Dunn Edwards have provided an adsklib file for download that matches their paint colours to Revit materials.

I previously posted about Lysaght adsklib way back in 2011:
What Revit Wants: Lysaght Bluescope Colorbond Autodesk Material Library

I look forward to the day when all manufacturer materials come in adsklib format – would save us all some work 🙂

Here are the Dunn Edwards links:

Revit Materials 
‘adsklib’ file (20mb)
  D.E. 5000 – 5093 colors

(dropbox access request)
http://www.arch-intel.info/revit-dunn-edwards-paint.html

They also provide some informative videos —

Getting the adsklib into Revit:
Setting up corresponding colours:

You want to be able to network and directly reference material libraries and resources.  You can do this using symbolic links in Windows 7 / 8, where the OS and applications think they are dealing with a local resource, when in fact it can be on the network.

Disclaimer:  I’m sure that there will still be some quirks and issues with this method – I doubt that it is the perfect solution.

This is the essential command:
To create a symbolic link type into the Command Prompt box
mklink /D
: This need to be exactly as per the location of the local machine path
e.g. “c:Program FilesCommon FilesAutodesk SharedMaterialsTexturesbluescope Lysaght”
*Don’t forget to use the double quotes, if it is not identical the library wont work.
: This is the location of your network files
e.g. “s:bluescope Lysaght
*blueScope lysaght is the folder name

Check out this PDF for a more detailed description:
http://www.steelselect.com/download_centre/file.php?id=5039
(accessible via SteelSelect page here)

This method is also discussed at:
http://www.revitforum.org/third-party-add-ins-api-r-d/2883-colorbond%AE-steel-texture-library-revit-lysaght-content-beta-version-6.html#post87933
(but guess what, XP can’t handle these symbolic links)

If you Open a 2012 adsklib file in the Material Browser in Revit 2013, chances are you won’t see any materials (even though Revit claims to be ‘upgrading’ the library).  You need to open the .adsklib in the Asset Browser to expose the 2012 Appearance Properties for use in Revit 2013.

To quickly get at your 2012 Appearance Properties, go:

  1. Manage
  2. Additional Settings
  3. Material Assets
  4. Click the ‘lines’ icon
  5. Click the ‘gears’ icon
  6. Open the Library (it will upgrade and add (1) to the file name)
  7. You can see your 2012 Appearance Properties.

To actually get this into a Material, the process from the Material Browser starts something like this:

To apply these appearance properties to Materials, watch the 43 second video:

Needless to say, the whole Materials UI concept and process in Revit 2013 is kinda scary?

Some info from Wikihelp:
In Revit 2012, libraries contain property sets and do not contain any materials. If you use the Material Browser to load a Revit 2012 .adsklib or .adstlib file, materials will not display and therefore a warning symbol will display next to the library name. The data in Revit 2012 property sets will be migrated as assets in Revit 2013. In order to access Revit 2012 property sets as Revit 2013 assets, you must use the Asset Browser to load the Revit 2012 libraries. 
via
Upgrading Revit 2012 Libraries – WikiHelp