The Xara Trompe L'Oeil Room Page 5
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What's missing from our gel capsule is a shadow. We can add a soft diffused shadow with Xara X's new Shadow Tool.

Select the blue capsule shape, then select the Shadow Tool. Click the second effect from the left, Wall Shadow (the far left box removes the shadow).

Reposition the shadow so it is directly beneath the capsule by dragging the shadow with the Shadow Tool.

NOTE: You can also intuitively add a drop shadow to any object, or text object, by selecting the Shadow Tool, then dragging on an object in the direction you want the shadow to fall. It's kind of like magic!

It's not that I don't have the greatest respect for Apple's design team, but a gel-filled capsule does not cast a gray shadow. It casts a shadow the color of the gel.

To achieve this effect, select a solid blue color on the screen palette and drag and drop it onto the shadow. Compare this to the example in the previous paragraph. Which do you think looks more realistic?

We are going to add a light gray background behind our capsule. It doesn't need to be exact, but draw it more or less to the size shown using the Rectangle Tool. Apply a 10% black fill.

 

Draw another rectangle, this time exactly the width of your rectangle and 2 pixels in height. The easiest way to specify this is in the W and H (Width and Height) text entry boxes on the Infobar. To apply changes that are not linked to one another, press the tiny lock icon button on the Infobar so it is in the raised (non-proportional scaling) position.

Make a duplicate (Ctrl K or Edit > Duplicate) and position it at the very bottom of the page. Position the first rectangle at the exact top of the page.

Apply a 20% black fill to both rectangles and set the line width to none by right clicking on the cross hatched square to the left of the screen palette.