CAD Forum

I like photo-realistic renderings of CAD data, but I'm really bad at setting it up and creating it. I often just wind up making the model look as nice as I can just in the regular CAD and then grab a screen shot. Especially as the CAD tools look nicer and nicer, I use the rendering tools less and less.

What do you do when you need a nice visual out of CAD?

I love the renders and I always try to do better. rendering is a much more fun job for me than playing a pc game or watching a good movie. Nowadays, sw is not enough and I am doing rendering exercises with blender.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 3:42 pm I like photo-realistic renderings of CAD data, but I'm really bad at setting it up and creating it. I often just wind up making the model look as nice as I can just in the regular CAD and then grab a screen shot. Especially as the CAD tools look nicer and nicer, I use the rendering tools less and less.

What do you do when you need a nice visual out of CAD?

Hey Matt,.. you do some really good designs... and, if I can offer anything, I'd suggest adding more FOV or perspective to your work... use a min lens of 85mm and then 50mm, 35mm and even 24mm lens if you need to get close up.. also, some DOF,.. it can really help with bringing the viewer closer to your subject.

zxys001 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 12:16 am Hey Matt,.. you do some really good designs... and, if I can offer anything, I'd suggest adding more FOV or perspective to your work... use a min lens of 85mm and then 50mm, 35mm and even 24mm lens if you need to get close up.. also, some DOF,.. it can really help with bringing the viewer closer to your subject.

Thanks, I'll try to practice some of those suggestions. I'm also bad at photography. Maybe I just don't have enough patience. I'll give those suggestions a try, thanks again!

No Longer bother with Rendering an image as I now import the Solidworks Models directly into Unreal 4.26 and Unreal 5 early release for real time Rendering!

Here is an Example

I have no need for renderings. Did it couple of times only
I would like to learn it properly

Craig Makarowski wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:48 pm No Longer bother with Rendering an image as I now import the Solidworks Models directly into Unreal 4.26 and Unreal 5 early release for real time Rendering!

Here is an Example
2021-06-23 11_05_48-Window.jpg

That is fantastic. I've got to look into Unreal. Thanks.

For our practices, we do not make pretty things. We do represent it many ways, though.
To bring a question to a fabricator / assembler / shop manager on the floor, I'll print a workspace view instead of asking them to come to my screen, so that's how I responded to the poll.

I'd suggest an additional poll response: 3rd Party viewer, or maybe that's included in "I always get someone else to do renderings for me" .
In addition to line drawings, we produce 3D PDF's for internal reference only. The files are stable, immutable, and readable with lesser computers. This allows makers to inspect obstructed items, create their own views, and print reference images. A simple rugged tablet for the shop would do that better.

For the original question, how often, initially I thought never until I read the choices. I consider "render" to mean making it look nice, realistic perspective with good lighting and more. I learned manual rendering skills in Architecture, and that's what the word means to me. My only industrial intent is to make it representationally accurate. I'll show pipes or conduit as clown colors if it helps differentiate size, material or voltage. That's a view which appears incorrectly, but contains better information than mere realism. In this respect, I produce images regularly, for my own or for others' purposes, and provide tools for others to do the same. I just do not consider these images to properly be called renderings.

Tom G wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:27 pm That is Unreal.

FIFY

I typically do renderings for sales and concepting. Probably 80% of the time I do CAD snips but on occasion for larger projects where we are really trying to impress the potential customer I'll do a more realistic rendering.

Since I don't do it often and I've never been "Good" at it the time/Result ROI is pretty low so I try to keep it to a minimum.

I actually did a few renderings last week. I'd say I typically just do them a few times a year, so my skill level with them is low. Usually, we only do them near the start of a project when we are trying to make some industrial design decisions. The ones last week were to help us see how a texture change on a couple of plastic parts was going to affect the look of a product. I ended up using Visualize at the recommendation of my VAR because I wasn't seeing differences in the texture of the provided SolidWorks plastic textures. It was the first time I really needed the realism of a good rendering. (I managed to get to a mostly OK for what we needed to see rendering.)

I very seldom need a render, but I needed one a few months ago. I passed it off to the new guy. Neither one of us knew anything about Visualize, but he's young. It's good for him to learn new things.


Plus he's smarter than I am and learns faster.


And I didn't want to do it anyway.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 8:22 am I very seldom need a render, but I needed one a few months ago. I passed it off to the new guy. Neither one of us knew anything about Visualize, but he's young. It's good for him to learn new things.

Good point and reason.

Plus he's smarter than I am and learns faster.

reasonable points if true...

And I didn't want to do it anyway.

The truth comes out...

Craig Makarowski wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:48 pm No Longer bother with Rendering an image as I now import the Solidworks Models directly into Unreal 4.26 and Unreal 5 early release for real time Rendering!

