Devonshire Posted November 19, 2021 Share Posted November 19, 2021 (edited) Hi All, I've made a simple 3D of a garden I'm working on in VW Landmark. I want to PDF a viewport and then print this out to hand render over the top. The image is below. 3D garden viewport.pdf The issue I have is that the thin black lines around the edge of everything are too dark and heavy. They show up too much. I can't find a way to reduce them. I've tried reducing the pen opacity, colour and weight. I've tried playing around with background render settings and image effects. Nothing changes the lines. I'm wondering if there is a minimum line weight etc that VW needs to display a 3D image. If anyone has any ideas, I would be really grateful. Thanks very much. Edited November 19, 2021 by Devonshire Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Neil Barman Posted November 19, 2021 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 19, 2021 Might you be able to share the actual Vectorworks file so that it’s easier to make Vectorworks-related suggestions? Aside from that, I’m wondering if perhaps your printer has a setting to print lighter than usual… maybe a “draft” setting that would give you lighter lines to hand draw over. 1 Quote Link to comment
Devonshire Posted November 19, 2021 Author Share Posted November 19, 2021 Hi Neil, Yes, happy to share. 3D garden for hand render.vwx Good idea about the printer. I'll have a look at that, but I also want to be able to send a PDF to others to render and don't want to be reliant on printer settings. Any VW based fix would be really helpful. Just to say that I'm working on the latest version of VW with the latest service pack installed, on a M1 MacBook Air running Monterey. Many thanks! Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Neil Barman Posted November 19, 2021 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 19, 2021 Thanks for sharing! being able to work with the exact file you are using makes providing recommendations MUCH easier. I see that you have already done several of the things I was thinking of suggesting, such as using Shaded (rather than hidden line), with no colours, Ambient Lighting up to 100, etc. This is a good start. I tried some additional tricks with greyed layers and PDF output, adjusting object/layers/class opacities, etc but none of these got where I was hoping to go. A couple of techniques that did make for lighter edge lines... - On the sheet layer, apply image effects to the 3D view viewport and slide "Shadows" all the way to the left. That will effectively lighten the "dark areas" (i.e. the lines) as much as possible. (This one lightened the edges a little bit.) - On the sheet layer, a white-filled rectangle set to 80% opacity over the entire 3D view viewport. (This one lightened the edges a lot and you can adjust the opacity of the rectangle to suit your needs.) Hopefully one of these techniques will work for you. 3D garden for hand render - Images effects Shadows to 0.pdf 3D garden for hand render - White mask set to 80pct opacity.pdf Quote Link to comment
TomKen Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 Create an Artistic Renderstyle and set the style to Lines and Shadows. You can set the edge thickness and colour to something thin and light. If you don't want shadows make sure you have no lights on in your viewport or set the shadow colour to white. 4 Quote Link to comment
Devonshire Posted December 10, 2021 Author Share Posted December 10, 2021 Thanks very much both and apologies for the delay in responding. I'll have a look through your suggestions. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment
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