Pen sets and graphic overrides

[kaltra]

Hey! I want to create an ArchiCAD template. I was looking into the best ways to change the appearances of plans with just one click, and I noticed the main ways are through pen sets and graphic overrides. Now I am a bit confused what exactly the difference between the two is. Should I have different overrides and one pen set? Or should I create different pen sets as well as overrides? How does one use both in combination with each other, if that is the best way? 

For example, let's say I want 3 different types of plans: one for marketing (all lines are blue), one for construction (the structure of walls is shown, the elements have different colors according to renovation filters, so gray, red and yellow), and one for presentation (the structure of the walls does not show anymore, they are simply filled with black, and the red and yellow colors do not show either, it's now just black and gray). 

Can I switch between these three different plan appearances using just overrides, or would you recommend I create the respective pen sets as well? 

I'm a student and this is all new to me so I would appreciate any advice! 🙂 

Operating system used: Windows

[Barry Kelly]

You will probably need both.

Pen sets control the individual pens, regardless of the element they are used for.

So your black or red pen can become blue.

But you can keep your white pen as white.

Graphic Overrides (Renovation Filters are special Graphic Overrides) will affect the entire element and you can use criteria to filter for specific elements only.

So you can override the appearance of an element, but that entire element will change.

If that element contains black red and white lines, and you override the line colour to blue, the entire element will become blue.

With pen sets you can control the individual pens, but not the fill appearance, just the colour of the fills.

Barry.