This area of C3D is rather interesting to me. I like to think of a song lyric that goes "God Made an Angel, each a little flawed" when it come to objects and styles. As they are not exactly a Chicken or the Egg type question. In a prefect world all settings would be set already by the application and one would use them (chicken), or one would set all those settings first before ever using the product (egg). The challenge with trying to create your own chicken is, face it, that you simply do not know how this turkey (C3D) is built.
To be honest, the simplest approach to using it would be to NOT use any of the supplied NCS templates and use the Object Style to control everything, and leave it all on layer zero. To some the last sentence is blasphemy; and I am full aware that this presents huge challenges with NON C3D users being able to use the data that this presents when "Exported to AutoCAD". This let's you create most everything from scratch and along the way gather a much deeper knowledge of just how it all comes together, this let's you create your own chicken, or raptor depending on how much you put in your drawing template (egg). So far I'm leaning heavily towards a combined approach of full layer control of all subcomponents as BYLAYER, so that style changes happen at the layer level not the object because it's set that way in the object.
To all that I train to use C3D, my mantra is "Do not let Styles stand in the way of using the software, because you can not decide on styles until you know what it is giving you and deciding how you want to control it. And then we get to the heart of DinØs real question, the creating and naming of styles. I suggest this, that there is a two person team that creates, or reviews all styles prior to adding them to the template. That the users working on the "pilot project" or any and all projects be educated and involved in the styles creation thereby increasing the knowledgebase and expediting the process. The two person minimum for styles is that unless you can talk to your self when things don't make sense, and yourself makes more sense than you do, don't work at this alone, or I can send you a jacket with long sleeves and a lot of shiny buckles.
All of that being said follow these rules:
In the naming of any Style or Object (Assemblies, Surfaces), keep is short yet descriptive. Simple is best; imagine that some idiot (like me) were to walk in to your office and sit down and try to work with your data, could they? Or are you and they losing productivity as you explain your naming convention? If you have Standard cross section names in a manual, then name your assemblies some derivative of that. And of single most importance: After naming your style (please) fill in the DESCRIPTION field telling the user everything about that style that you possibly can.
Example Surface Style name:
EG Plan 1'-5' Contours
Description
Use this style for All Existing ground models that appear in plan views.
1' and 5' Contours are turned on, all other elements in 2d and 3d display modes are off.
If you do not fill out the descriptions, it makes it hard for everyone to use, including you. Just a keep thinking about who will use it, and name those objects accordingly. When in doubt, ask yourself. "Is this name so simple that that idiot on the web would know what it is"?
When it comes to notes, and styles and their children; this would be an easier answer if the software permitted one to create children of all styles. Perhaps the design team can get those styles some fertility treatments so that they can spawn child styles as well. Where children are permitted, ask the question what is this class of note for, AND do I want to control the whole family's' properties (yes) or do I want to modify the properties of each one individually. The short answer is where allowed lean towards Families of styles rather than a population of singles.
Timbuk 3 Lyrics courtesy of :
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/God Made An Angel
God made an angel, He liked what he saw
He made another, but with a tiny flaw
That went unnoticed, so He made some more
Each one less perfect than the one before
Malice in Wonderland
Days of guns and roses
Welcome to the city of
The nightclub that never closes
Daddy's little girl, she likes to dance
She always was a rebel
Daddy says she looks like hell
She might as well be dancin' with the devil
God made an angel, He liked what he saw
He made another, but with a tiny flaw
That went unnoticed, so He made some more
Each one less perfect than the one before
Gidget goes to Babylon
Blows all her money on a shopping spree
She likes old things, new things
Whatever she can get dirt cheap
She's quite the wheeler-dealer
She's got the bug and she can't control it
She bought the Holy Grail at a garage sale
She practically stole it
God made an angel
Now daddy's little girl don't say a word
She just sits there on the sofa
Lately she's been hangin' out
With that cross-dressin' counter-culture
Guru cassanova
God made an angel, He liked what he saw
He made another, but with a tiny flaw
That went unnoticed, so He made some more
Each one less perfect than the one before
