2D shadows - how to ?

[Katrin]

I'm drawing a column in 2D using simple lines&curves etc.

Is there any convenient way of drawing shadows for example to show the depth of the flutes & in the leaves of capital(like if I was manually hatching).

Create polygon from inner boundary doesn't really work for me as I don't need to fill the whole shapes with color

Any ideas?

--

Vectorworks Designer 2010

[grant_PD]

use a really thick pen size, with grey color set to a 50% opacity?

[Dieter @ DWorks]

I always use shapes in a class that's some sort of gray with a opacity set to 20-30. This way, you can set the shadows off or on depending on how you want to present things.

The opacity can create really good looking shadows.

[Katrin]

use a really thick pen size, with grey color set to a 50% opacity?

VW doesn't allow me to setup the thickness of pen of more than 6.48mm ? Is there any way round this?

[Katrin]

I always use shapes in a class that's some sort of gray with a opacity set to 20-30. This way, you can set the shadows off or on depending on how you want to present things.

The opacity can create really good looking shadows.

Can you please describe briefly what you do? Lets for simplicity say you have some simple shape, a sphere(front view e.g circle in our case in 2D) and it's lit from the upper right corner. How would you draw a shadow using the described technique?

Edited June 25, 2012 by Katrin

[Dieter @ DWorks]

Just draw what you will see as 2D shapes:

(The picture shows two complete pictures and the parts apart.)

If you use classes, you can edit the attributes later on, or turn the class on/off. Like the image, you can turn the sunrays off if you want to.

Edited June 26, 2012 by DWorks