topic Re: Section settings... in Visualization

Section settings...

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:12:25 GMT

I want to achieve a section ' render ' to look something like the attached image ( from a book ). I've altered many, many settings in my section settings but I can't get the same look...I've tried changing the wall colour, vertical sun shadow settings etc. Also, my section takes around 10 minutes to update, even if I just change one line for example, similarly it takes around 10 minutes to update on the layout book, is this normal ?

Thank You

Re: Section settings...

Anonymous — Sun, 09 May 2010 11:47:17 GMT

Here are the section settings and corresponding results... The walls are all white, apart from the 2 on the first floor, with the rows of seats, but they are not shown White.

I appreciate your help

Re: Section settings...

Anonymous — Sun, 09 May 2010 15:18:07 GMT

What setting should I use in order to achieve the style I want ( first post )?

I've altered a few more setting but it's still not working and it's taking a very very long time to update, plus my Macbook Pro is reaching 105 degrees Celsius !

Thank You

Re: Section settings...

gZax — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:26:44 GMT

Hi,
You must first find some good angles for shadows, I think grey walls are just shadowed, while the desks in the front not.
Maybe you want to try an LWorks rendering with soft shadows brought to scale as a background to your Section drawing which has to have no fills for uncut elements.

Re: Section settings...

Anonymous — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:55:32 GMT

Well I need/want to keep the current section view as it took me a while to produce and it is a ' proper' section of the building...

gZax wrote:
Maybe you want to try an LWorks rendering with soft shadows brought to scale as a background to your Section drawing which has to have no fills for uncut elements.

How can I create this in the same view as the section that I already have ? As for a background, I was going to place the section on a sheet, then use Illustrator/Photoshop to add context and colour etc. whilst maintaining the same section view produced by ArchiCAD. ( so something similar to my first post attachment ) Is it ' normal ' for the section to take around 10 minutes to update too ?

Thank You

Re: Section settings...

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:28:53 GMT

NStocks wrote:
I want to achieve a section ' render ' to look something like the attached image ( from a book ). I've altered many, many settings in my section settings but I can't get the same look...I've tried changing the wall colour, vertical sun shadow settings etc. Also, my section takes around 10 minutes to update, even if I just change one line for example, similarly it takes around 10 minutes to update on the layout book, is this normal ?

Thank You

Well the reason you're having so much difficulty duplicating that effect in ArchiCAD is because it is a fake effect; i.e. unless all those rooms are the same depth from the cut line, there's no way the shadows will look lined up like that.

That was just a person that used his artistic sensibilities (rather than whichever respective program's capabilities, that they were using, if any) to present the image in a manner that would not only be easier to read, but also conveyed an artistic sense of depth.

At some point you have to let go of just relying on the program to generate a good image for you, and instead lean on your own artistic intuition.

I produced the image below, using a combination of ArchiCAD's Sun shadows along with additional fills where they added some perceptive value and depth to the reading of the image:

Re: Section settings...

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:50:53 GMT

Furthermore, sometimes the program simply can't give you the correct look or a clear enough image and you have to fill in all the blanks yourself.

The plans and images below were from a model I made in another program, and but which I had to draw in the shadows manually in AutoCAD/Illustrator

In a case like this where ArchiCAD would never be able to handle neither the model complexity nor the shadow calculations in a reasonable time, there's not other choice to get the required look. I guess what I'm saying is that at some point you have to not rely on the program or not rely on it so much, and start instead relying on your own artistic instincts and sensibilities.

If you insist on going the ArchiCAD route, then I would suggest 2 things or workarounds. Firstly, you might have to place your Sun at a very low altitude (almost zero degrees Azimuth or a few degrees above it) and behind your camera off to the side. That way, the shadows cast don't spread all the way down the side of the facing walls thus darkening everything. You might also want to place your cut line as close as possible to the facing walls to reduce the effect of the shadows, or if you can't the second thing you might have to do is to place a temporary wall just behind the cut line for the shadows to fall on, but not fall on it too low. The only problem with this is that you lose all the detail of the objects and elements behind the wall. In which case you can either do 2 sections one with the wall and the shadows, and one without the wall, and them comp them together in photoshop or illustrator.

