Simple Building Shade Question

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Hey Josh,

Copying this response to the community for everyone's benefit -
following is a mini-guide to how one can handle building shading for
superstructures. Everyone - this guide may help you with any
non-rectangular shading you may need to account for in current/future
projects. Read up from below to catch up on the whole conversation.

Alright! This is in its own twisted way a kinda fun challenge =). You
have to put on your M.C. Escher hat and get creative making a
tessellation!

An cross or x-pattern of shading is do-able by:

1. Copying a wall

2. Offsetting from the original by the appropriate amount (tweak
the wall coordinates till it looks offset right)

3. Check the wall properties

a. Self-shading - Yes

b. Shading Divisions - 40

4. Copy and modify the associated polygon to create the shape you
want to repeat. Check your work in the 3D view - note if the view goes
black you can right-click and 'reset camera.' I experienced little
caution messages on entering the x-value for any new coordinate beyond
the first 4, but just push on through.

5. Save

6. Create a dummy space to assign this wall to by copying the
original (we want to retain it's coordinates):

a. Right click the parent space and copy the space

b. Make it unconditioned

c. Default-out any internal loads/scheduling

d. Give it a clever name like 'dummy zone'

7. Re-assign the parent space of the custom-shaped offset wall to
the dummy space.

8. *IMPORTANT TIME SAVER* Create (many) copies of your wall, but
use the "link to existing component" option. This will let you easily
mess with the shape or properties (like that shading division figure)
later.

9. Shift the copies by editing their z-coordinates and x or y
coordinates to make a repeating pattern. Resulting example is below.

you'll already have your polygon set up. You'll need to create
unconditioned zones for your dummy space(s) before a calculation will
complete, by the way.

Here's an example:

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

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