Here is an Example
2021-06-23 11_05_48-Window.jpg

Hey @Craig Makarowski,
How long did it take you to get up and running with Unreal? Got any resources you could share that helped get you there?
We don't do renderings often. But, I have a presentation coming up and it would be nice to place our model into the location and render it. Can you get actual Google Earth data into Unreal? If not I could just roughly model it and assign materials to get it close, probably. I have to weigh how much time to sink into this vs. benefit. Of course it's knowledge that may be useful later for things like public meetings...

Sorry for the late reply, it has been a crazy summer for me, I think there are a few ways to get data into Unreal from Google maps but haven't tried. I bet there are tutorials on Youtube about that. Unreal has a large amount of active users and Youtube community is very large with tutorials that are amazing. Even the training tools on Epics site and Unreal resources is must use to learn. Once you get the hang of it importing SolidWorks in is really easy with the Datasmith plugin (free) works with all the different Cad systems out there. I have been playing with Unreal 4.26 and Unreal 5 early eval.
Unreal 5 will be literally a game changer in Visualization for real world applications. I have been mostly doing screen captures but soon get into Video exporting in Unreal. You can easily assign Materials in Unreal to get very nice results. When making a Assembly in SolidWorks it is a good idea to assign basic colors to the surfaces and or parts that you want to have textures that way when you import the Assembly/ parts the folder in unreal generates those attributes and the base materials, then you just change the base to the preferred material you want. By the way there is a lot of free materils and content on the Unreal marketplace. and get you a lot of resources! hop this helps.

As for Rendering scene and images I probably won't use Rendering tools anymore simply because Unreal is real time fps even in editor mode. none of this silly wait for the frame to render seconds/minutes / hours!! It has become my goto tool for visualization period!! Just so you know that Unreal 5 is now allowing billions to trillions of polygons in real time so large SolidWorks assemblies aren't an issue any more!!

this is a model of the desk that i made in SolidWorks and brought into Unreal 4.26 Also the Door frames in the entrance as well. Here is a Unreal 5 render I'm working on a new model in SW but haven't brought it into Unreal yet still adding a lot of internal details but will look awesome in Unreal when done.

I'm doing rendering just for fun, it's a hobby. Sometimes I do a lot of rendering and modeling for days or rather weeks, but in other cases I don't do it for a lot of time.
Here are some of my latest renderings.

@BuseHase and @Craig Makarowski,
You guys have any tutorials you could point us to? I occasionally have a need for renderings, but don't know where to get started with Unreal.

My renderings are done in Visualize the models created in Solidworks

mattpeneguy wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:38 am @BuseHase and @Craig Makarowski,
You guys have any tutorials you could point us to? I occasionally have a need for renderings, but don't know where to get started with Unreal.

Hi Matt, first one has to download Unreal engine (FREE) and lots of disk space! ( 9 to 20 gigs)
once you have it installed then you need to add the Datasmith plugin. not sure if in 4.27 version it is already installed.
the cool thing about the dat smith plugin is it will import the SolidWorks part or assemblies in to unreal. then once you have the folder of parts you can apply a lot of different real world materials to them. By the way in the Unreal editor this is real time rendering none of this waiting for the render stuff!!!!
If you want i can add some screen shots of the work flow and setup. UNReal is a big package and just as complex as SolidWorks in some ways. But the user interface is designed with work flow in mind. the only other 3D package i use is Blender. but for rendering and visuals and video Streaming Unreal kicks butt!! there are hundreds of tutorials on Youtube and on Epicgames Unreal Site plus complete free training tutorial on Unreal, which are first class stuff!! but be warned that once you go down the rabbit hole there are many things you can learn and do and explore! I have been at this for a 1.5 years now and still learning stuff as time permits.

BuseHase wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 10:02 am My renderings are done in Visualize the models created in SolidWorks

Visualize is a great tool, but Unreal is much more it can work with live video streams, and Gaming play Web control and many things more. The UNreall 5.0 early preview is stunning and when it goes prime time next summer it will be a changer of how we do video, games, presentation simulation virtual world stuff. Polygon count is no longer and issue with it we are talking 100s of billion to a trillion levels in real time 30 to 60 frames a second at 4 k res.
It is nice that SolidWorks included Visualize in it as it is a good tool for static and simple animation. UNreal does way more I have even streamed video from it to the web on Zoom with my SolidWorks designs!

Thank you for explaining this @Craig Makarowski.

FYI, there is a training bundle which is on sale this week for only $15 USD. This normally costs unclearly more.
The Unreal & Unity Game Development for Beginners Bundle
I haven't tried it. I don't know if it would help a novice towards what Craig is doing with it, but it is for beginners. Cheers.

Tom G wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:17 am Thank you for explaining this @Craig Makarowski.

