Can Shadows and color-filled plans to work at the same time?

[janunson]

I could have saved hours this week, if i could do this.

What i want to do is be able to use color fills and shadows on a plan at the same time. I don't want to have to have a separate set of floor materials to fake it in, that's way to much extra work. This time around i exported 2 copies of each floor plan, 1 with color fills, the other with shadows, and placed the shadows on a multiply layer in photoshop over the colors.

[dbaldacchino]

Come on "Big Daug", you don't need a poll for this! You could have saved hours because it can be done :banghead:

Take a look at the attached. Just finished my first very quick Revit presentation today (still early in project...notice lack of doors). It's awesome!

[janunson]

Ground plane in the Advanced view settings... I see..

Thanks for the tip. I'd forgotten about that setting. I'll give it a try.

[dbaldacchino]

NP, you're still a Big Daug, I was just kidding' :)

[janunson]

Actually, i went back and tried to use this method, only it's not the same as my wish:

If floors slope, shadows on plans that include the floors help to illustrate this. When applying a fake ground plane through advanced model settings, the shadows are cast on an artificially flat plane. It ruins the effect for what i'm trying to do.

What i think really needs to be done, is that color fills should work on TOP of floors, instead of turning them off. The fills should exist at the cut plane, not beyond the model. They should be Additive in color, meaning that hatches and things from the floors show through. But primarily, they should be able to display shadows cast on them, even in color views.

[PeterJ]

You know that views laid on a sheet will snap to one another, right?

How about setting your coloured area plan such that the model doesn't show, hust the colour fill and then overlay that view on a plan with shadows switched on and your floors where they oughta be?

[dbaldacchino]

januson, I know what you mean. I guess you are trying to depict something like a ramp or a sloping slab, and that would produce a distinct shadow, definately different than a flat one. Yes, Revit doesn't do that. It uses a level as a virtual plane to cast the shadow on, not the floor. But, I think if you set your level below your ramp, then it should cast the shadow and hit that ramp or sloped surface as you need it. I haven't had the chance to try this.....set a level to the lowest part of a ramp or sloping surface, set this as your ground plane and see what happens.

[janunson]

Currently, the functionality I'm wishing for CANNOT be achieved within Revit.


if you set your level below your ramp, then it should cast the shadow and hit that ramp or sloped surface as you need it. .The shadow casts correctly if i turn on the Ramp/Floor - but then i can't see the color fill. The goal is both.


How about setting your coloured area plan such that the model doesn't show, hust the colour fill and then overlay that view on a plan with shadows switched on and your floors where they oughta be?When you stack views on a sheet, the display order of both views is combined. What happens, then, is i put a color fill + room tag view on the sheet, then place it on top of a view that has floors and shadows, then i see the tags over the floors, but not the colors beyond them.

First attachment - a simple plan, but it illustrates the problem Fake ground plane = incorrect shadows, real shadows = obscured color fills.

Second attachment - draw order w/ 2 overlaid views.

[PeterJ]

Hmmm. Try experimenting with hidden wire frame for one or both of the views. I thought I had your problem resolved but maybe not.

If that doesn't work there are maybe two other tricks. Firstly, Aaronrumple provided some very interesting ways of getting good coloured plans working just using Revit's toolset some time back. He mixed colour fills and area plans to very good effect. Search on his name and look for likely sounding thread titles along the lines of presentation. Secondly, if these are just coarse views for early presentations make different floor types with different surface materials and give each surface a colour, apply those floors accordingly and you should get a mix of coulered fill (apparently) and shadows if you set your view to shaded w edges, though you'll have to check wall poche and other bits and pieces black out, but that could be achieved as view specific over-rides. Thirdly (eh I'm flying now), Phil Read had a clever trick for using ceilings with enormous depth to achieve some very clever colour fill, make a search on his name and look for likely thread title candidates again.

[Steve_Stafford]

Currently, the functionality I'm wishing for CANNOT be achieved within Revit.

The shadow casts correctly if i turn on the Ramp/Floor - but then i can't see the color fill. The goal is both.

Since you can't have them on at the same time, what if your ramps were not floors but in-place site families? They'd be visible then. Not the workflow you'd like surely but it should work.

I moved this out of the wishlist when David seemed to resolve your issue. Since it isn't...I'll move it back.

[dbaldacchino]

Well janunson, I tried a few more things but couldn't get it to work. Color fills are essentially a plan view property, they don't show up in any other view, even a 3D view oriented to a plan view. The color fill exists in a "virtual" plane, which is the level assigned to the view. And that level is horizontal. To get what you want, color fills would need to be re-designed I think, so that they map over the surfaces below your cut plane. Sounds very interesting to me.

I don't know if they'll ever give us this as a color fill is an analytical representation, rather than a physical one. I noticed this problem when I had a double story volume and I was trying to show color fills on the second level. The shadow down at level 1 didn't show correctly as it was only using the level as it's virtual plane to cast itself on it. So in the meantime, the easiest way to get this is to do a view with color fills and no shadows, and one with just shadows and overlay them in Photoshop with the color fill on top and the blending options set to "multiply". The example below took me a couple of minutes.

[janunson]

If that doesn't work there are maybe two other tricks. Thanks for the ideas. I like looking at the posiblities, and may use some of these in the future, but this is a wish because i don't want to have to break my workflow to make my graphics work. I'm wishing for the functionality to work the way i think it should. The project is a real project and i'm progressing with construction drawings but have to keep producing marketing and presentation graphics as well. I love using Revit because these things are so integrated. This wish is for making them work a little better.

I could make big thick ceilings, make them translucent, and probably get them to show, but my ceilings are tricky and multilevel, and i don't want to have to remake another set, add another workset or option to hide them in, etc. I just want the shadows to turn on at the same time as the color fill and work, so i can concentrate on getting the building right, not drawing pictures. That's part of what Revit is all about, right?

[dbaldacchino]

Couldn't agree more. In fact I voted too :) I love the fact that graphics are an integral part of the whole process, color fills update with plan changes etc. It's a more integrated approach. Once you start having to do a lot of workarounds, you defeat the purpose. In my world, Photoshop is still very useful, that's why I suggested it, and I'm quick with it so it takes me a couple of minutes to do something like described above. But, you're absolutely right.

[Steve_Stafford]

For what it is worth instead of photoshop the overlay on sheet approach should work too. I posted a comment in another thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=202032) awhile back. I haven't been able to find another thread that I posted the attached image for using a similar attack.

[janunson]

While the multi-view workarounds with shadows and wireframes can do the trick, it seams to me that 9.0 is a step closer to being able to do what i'm wishing - all they need to do is make those rooms accessable through visibility settings and allow us to apply a material to them!

Then you could even get colored roooms in section, cutaway, and 3D! sure would be nice!