Isometric Shapes With Shading

Started by vojo, May 29, 2008, 06:13:19 PM

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Visio Guy

Soft and fuzzy!

Nice job, snisk! Still drives me nuts that Visio doesn't have a proper feathered shadow.
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snsisk

Folks,

I've managed to create this equilateral triangle.  My thanks to Alexey Nichkov http://www.prodigitall.narod.ru/ for his excellent tutorial on gradients at specific angles http://www.prodigitall.narod.ru/articles/article3_en.html.  His site has some really awesome drawings created with Visio including a Lamborghini.

I hope to work on a rectangle next using Visio Guy's recent smart bezel techniques.


snsisk

Folks,

I need your assistance.  It seems that any shape composed of straight lines can be created.  However, I really stuck on an approach for circle, ellipse and curved shapes.  The difficulty is getting the correct gradient to create the effect.  Any ideas will be appreciated.

When I get the curved shapes completed, I'll send the stencil to Visio Guy.  I would also create either video or text-based tutorials based on feedback from the forum members.

Thanks,

Steve

vojo

circles may not be too bad....concentric circles where color is a offset from the group color (obviously need protection on rolling over the colors)

Ellipse/arc are much more difficult because I dont see a simple way to scale the shape (otherwise
concentrics would work here as well).

The shading/light source of these shapes might help give you ideas (see user cells)

Visio Guy

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vojo

yes ...when I saw the off radial light examples 6 months ago...it was truly an epiphany....salutes go to visio guy.  All I did was take the concept and apply it to some shapes.

snsisk

My objective is to create a circle with beveled edges similar to the shapes I previously posted in this thread.  The difficulty is in controlling the gradient.  Any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

Visio Guy

I have broken curves (piping elbow joints) into a bunch of small wedges to get nice shading.

It involves a bunch of trigonometry and you'll save a lot of headache if you use automation to help you build such shapes.

But Visio often displays a thin line between shapes, and it's not clear to me if the line is real (prints out), or only on the screen.

The attached bitmap shows those lines, along with some other artifacts. Some of these aberrations go away with different zooms, but I'm not sure what prints and what doesn't.

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vojo


snsisk

What I'm after is something like the attached.

wapperdude

Besides filling the primary shape and using gradients, you can also use the shadow effect--no offset, make it larger than the original shape and add a gradient to it.

Also, if you open the shapesheet and go to the fill section, you can individually adjust the transparency of the foreground, background, and shadow fills, this can extend the "transition" region. 

Haven't discovered an easy way to "widen" the inner fill radius for the #40 fill pattern, which is probably what you'd like, more of a solid circle, with a nice border transition.  Perhaps multiple layers of overlapping circles, the largest of which would have the gradient.   :-\
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Visio Guy

You can also create a custom pattern that uses distinct shades to approximate a feathered shadow.

Unfortunately, custom patterns can't contain transparency, and they don't work properly with gradient fills, so this is really a work-around/hack.

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snsisk

#27
If I understand correctly, as long as the pattern contains some color then Visio will use that pattern as a gradient.  Should shades of gray be used or colors?  Which have you found to be most successful?

What does Visio consider as transparent?

Is grouping being used or a shape operation?

Is the color selected when the pattern is created or is the color applied when the pattern is selected for the shape?

snsisk

Quote from: Visio Guy on November 17, 2008, 04:05:55 PM
I have broken curves (piping elbow joints) into a bunch of small wedges to get nice shading.

It involves a bunch of trigonometry and you'll save a lot of headache if you use automation to help you build such shapes.

But Visio often displays a thin line between shapes, and it's not clear to me if the line is real (prints out), or only on the screen.

The attached bitmap shows those lines, along with some other artifacts. Some of these aberrations go away with different zooms, but I'm not sure what prints and what doesn't.



Approximately how many slices were used in these examples?  Does a specific size-to-slice ratio seem to work best?

wapperdude

The gradients work with any "color", which means everything except non-filled or 100% transparent since there's nothing to apply the gradient to.  White, grays, blacks, and all colors in between may be used effectively.

There are at least three techniques for using gradients to obtain shading.
1.)  Picking darker and lighter shades of the same color and choosing the appropriate gradient
       a.)  for RGB colors, use the slider on the right
       b.)  for HSL definition, change the luminosity
2.)  Overlaying the color shape with an identical shape that has some level of transparency.  This could be
       a.)  black to white or varying shades of gray to replicate addition of "neutral density" filter.
       b.)  darker & lighter shades of alternate colors to get some "tonal" variation
3.)  Edit the shapesheet, fill section
       a.)  use the tint function to lighten or darken the foreground/background colors, e.g., tint(RGB(255,0,0),-40) to
            get a darker red.  The tint function is new beginning with V2007, and not backward compatible.
       b.)  change the transparency settings of the fore/background fills.
4.)  Use the shadow function.  This has entirely separate set of fills (gradients), and transparencies.  Zero-offset,
      oversizing can be effective on simple shapes to produce a graduated border.  See http://www.visguy.com/2008/03/04/how-many-fill-colors-can-you-put-on-a-visio-shape/


I find that placing one or two duplicate shapes with varying transparency settings also allows the use of different gradient patterns (effectively getting multiple gradients per shape), which can smooth the transitions of the gradients and/or achieve other not so obvious effects.  Also, setting the foreground (or background) to 100% transparency sometimes makes a vary nice fade out to the underlying solid color shape.  You kind of have to play with these effects.  Also, Visio Guys' offset gradient fill is quite effective.  It really comes down to artistic choice, how you use the tools, the level of effect you want to achieve, and does the end use merit the level of complexity. 

HTH
Wapperdude
Visio 2019 Pro