Shadows...FINALLY figured out my issues on elevations

[VisualDandD]

Love the new shadows on elevations.   But since release I have seen them act quirky for me .    I could never figure out what caused it.   I finally have it figured out (and hope they can fix it as well).

 

 

I like to send elevations to plans as plot lines and then I change the pattern lines to a lighter shade of grey.  This does not exhibit these quirks when you use live views.  (but with live views, you cant do the pattern line color changes either).....

 

So the "problem" comes from how Chief now "zooms".   The zoom wheel, used to change field of view.  With the launch of 3d mouse support, I believe this changed.   Now when you "zoom" the camera just moves in and out.

 

So when making a perspective shot for a cover page, I did not always like the extreme amount of perspective that being so close to the model gave.   I would set the camera back further, and realized you could use the manual "zoom" on the tool bar to "zoom in" without changing perspective of the drawing.   I imagine this is just "cropping" somehow.   Anyway....that is what causes the shadows to map improperly.    Finally figured it out.

 

I then went into the camera to see if I could just manually adjust fov and I did not see any options there.   I thought I remember there being some in older versions.   Anyway....that is where there is a glitch in the shadows.    If you just take the camera from far back (and dont "zoom in") and send as plot lines, when you blow it up on the plan, it looks all fuzzy.  (but at least shadows are in the right spot).

 

I need to send this one in.  See pic.   The lower one is a camera taken further back for less perspective distortion and then manually "zoomed" in using magnifying glass icon.

[DRAWZILLA]

I believe the fuzziness is intended, until you print it, then it should be sharp. Reason being ,keep the resolution low until you need it , Chief will run faster that way. Also make you image full size on the screen before you send it. Also don't send as an image the layout, send as current screen. Try  to print as "PDF" and see if that helps.

[VisualDandD]

On 11/25/2016 at 11:15 AM, DRAWZILLA said:

I believe the fuzziness is intended, until you print it, then it should be sharp. Reason being ,keep the resolution low until you need it , Chief will run faster that way. Also make you image full size on the screen before you send it. Also don't send as an image the layout, send as current screen. Try  to print as "PDF" and see if that helps.

I found that if I got the vantage point I wanted (which is putting the camera way back), I could send the vector view to layout UNCHECKING the line scaling box.   Then I could enlarge it on the layout page and all the shadows would scale properly with the image on a editable line drawing.

 

For some reason, using the magnifying glass "zoom" tool messes up the shadows on an vector drawing.  (have not tried it on others).   It appears as if the shadows stay the same size as the image before you "zoom in" and the main part you zoom on, gets bigger with the shadows being left small....(if that makes any sense.)

[Richard_Morrison]

In X8, turn on "Legacy Shadows" in rendering preferences to get sharp shadows.

[robdyck]

What's happening is as though Chief is building 2 overlaid views: One is the plot lines, which match what you see on screen, the other is a render that is based on the camera's actual location. I have a couple of suggestions that may help:

-I also use gray pattern lines. I edit the material to adjust it's pattern line color and line weight.

-To get a very similar view to what you posted, try, the technical illustration with both warm and cool colors set to (only 2) different shades of grey. You can play around with the colors until your happy with the appearance. I'd leave the shadows 'as is' as sharp shadows (legacy) take longer to draw, and in some instances aren't really that realistic. Some color will bleed through those grays, and that can be removed by just turning off the color.

These cameras can be saved, sent to layout, and the views can be kept live which is handy throughout back-and-forth with the client.

[robdyck]

I tried a couple of other things that may help if you want to stick to what you're currently doing. One thing to keep in mind, never zoom in in the camera view unless you're going to export a picture. Send to layout, and then expand the view there and it should display correctly. I'm not sure how you quickly changes pattern lines to grey in layout. I've never tried that before. I changed my stone to have a pink pattern just to highlight what I'm talking about. My girls like it! These are both vector views showing plot lines (not live), one with color fill, the other without.