FYI, there is a training bundle which is on sale this week for only $15 USD. This normally costs unclearly more.
The Unreal & Unity Game Development for Beginners Bundle
I haven't tried it. I don't know if it would help a novice towards what Craig is doing with it, but it is for beginners. Cheers.

There is so much free Tuorials for Unreal and resources that one just needs time to learn it all, I have been at it for a year now.
Here is an Example of my work from SolidWorks to Unreal

mattpeneguy wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:38 am @BuseHase and @Craig Makarowski,
You guys have any tutorials you could point us to? I occasionally have a need for renderings, but don't know where to get started with Unreal.

Hi Matt, here is a really good Youtube channel he does a really good explanations. Some of these tutorials are long!!! good starting point.

https://www.youtube.com/c/UnrealSensei

Tom G wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:17 am Thank you for explaining this @Craig Makarowski.

FYI, there is a training bundle which is on sale this week for only $15 USD. This normally costs unclearly more.
The Unreal & Unity Game Development for Beginners Bundle
I haven't tried it. I don't know if it would help a novice towards what Craig is doing with it, but it is for beginners. Cheers.

try this for free
https://www.youtube.com/c/UnrealSensei

I have been thinking of learning to do some renderings on Blender, which has also great capabilities and various tools. You can export models in some formats from Solidworks to Blender and then continue working there.

And on top of it all - Blender is free. A free professional grade graphics, animation and modeling tool.

And there is dozens of dozens great resources and tutorials for Blender around the internet, like:

Blender Guru
https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewPPrice/
https://www.blenderguru.com/

Or if you are feeling playful or want to prank with "incredible disassembly animations"
https://youtu.be/ogWQs_7DU0Y

More more moore moar - in BlenderNation
https://www.blendernation.com/

Just to mention few....

JuTu I use both Blender and Unreal as they both are free to use. there are things in Blender i like but the user interface requires more learning for sure at the simple level. But once your familiar with it it is a really good tool. The render is getting a lot of updates too. I do believe that in version 3 it will use RTC as well. CYcles X
The reason i use Unreal more is real time raytracing, both in editor mode and play mode, none of the other tools out there that i know of can do this!.

Have been doing some simple exploded assembly animations in Blender, it is much more friendly than SW if you know the basics. It is also better to add notes, photos, paint etc.
The learning curve is quite long for a CAD user tho.

Lucas wrote: ↑Mon Nov 15, 2021 6:23 pm Have been doing some simple exploded assembly animations in Blender, it is much more friendly than SW if you know the basics. It is also better to add notes, photos, paint etc.
The learning curve is quite long for a CAD user tho.

Hi Lucas Good news Blender4.0 is going to have some Nice Cad tools in it, and it sure has progressed as a 3D tool and Rendering!!
I use it but not as often as i should, there is even a Pipeline between Blender and Unreal, just waiting for the updates from Blender 4.0 and Unreal 5.4 to wok would be nice.

some new stuff done in Unreal 5.2 using the SolidWorks files & Creo files imported using the Datasmith importer in Unreal

Here is a few of my Unreal town project, about 15% of the models are made in SolidWork.
I'm using Unreal 5.3 now and PCG feature as well. There are about 135,00 objects in the scene now and 1.4 billion Polygons now!!

Town overview A Procedural Content generated Forest from with in Unreal 5.3 Rail bridge

Here's one we did for a Tilt trailer that will be on display at a show in New York. It's a bit "offset" in the screenshot.
We'll be doing a bit of rendering in the near future so that sales and aftermarket can have manuals and other things of that nature but that's about as much rendering as we do.

AlexLachance wrote: ↑Thu Jan 25, 2024 2:06 pm Here's one we did for a Tilt trailer that will be on display at a show in New York. It's a bit "offset" in the screenshot.

image.jpg

We'll be doing a bit of rendering in the near future so that sales and aftermarket can have manuals and other things of that nature but that's about as much rendering as we do.

That's a nice product Alex!
The render is a bit strange, specially the "inverted" shadows under the tires...

mgibeault wrote: ↑Thu Jan 25, 2024 3:02 pm That's a nice product Alex!
The render is a bit strange, specially the "inverted" shadows under the tires...

Thanks and nice catch, I did not notice that! We did it on Visualize and they're pretty much the first renders we do on Visualize so it's most likely something on our end we did wrong.

I do it so few and far between it's always a learning adventure the next time the boss requests it.
Then choosing between photoview 360 and visualize and trying to toy around with all that.
Most of our parts are black anodized, so trying to get that to look good and then also have a transparent background for PNGs.
It's all a PITA TBH and I phone it in as best I can.

Some SolidWorks Modeling of a railroad Signal then rendered in Unreal 5.3