ready, but it is important to mention that the purpose of parametric families is to be used in multiple projects. In one project, our table family, for example, can be wood, but in another one, it can be aluminum. Blackbee3D’s families come with pre-created material parameters (and assigned materials/textures) so you can either use them as they are or customize them to your own needs using your own materials.

A material parameter allows the user to change the material/texture of the family (or a part of a family) in every project. This gives the user a lot of flexibility when it comes to choosing finishes for the project. A wall frame, for example, can have a material parameter for the frame and a second material parameter for the image. This way, you can assign either wood, metal, fabric, etc., to the frame (depending on the project and the design intent), and an image, mirror or glass to the image part of the frame. 

Blackbee3D families’ parameters are either found in the “Dimensions” and/or “Materials and Finishes” sections in the Properties panel (once you insert the family into a project) or in the Edit Type window. Also, in the Properties panel, you will find short explanations of what can be changed and where.

Absolutely. You can export your Revit families to be used in 3D Max by doing the following:

1. 1. Open the family in Revit.
   2. Go to the 3D view.
   3. From the File Menu (or the Application Menu, depending on what version of Revit you are using), select Export – FBX. Once saved as FBX, you can import it into 3D Max.

Keep in mind that some of our families are already provided in .max or .fbx format. Make sure you check the formats they come in.

A hybrid family combines native objects from Revit (like extrusions, blends, revolves, sweeps, swept blends and any type of voids) with objects coming from other 3D software, like 3D Max or Maya. Creating organic looking objects (towels, pillows, curtains, cushions, plants, etc.) is quite difficult and time consuming to do in Revit (plus, it is quite complicated to parametrize if not impossible), so other 3D programs are used to create these organic objects so they give the families a more organic and realistic look to your projects. Another advantage of hybrid families is that materials/textures map more appropriately in Revit to surfaces that were created in the other programs using specific formats.

Absolutely. Objects coming from other software programs in Blackbee3D’s families are carefully configured so they display properly in every view (they won’t display any mesh lines or colorful lines).

Objects coming from other software programs are all connected to a material in the Material Browser. All our hybrid families come with pre-existing materials in the Material Browser. To edit the materials, go to the Material Browser (Manage Tab – Materials), look up the hybrid object’s material name and change its parameters in the Appearance Tab. The names of the hybrid objects’ materials (or their prefixes) can be found (usually in a “Note”) in the Properties Panel when you select the family in a project, but they usually start with the name of the family.

Since hybrid families contain objects coming from other programs (objects that are non-native), in certain views, and in certain positions on the screen only, they might display long lines that will go away by panning or zooming in/out of the drawing. This is not an error in the family, but a display issue due to the fact that the objects come from external sources. The good thing is that these lines don’t render at all, they only show up in the viewport.

Certain families, like some cushion families, for example, will be provided in high and low-quality files. High quality files have more details (like folds or creases in the cushion), but they are larger files in comparison to the low-quality ones. If your cushions will be more on the background, use the low-quality files. If the cushions will be closer in the render, use the high-quality files. In any case, most of the high-quality files are kept under or around the 2 MB size, which is still very acceptable for such a detailed family.

Creating plants parametrically in Revit is quite a complicated and time-consuming task, not to mention that in some cases it might be practically impossible to create some shapes and/or the files would become impossibly large. Other programs offer better ways to create plants, like 3D Max or Maya, which can then be imported into Revit. Plants created in these other programs are based on polygonal objects, which Revit doesn’t know how to interpret properly (smooth automatically) since Revit’s objects are mainly based on solids. While Revit does allow to import polygonal (and also NURBS) objects from other software programs, it will not know how to treat these objects correctly and it ends up showing all their faces.

You can most certainly change the materials of any Revit family or 3D model to any other material you have in your libraries.

Yes, all our 3D models are properly UV mapped.

Our plants are created in other programs using polygons. Revit can import polygonal objects from other programs, but it cannot map the textures to them the way these other programs do, so in Revit, any polygonal object coming from other programs (like plants, flowers and trees) can only display solid colors.

All of Blackbee3D families have been tested to work within the specified ranges in the descriptions (unless the family comes with specific notes in the description about certain values not working even within the ranges). If you alter the original family in any way, it might become unusable. In this case, we recommend that you re-download the family from the downloads area in your Blackbee3D’s account. If you didn’t alter the family and it is still giving you issues, please read the Defective Item’s Policy to know what is considered a defective item. If the family is truly defective, please get in touch with us so we can fix it and update the downloadable link. 

Some families, as specified in the Description section, can give an error when set to odd values (even within the specified ranges). If this happens, try rounding up the parameter value either up or down. For example, if your family is set to 6-62/256” and it errors out, try changing it to 6-1/4”. Rounding up values will reduce the possibility of error. Keep in mind that values outside the specified ranges in the descriptions (in case you create your own types) are more likely to give errors and/or break the families.

Families might have been saved in a different view other than the view that it opened in your computer. If you don’t see anything in the view, press ZF to center the family in the viewport.

Textures are read from the folder they were originally loaded from. These folders are definitely not in your computer, so you will have to let Revit know where to look for these textures. For a detailed explanation on how to connect the textures to your families in your computer, please watch our “Loading material textures automatically in Revit” video located in the Videos section of our website.