Using the Hatch command

- [Instructor] We're starting another new chapter now in our AutoCAD Essential Training Course, and we're going to be looking at hatching and gradient fills. So we've got a new drawing for you. And surprise, surprise, it's called HatchingGradients.dwg. As usual you can download that from the website to follow along with the videos. Now the drawing itself might look remarkably familiar to you. It's the floor plan that we've used previously in other chapters in this particular course.

Now what we're going to do is we're going to put some hatching and gradient fills in the offices in the top right corner of the floor plan. Now that is the reception area. Now you may remember that we've got named views available to us in this particular drawing. So I go to wear it says top, click there, Custom Model Views, and I'm going to go to Reception here like so. And that zooms me in nice and close so I can see those offices in the top right corner of the floor plan. If you want to you can pan a little bit and maybe zoom in a little bit more like so.

Now we're going to create a new layer. So Home tab on the ribbon, Layers panel, click on Layer Properties, and New Layer like we've done in previous chapters. And we're just going to call it HATCH, like so. If you now press the comma key, though, it will create another new layer as well. And we're going to call that GRADIENTS. So we've got a separate layer for hatching and gradients, so just press enter after gradients so you got those two new layers there. Now the gradients layer, it doesn't matter which color it is because you select the colors for the gradient fills anyway.

But the hatch layer here, what I'd like you to do is pick a color by clicking on the color box. Just make it a nice bright color that stands out on the drawing, maybe a purply pink, like that color 210 for example. So I'll click on OK there. Now we're going to look at hatching first. So double click next to the hatch layer on the little sheet of paper to make it the current layer, and then on the Layer Properties Manager click on the cross to close it. Now what we're going to do is we're going to hatch this little left-hand office here.

So just make sure that your hatch layer is your current layer, and the hatch command is found on the Draw panel on the Home tab on the ribbon. And the fly-out is here. So select Hatch. As soon as you do that you will see the ribbon change to the Hatch Creation tab, which is contextual based on the fact that you selected the Hatch command. And you'll notice where I'm hovering an internal point now, can you see that every time I hover over an internal point I can hatch with that particular color of the layer.

Now it looks like solid fill. It isn't. It's purely because my hatch scale is very small. So what we're going to do, we're going to go to the pattern panel on the Hatch Creation tab, and select ANSI31, there. That's the pattern that we want. There's lots of other patterns you'll notice, but just come up to the top and you want ANSI31 there. And then you want to click in your scale here and change that to 50, and press enter, and you'll see that update to 50.00.

Now when you hover can you see that the hatch is now, because they're using a different scale, are much, much more obvious. So I'm going to select that internal area there, and you'll notice, obviously where the door is it hasn't hatched that particular area because that is part of the hatch boundary. That's fine. That's no problem at all. So we've got that hatch there like so. And then you close Hatch Creation there, and you've put a hatch pattern into that particular office like so.

Now what happens if I want to use a different hatch pattern, say on this office here. Well, again, I go to the Hatch command, and I pick a different pattern. So let's find a different pattern this time. Let's go down a little bit, and we'll go for, let's say, AR-B816. That one there. Now you'll notice my hatch scale in the properties panel on the Hatch Creation tab, is still at 50. So when I come into here, it's now too big. So what I need to do now is change that down a bit. Let's change it to say 5 and press enter.

And then when I come in now you can see my brickwork hatch is still a little bit big, so let's perhaps consider making that 1 again, like it was before, and there's a nice brickwork hatch there as well. Now you wouldn't normally use that in plan. You'd probably use it on a nice elevation view. And as you can see as I hover around I can pick any point to fill with that brickwork. So I'll click on Close Hatch Creation, and there's my second hatch pattern applied to the other office in the drawing like so. Now the other thing that we can look at is gradient fills.

And what we're going to do in the next video, is perform a similar workflow and process, but we'll just be using gradient fills, which utilize different colors to highlight different areas.