An alternate way to draw elevation changes
I just bought the 2022 annual and decided to try an Ice Cavern.
When I got to the point where I wanted to draw elevation changes, I went back to watch Ralf's live mapping session. But... I'd added a few effects that were conflicting with Ralf's technique in other places, and I must say I'm not a fan of creating tons of sheets.
But some creative spark ignited and I came up with an alternative. The result is very subtle (because the lack of bevel makes each "step" less pronounced) but I like it a lot. And I can add many many steps without having as many sheets:
I created a single FLOORS STEP sheet and drew lines with a solid 10 Bitmap (if you hadn't caught it, you might look at the image above and realize it's there... just a faint shade in the top part of each step).
And then just a Wall Shadow, Directional effect, and an Edge Fade, Inner afterwards..
Just for completeness, I tried setting the line to 0-width (the two rightmost in the following image), but the result is even less noticeable (though it might be what you're aiming for):
Of course, given the Sun Direction in my directional wall shadow, these steps only seem logical if going downwards or leftwards, but you can create a new sheet. Two is still a small number. :)
One final note: I had to snap the steps to the nearest point in the cave wall, otherwise I'd get transparency acne (not an issue on the 0-width line).
Comments
Very nice.
Ralf shows another approach in this Height Transitions video as well
It is surprising what you can achieve with lines of very limited thickness, setting them up on their own sheet with their own effects, in CC3+. I've done this quite a few times when I needed a different shadow effect, for instance (such as when you don't always want the shadow to reflect the edge of the polygon you've drawn - just "hide" the line under or exactly along the edge of the poly). I tend not to use zero-width lines though, as they can cause their own problems sometimes (just make use of the decimal places to thin down the line). Transparency acne notwithstanding (yes, it too can be a real pain)!