Usually you're best off building your own content. Manufacturers are great about dumping all kinds of data and logos and screw heads into the details of their Revit families and it doesn't make the design process any faster and just bogs down the model.
Don't even bother dragging a
Source Four family from
ETC into your model. Pretty sure they made their Revit content by regurgitating their 3D Solidworks fabrication files. By the time you have a few dozen of those in your model theres so much linework that your model takes
forever to load. I'm not just talking about the time it takes to open -- every time you
switch between views or sheets it has to re-render all of that linework again. Useless for anyone who isn't on anti-anxiety meds or anti-depressants.
It really comes down to what your design workflow is and what you're trying to accomplish. If you want something you can quickly drag into a model times 30 that you only need to show in section -- that's fundamentally different than something that'll be used in weekly clash detection sessions that'll need to be accurate in all 3 dimensions with clearance zones to keep the other construction disciplines out of your way or that you can use for 3D sight
line studies from representative audience positions. Important to note: just because you put it in the model correctly with a clearance zone doesn't actually prevent a fire protection contractor from taking artistic liberties in the field.
If you want content that can do double duty -- that can be represented both in stored position and in show position for the purpose of doing sight
line studies -- that's another layer of complexity. If want something that you can host lighting fixtures to or that looks good not only in 3D but shows up appropriately in plan and section -- that's also another layer of complexity.
I home-brewed my own content that is all based at the
plaster line, and uses parameters to position the battens, lift lines, curtain tracks, curtain ropes,
trim positions, and so forth so that I my curtain/
track/
batten schedules are all automatically generated. To make it work though I had to do quite a
bit to trick Revit into letting me do it this way. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow I pity the guy who has to come in after me to figure out how that content actually works.
Rigging content is by far the hardest to accommodate. My most commonly used 5-6 families are simple extruded rectangles that through a process I put together with an Excel spreadsheet can represent 150+ devices and automatically populate all of the data on what that device is and how it's installed into a schedule.
If it's a TV, it has a viewing
cone that shows up on plan, certain schedulable/calculated parameters others don't (
aspect ratio, distance from wall, tilt,
etc). So I loaded up that family with the top 10 sizes of TV's I use.
If it's a
connector panel, it can be flush or surface mount by checking a box, and I have pre-sorted list of 50 sizes of back boxes I use regularly with codes that automatically populate to the device tags to indicate what they are and how they are mounted. If it's
connector strip or a
plug box, it's the same family as the one I just talked about except it has different schedulable and
preset parameters for
circuit numbers,
plug types,
receptacle quantities/types,
circuit numbering, associated
dimmer/
relay panel name,
etc. It absolutely
does not show the geometry for the actual receptacles or pigtails -- there is no reason for that.
Resist the urge to think more than a few people have dealt with this before. With exception to a handful of consultants (ARUP & Fisher Dachs come to mind), I would estimate most theater specialties consultants and contractors are still operating in AutoCAD or VW based on 2D plans and sections the architect exported for them out of Revit. There are probably more AV consultants that have dealt with this than rigging/lighting consultants because of the steep, highly custom, and highly project-specific learning curve associated with rigging & lighting. (Congratulations on building that content for your custom GALA spiralift
system for that one project! You can rest peacefully knowing you'll never need to touch that one ever again!)