Surface Textures

In some previous sections you could already have an idea of what we can achieve with high-resolution textures in Sections, Elevations and Interior Elevations but now let’s take a closer look to it! The improvement of the textures was done to help you creating engaging visualizations of your projects. So far, to use the same nice textures in 2D views and 3D views, you had to use some workarounds and maybe an external software that would break the BIM workflow. Now it’s possible using Archicad only! Besides the High-resolution surface Textures, a new Soft Shading option has been introduced and Fading of Distant Element feature has been improved as well. Let’s see how this new functionality can make life easier and produce a professional, render-like result! We’ll turn this fairly simple elevation into a very nice-looking elevation within a few steps. It all comes down to the sections’ settings and the model appearance options. For the uncut elements’ fills, two new options have been introduced: the Texture Fill - non-shaded and shaded versions. These options are available for Uncut Elements. Let’s use the shaded option for now, we will see more about the difference between the two a bit later. As soon as we activated the Textured Surface Fills, right away, the elevation comes to life and it looks like as if we were to spend a few hours in a particular photo editing software. As you can see the stone cladding texture is visible, together with some concrete surfaces. You might recognize that the glazed curtain wall also has a texture on it. A nice skyscape image has been added to the glass materials to make it even more life-like. Now let’s take a look at how we can add some more fine details. Let’s turn on shadows and the Cover Fill Foregrounds (previously called Vectorial hatching). It’s just getting better and better. And as a final touch you can use the Fade Distant Elements option (previously named Marked Distant Area) to bring some extra depth to your documentation. Now It’s up to you to decide which options do you want to enable and how do you want to style your Sections and Elevations.