Saturday, August 20, 2011

Some Tips on Rendering in SolidWorks

I recently posted some tips on rendering in solidworks on flickr after someone asked how to make renderings more photo realistic. So here are the 8 steps that I go through when I render.

1. start with a matte middle grey material on everything.

2. Choose a camera angle and set up your lights, the matte grey will show if your lights are too bright or dim.

3. Choose an appropriate hdri image for your environment. I like the conference room but anything with windows or highlights will look fine.

4. Apply your graphics/labels.

5. Start to work on your materials - start by only changing one area at at a time. try reflectivity then try luminosity but don't change them at the same time because you cant really see what they do that way. When you feel comfortable with each slider, it will be a lot easier to create realistic materials.

6. Look up the correct index of refraction for your clear material. Water and glass are both clear, yet they refract light differently. This step was really hard for me to do by eye. Thankfully, Photoworks has some suggested numbers for common transparent materials.

7. soften your shadows, even just a little. No real shadows have a perfectly hard edge.

8. Play with the depth of field setting (It helped me hide a multitude of sins in the blurry part). It can make your product shot look like it was taken with a camera.

So those are the steps that I take when I render. Maybe that will give you a starting point for more realistic renderings within solidworks.


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