Producing a Shadow Study

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There are many cases in designing a structure when you will be required to perform a shadow study. Autodesk VIZ allows you to easily perform shadow studies by using the built-in Daylight system.

Set up:

To start from this point:

Continue from the previous step, or open your saved file, mybuildings.max.
If you want to begin the tutorial at this point, open shadow_study.max from the \tutorials\arch directory.

Use a Daylight system:

In the Create Panel, choose Systems.
In the Object Type rollout, click Daylight.
In the Top viewport, drag a short distance in the Brick Building to create a Daylight compass and light.
Release the mouse button, and move the mouse while watching the Site group > Orbital Scale setting. When Orbital Scale reaches about 120, click to complete the system.

Tip: You can also adjust the Orbital Scale to 120 immediately after you click the mouse.
In the Control Parameters rollout > Time group, change Hours to 9, Mins. (Minutes) to 0, and Secs. (Seconds) to 0.

This changes the sun's position. Click Zoom Extents if necessary to see the sun object in the viewport.

Note: The month and day settings default to the summer solstice. You can change them if you like to the winter for more dramatic shadows.
In the Location group, click Get Location.
In the Geographic Location dialog, choose San Jose and click OK.

Tip: You can click the map or choose San Jose from the list.
Right-click in the viewport to end the Daylight creation command mode.
On the Rendering menu choose Environment.
In the Exposure Control rollout, click the drop-down list, and choose Automatic Exposure Control. Make sure Active is turned on, then close the dialog.
On the Rendering menu, choose Render. At the bottom of the Render dialog, make sure the Viewport is Perspective, if not choose Perspective from the drop-down list.
On the Render Scene dialog, click Render.

Note: This render might take a while because of the extensive sky calculations required. If you need to view only shadows from direct sunlight, you can improve the rendering time by deactivating the skylight contribution. For the most detailed rendering, select the Daylight icon in the viewport, then go to the Modify panel and choose IES Sun from the Sunlight drop-down, and IES Sky from the Skylight list.

Save your work:

On the menu bar, choose File > Save As. Name the file myshadowstudy.max.

Summary

In this tutorial you have modeled a 3D building starting from a sketch. You have learned to use a viewport background as a guide for your work. You have created geometry using extruded lines, primitive objects and booleans. You have repeated objects using Array and the Spacing tool. And finally you have created a shadow study using the Daylight system.