Perspective graphic / shadow problem

[mwagenbach]

Hello,

I am having an issue with the shadows and line work in my 3D perspective views. As you can see in the attached images, in a regular 3D view (non perspective) you can see that the shadows and model appear correct. However, in the perspective view, you can see that the shadows become a bit crazy. This happens in every perspective view that I create. I’m not using any special shadow/sun/view properties settings for these views either.

Other info:

-Each 12’ panel is a group and then mirrored around
-Reveals are made with wall reveals and wall based families with a void
-The darker wall portions are a different wall type and is Cut Geometry out of the light colored wall type
-I am running Revit 2008 – build 20070607
-This does not appear to be a graphics card issue as I get the same distortion on different machines with different hardware

Anybody run into any 3D perspective graphics issues with 2008? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated as to what I should try.

Thanks!

-Mike

[Andre Baros]

This is not new to 2008, it's always been a problem if the shadows fall on your camera point. I've never had this problem on outdoor shots when the camera is in full sun. You can sort of work around this on interior shots by using a crop box to cut off the building behind the scene so that your camera isn't in the shade.

Brad could have told you that...

[bowlingbrad]

Sorry, Andre, you've got it all wrong.

The camera isn't in shade. This is a single exterior shot of a building with shadows on. The file is currently being 'analyzed' by good-old adesk support.

This happens with any camera view.

[Andre Baros]

Bad guess... I couldn't open the attachments to look... they're not working either.

[mwagenbach]

Sorry - I fixed the links, please check picts again.

-mike

[Andre Baros]

I would only show the first one.

[bclarch]

It looks as if the whole wall is in shadow. Is the sunlight coming from behind the wall?

[bowlingbrad]

Our preliminary findings:
An AutoCAD site boundary was placed into the file and the buiding was built within it. This imported boundary was a million miles from Revit's "origin". Moving the entire project closer to the "origin" seems to have fixed the problem. We will post a definitive answer later.

I thought Revit didn't care about origins!

[mwagenbach]

Yes, this was the problem... the building was +82,000' away from Revit's "origin." Once it was moved much closer (82,000' closer) all of the shadows displayed correctly in 3D perspective views. (see new picts)

Hint, to find approx. origin in your project if your building has been moved around is to open a new Revit file, draw an X in the middle of the screen and then paste aligned same place in your file that you are working in.

Also, if you do find yourself moving entire buildings around and already have 3d views created, I drew a line that I moved the building along (end point to end point) and then went back and selected each of my 3d view individually and moved them along the same guideline (again end point to end point). This way all of my views set up on sheets remained the same.

Thanks for everybody’s suggestions!

-Mike

[bowlingbrad]

...82,000' ...

Okay, mabye a million miles was a slight exxageration. ;)

[bowlingbrad]

Adesk:

There is currently a known issue when using very large coordinates which will cause shadows for example not display correctly. Revit has always reference the 0, 0, 0 internal coordinates for calculations that it needs to do to achieve certain results, so if there are calculated information is very large, due to the large coordinates in the project, the shadows will not display correctly. Development is aware of the issue and working to address this in future releases. For now, it is a good idea to be aware of using a dwg that has a very large coordinates, or having large coordinates in a project.

[gwnelson]

Do a search for this topic - someone (Steve Stafford?) came up with the perfect solution:
Add a Point in ACAD at 0,0 & import it into your RVT Template on some level. Then draw your own Ref Planes at Point location (then you can delete dwg file). You'll have a permanent indication of Origin.