There's actually a third alternative which involves making an identical cut of the model using the marquee tool and then from the 3D window with the view as Axonometric or parallel facing exactly the same way as your 2D section, generate the shadow using the Internal engine of ArchiCAD, and then "copy" the shadows from there, and paste them as 'Fills' in the section window which you can then manipulate easily like you would other fills and even hide if necessary.

As for you problems with the time ArchiCAD takes to calculate sections - turn off shadow generation option in the section setting unless or only until your really need it. I would stick with using the 3D window to generate the shadows and then just manipulate them in 2D as fills.

Re: Section settings...

Anonymous — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:52:14 GMT

Those images are amazing ! I've been working on my sections for a long time now and I'm just about to add some elements in Illustrator/Photoshop such as sky and figures ( I have to show my building in context, but it's only surrounded by other buildings )

Did you use ArchiCAD to get the fill in the windows to actually look reflective ? Below is what I'm working on right now, I'm just adding a vector ' cloud' in Illustrator and some simple figures/ human silhouettes because there's not much I can add in terms of terrain as it's just a city centre location.

You've inspired me a great deal... now it's just a shame that my deadline is in 27 hours !

Thank You

Re: Section settings...

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:06:43 GMT

NStocks wrote:
Those images are amazing ! I've been working on my sections for a long time now and I'm just about to add some elements in Illustrator/Photoshop such as sky and figures ( I have to show my building in context, but it's only surrounded by other buildings )

Did you use ArchiCAD to get the fill in the windows to actually look reflective ? Below is what I'm working on right now, I'm just adding a vector ' cloud' in Illustrator and some simple figures/ human silhouettes because there's not much I can add in terms of terrain as it's just a city centre location.

You've inspired me a great deal... now it's just a shame that my deadline is in 27 hours !

Thank You

That's a great improvement over the previous images. I see you're getting the hang of it.

It's a pity about the time crunch but unfortunately that something you'll have to deal with a lot in the profession to come and in general anyways.

I simulated the reflective effect of the windows using the regular 2-sided Gradient fills in ArchiCAD. You just have to be careful about the Draw order or the display order since Gradient fills in ArchiCAD don't have transparency unlike in AutoCAD. Normally the gradients would go all the way to the back behind the "hard" shadows.

If you want to add more depth to the other surfaces as well of your section (and assuming that you're still not using the regular vectorial texture fills of the materials with colours) you can add a slightly fade (slightly lighter) single-sided gradient fill on the walls with shadows hitting them behind the hard shadows going from dark at the shadow area to light as it heads away from the shadow downwards. Typically it's something that you can add very quickly and then copy and paste throughout to the other walls and re-shape as necessary.

But I think overall you have a good start,, and can only stand to improve if you keep doing it and keep observing and looking at well-rendered images (even hand-drawn images) to see how they achieve those effects and then see if you can do the same or something similar. A good place to get reference and inspiration would be places like the works of Frank Lloyd Wright's hand-drawn and rendered images from over a Century ago, or even Otto Wagner's classical works.

Re: Section settings...

Anonymous — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:09:36 GMT

Could I used the gradient inside Illustrator as well to create glazing effects ?

I want to export a section and sheet layout to use inside Illustrator or Photoshop but when I save as a PDF, the lines become somewhat poor quality. Is there a better file format than PDF that I can save from ArchiCAD ? I've heard EPS is better but ArchiCAD doesn't do that anymore (?)

How could I convert a PDF to a Vector that I can use inside Illustrator incase ArchiCAD can't export anything better than PDF ? I really want these prints to be good, but Photoshop rasterised the document and Illustrator made it a bit jagged.

