Tips from the Trenches - Enhancing Your Sky

 

Time again for another Tip from the Trenches. Thanks again to Emmanuel Di Giacomo, BIM Technical Advisor CSE based in France.

Enhancing Your Sky

 

Basic 3D views are very simple to achieve and can be really attractive. But did you know that you could enhance then by 2 or 3 simple clicks? Just adding an artificial sky…

Let's see how to achieve that with the project below.

To start, first click at the bottom of your 3D View window on the "Shadows button" on select the "Graphic Display" item from the drop up menu.

The Graphic Display options dialog box will then appear. Just check the "Gradient Background" check box in order to activate the sky visibility.

You can also change the default Sky colors by clicking on the "Sky Color" button. The Horizon color will be the second gradient color. Let's for example change the sky color as shown below.

Here's the kind of result that you should get. Nice isn't it?

Can you remember this request a few years ago for having the ability to put this kind of Gradient background on an elevation view? Well, this is not directly possible but we have an easy tip that will help you achieve it. Read details below.

Switch to your 3D axonometric view.

On your Full Navigation Wheel, click on the small arrow located at the bottom, then choose the "Orient to View" item and finally select the "South Elevation" (for example) item.

The view will be correctly oriented.

You can hide the section box by right clicking on top of it and "Hide in View > Element". You can also activate the "Drop Shadow" Options.

Once the shadows activated, you can proceed as in our first step on the perspective view. This is what you should approximately get.

You can then drop this view on a Sheet. The only issue is that you won't be able to get the Level symbols and to annotate it.

To do so, you will have to superimpose 2 views on a printing sheet. One Standard Elevation View with all its annotations as shown below + one Axonometric oriented view with its gradient background.

+

To get the Gradient Background View empty, and be able to position on a Print Sheet, you'll have to deactivate all categories except floors, and hide all upper floors. Just keep the ground floor in order for Revit Architecture to understand that the view is not empty.

Then, create a Print Sheet, whatever format is needed for your project. Drop your 3D empty view on top of it.

Revit Architecture will propose you to center your currently being dropped elevation view exactly at the place it should be with the help of some intelligent flashing axis, see below. Release the mouse button once you're OK.

This is what you should get. You can now refine your presentation by redefining the crop limits of your Gradient Background. Just activate the view and set it correctly.

Like this…

And this is the final result!

 

Comments

[Joel Osburn]

A proposal, given that you know your users want to create this kind of view:

Either

A - Let all view that show information in the Z-Axis have all of the same controls, from gradient backgrounds, to render, and everything in between.

B - Give three dimensional views access to data; tagging and keynoting objects and materials is the essence of BIM. Then one wouldn't need to resort to the non-intuivive, sure-to-trip-up-those-who-follow-in-the-model method posted here.

C - Allow filled regions to be gradients. Then one could simply make a filled region in the elevation/section view. This could be copied to other views for consistency, and wouldn't waste model resources as badly as doubling the elevation and section views would. (For that matter, I'd like to be able to use materials as filled regions, basically like painting materials.)

or D - Document this whacky method. Accept it into the fold of official uses. If this is the way to do what your users want, them tell them in documentation that ships with the product, not on some obscure blog read by less than one percent of said users.

From where I sit, Autodesk should absolutely do BOTH A and B, do C but for other reasons, and realize that D would still be necessary for so many other things that users want to do, but that currently require obtuse workarounds.

While I apologize for the tone of my post, this is clearly in the realm of un-Revit-like behavior and must go. Super-imposing two views ?!

[Rafael Alvarez]

How about just putting a raster image in the background?