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SHEET LAYER - FOREGROUND VS BACKROUND RENDER STYLES


ARCHARTS

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Can some one please tell me whats the difference or reference of foreground and background render choices. If I could put hatches on one of those 

Viewports it would be great. When I choose one (foreground or background) the entire drawing gets the render style. The hatches get too funky, the line work

looks great when I play with the modifiers, the hatches not so much.....

 

thank you!

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

BAckground will be rendered underneath the foreground. If you're talking about using surface hatches within textures, they should appear if you use Hidden Line for the foreground render. If they're just 2d hatches and aren't a part of your textures, then they usually need to be placed as 2d fills on objects in the annotations layer of the viewport.

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Jim thank you, but of course I am still lost and not sure how  do I identify or make a foreground element and then create a backround element, layer or does this have to do with the classes interface, or specific viewports.....

Are foreground and background  part of viewports, layers or classes, or some thing else.....?

I am  working only  in 2D lines and hatches.

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@ARCHARTSthe foreground/background render  modes in viewports were implemented in Vectorworks to replace an old workflow which used two stacked/superimposed VPs, often employed to show edges. The back viewport would be rendered in say Final Quality Renderworks (which has no option to show edges), and the front VP would be rendered in wireframe or hidden line with the fills turned off. Lots of futzing with visibility settings in 2 VPs .  The newer, dual render in single viewport is waaaay easier.  We can still stack viewports if desired, but not usually necessary.

 

Anyone remember when the feature was added, v2008?

 

-B

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Since a few Versions you can even activate lines in a RW Render Mode (or OpenGL).

So there are a lot situations where you do no more need to use 2 separate Render Modes in VPs.

 

Standard Hidden Line Mode is very slow in VW but gives a bit more control over Line appearance

than Line Settings in (pixel based) OpenGL Render Mode. So I often use HL's on top.

But the main purpose or feature of VW classic Hidden Line System ist to produce real Lines

=> editable Geometry

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Foreground Rendering is simply the render mode that will go on top of Background. It doesn't select different objects, it just stacks that rendering (generally with no fill, because its an edge-based render mode you'd normally pick) overtop another rendering mode underneath. One on top, the other on the bottom.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Foreground and Background do not refer to objects or layers or anything like that. Foreground is literally just traced on top of the background mode.

So if i drew a picture on a piece of paper in colored pencil, that would be the "background render" and if i then traced all the edges of that drawing with a marker afterwards, that would be a "foreground render." It does not refer to items in the foreground or background of a given scene line mountains in the distance vs a window close to the camera or anything like that.

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JimW,

So the background render is the sheet layer image or file which I apply a render style to, and then I start to create the foreground render lines tones etc on the same sheet layer how, adding more information on  that same sheet layer, basically another line drawing on top of the original? It sounds like the background 

is the original design layer file and the foreground is done on top, after in the sheet layer interface. 

Thank you.

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I'd suggest you select the viewport on the sheet layer, then click on foreground render and choose hidden line, click on background and apply Open GL (for speed). Click render and print out or save as pdf. Then do the same but click 'none' for foreground render. Compare the images. Then have a play around with the other render combinations, rendering and printing/ creating a pdf each time.

This all assumes you are working with a 3D model, rather than a 2D line drawing.

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On 11/7/2017 at 7:50 AM, mike-h said:

I'd suggest you select the viewport on the sheet layer, then click on foreground render and choose hidden line, click on background and apply Open GL (for speed). Click render and print out or save as pdf. Then do the same but click 'none' for foreground render. Compare the images. Then have a play around with the other render combinations, rendering and printing/ creating a pdf each time.

This all assumes you are working with a 3D model, rather than a 2D line drawing.

Thanks Mike! best guidance  I have gotten so far, but yes I am working in 2D all the time.

 

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