When I'm done editing in Illustrator, would it be a good idea to import that back into ArchiCAD to place on a sheet with my other drawings, would I lose any quality ? Then once that s done, should I save to PDF for printing/plotting ?

Thank You

Re: Section settings...

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:01:52 GMT

NStocks wrote:
Could I used the gradient inside Illustrator as well to create glazing effects ?

I want to export a section and sheet layout to use inside Illustrator or Photoshop but when I save as a PDF, the lines become somewhat poor quality. Is there a better file format than PDF that I can save from ArchiCAD ? I've heard EPS is better but ArchiCAD doesn't do that anymore (?)

How could I convert a PDF to a Vector that I can use inside Illustrator incase ArchiCAD can't export anything better than PDF ? I really want these prints to be good, but Photoshop rasterised the document and Illustrator made it a bit jagged.

When I'm done editing in Illustrator, would it be a good idea to import that back into ArchiCAD to place on a sheet with my other drawings, would I lose any quality ? Then once that s done, should I save to PDF for printing/plotting ?

Thank You

Well, if you really want to use Illustrator to do gradient fills and hatches one alternative would be to export it as a DWG file instead. Illustrator can import DWG file format. This way, the line weights and colors are kept separate and consistent and you can adjust them accordingly in Illustrator. But the downside to this is that gradient fills from ArchiCAD don't export well, and there might still be issues with the linetypes, line scales.

Alternatively you can go from ArchiCAD in dwg format to AutoCAD, to clean-up and then to Illustrator to add your shadows and whatnot.

As for bringing it back to ArchiCAD for printing (if you have to do that), then the suggestion would be for you to either rasterize it (export it from Illustrator and/or Photoshop in a flat image format like Jpg or tiff) at the highest resolution you can to preserve quality or resolution (I suggest .tiff)
and import it as an non-editable drawing in ArchiCAD. Otherwise you're just bound to run into more problems.
PDF is also fine but that can sometimes cause problems with legibility.

But I would personally be against the whole back-and-forth kind of workflow where you keep switching between software because you always bound to lose information, resolution, and/or quality in one way or another.
The best way is to try to learn to do the most you can from one software or 2 at most so that you can get a handle of the quirks of importing-exporting between the 2, and if possible try to ensure that the last software you work from is the one you print from.

You'll save yourself so many headaches and problems trying to keep your workflow as simple and as linear as possible, especially with tight deadlines. Trust me.

Re: Section settings...

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:14:26 GMT

I forgot to mention.

once you're done laying everything out the way you want it, print them to PDF, and then if you have the time, rasterize and flatten those pdf's into high resolution JPGs, or preferably Tiffs (which is a lossless format).

This way, you will save yourself (and your fellow students) the trouble of waiting for ever for the pdfs to vectorize properly as the fills, hatches and gradients load slowly, while you're printing. A flat image prints all at once, but you have to make sure that you're happy with the resolution (dpi) and that the lines and edges are not jagged too much - which is why I suggest saving it as a really high resolution raster image.

I saw you post in another thread regarding how much printing you have to do, and having been through this kind of thing before, try to limit as much as possible opportunities for technical errors (and if you can afford to, have a back-up plan for printing elsewhere since you will not be the only one experiencing printing issues).

Good luck in your presentation.

Re: Section settings...

Anonymous — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:27:00 GMT

Well I got everything printed on time, though it cost me 3 times as much because other students messed up the print que ( which was 65 on each Printer x3 )...

I've read on another post that ArchiCAD lines do not print as clearly as AutoCAD lines. I found this to be true... my lines are somewhat jagged compared to other students who use AutoCAD. To resolve this should I save it from ArchiCAD as a DWG (?) then import it into AutoCAD then save as a Vector ? Will this improve the line quality without having to re-draw everything ? Also, a vector will work better in Photoshop.

I have one weeks left at Uni, though I don't have to do any more work so I'm going to take the next 4 months to learn a lot more software ( such as rendering ) to prepare me for the second year of Architecture !

Thank You