add shadowing? or extra views of 3D model in sheets?

[Anonymous]

I have a complex building which has floors that 'shift' meaning the floors are at different angles.

I have used sheets to create elevation pages using the elevations revit creates but as there is no shading it is impossible to tell that there are different layers to the building at different points (I have added photos to show this)

It looks ok if I use the 3D model instead as that uses shadowing but I can only put one view of it in the sheet.

I either need to find out how to add shadow or how to add more views f the 3D model to show the buildings shape.

Any ideas?

[rosskirby]

In my experience, the exterior elevation is used almost exclusively to communicate information about the materials, patterning, etc. of the facade, so trying to make it represent your rotated floor plates seems unnecessary, but that's just my personal opinion.

That being said, you can turn on shade/shadows in your elevation... is there any reason you haven't?

[Anonymous]

I havent turned it on because I don't know how to and didn't even know for sure if you could.

I thought I made that clear in my post?

I am a student and I've only been using revit for a year or so and I still don't know how to do everything which is why I have been using this forum.

My exterior elevations need to show the twists because my lecturer has told me I need to do so in order to make it clear to our fake client in a university module because he believes that the building isn't clear enough.

If you could just tell me how to turn on shading that would be great, thanks.

[rosskirby · Accepted solution]

You turn on shadows in a 2D view the same way you turn them on in a 3D view.  

Go into your elevation, and in the bottom left corner, click on the button that looks like a little ball with a shadow under it.  The red x over that icon indicates that shadows are turned off.  You can turn them on, and then click on the sun to the left of that button, and in the pop up click on Sun setting to adjust whether you want to use the actual sun location and building orientation, or if you just want it to generically come from, say the top-left of the view.

[Anonymous]

Great, got it now thanks.

[rosskirby]

Glad I could help.

One additional note: since you're using this for an architectural presentation, you might want to create a new 3D view, and then right-click on the view cube and choose to orient it to the elevation you created.  That way the glass will actually show up as transparent in your elevation (which it won't in a 2D elevation view).  This could be helpful if you have something on the interior that needs to be seen, and it might help the depth/rotation read better.  Just a suggestion.

There are some drawbacks (annotation is more difficult) to this method, but if it's for a presentation, it might serve you better.

Good luck!