Set up the model for visualization

00:06

After completing this lesson, you'll be able to modify the appearance of a component, edit the appearance of specific faces on a component,

00:14

change the way a component is displayed in the design window, and export an image of the component.

00:22

In Autodesk Inventor, every component in an assembly has a physical material assigned to it, even if that material is generic.

00:30

Each physical material has an appearance associated with it by default.

00:36

If you change the component's material from the quick access Toolbar, it will update the appearance of that component.

00:42

It will also update the physical properties, but that isn't the focus of this course.

00:48

After seeing a quick example, let's change it to aluminum.

00:53

When we do this, again the appearance updates.

00:56

But we can also separate the appearance from the physical material.

01:01

Next to where we change the material, we can use the pulldown to change what the component looks like.

01:09

There is also more than one library inside of Inventor.

01:13

Switching to the Autodesk material library, the appearance overrides in this library map directly across multiple Autodesk products.

01:21

I'll scroll down to Smooth Navy and select it as the new appearance.

01:28

For this part, I'd like to make a few changes though.

01:33

I'd like this to appear as a casting. So I want to remove the smoothness.

01:40

I'll select the Appearance Editor and double click Smooth Navy.

01:46

In the Editor, I'll choose that I'd like a relief pattern and select the "Alloy Sand Tube Bump Bitmap file".

01:56

After clicking Okay, we'll see that the bump map is applied to the component,

02:04

but it doesn't look quite right.

02:06

So let's make some modifications.

02:08

Selecting the image again, we can go in and make modifications to the sample size,

02:14

making it 3 in both height and width.

02:18

That looks better.

02:21

Then, let's reduce the amount of bump and change the finish to a matte finish.

02:29

This will change the look of the model and we'll call it good. We'll select Ok and update it.

02:37

Now of course not everything would be cast. Several surfaces on this component are machined.

02:43

So we can select features such as the extrusions for the bearings.

02:50

We can select internal Extrusions, the holes for the drain and the filler, and the holes for the bolts.

03:01

As well as looking on the underside, we can select the Chamfer just by holding control and selecting multiple features.

03:11

Then, using the pulldown, let's change the finish to a satin finish.

03:19

We can also, using our selection filters,

03:23

make sure that we're selecting faces and pick the main mating face and select the same satin finish.

03:34

This gives us the appearance of a cast component with machine surfaces.

03:43

Now let's switch to the View tab and change the "Visual Style". We'll switch from Shaded with Edges to Realistic.

03:53

This will enable ray tracing, and you'll see that not only has the lighting changed, but shadows are beginning to develop on our model.

04:02

In the lower right, we can see ray tracing progress,

04:06

and we can see that there are three different levels: draft, high, and we'll switch to low.

04:13

This will keep the resources needed to update the view to a minimum.

04:17

So as we move around the model or make changes, the view will update quickly.

04:24

Now let's change the lighting style from "Light Theme" to "Old Warehouse".

04:30

Not only will the lighting on the model change, but you can see that the environment around it has changed as well.

04:38

Image-based lighting uses actual images to set up the lighting and shadows on the model.

04:45

In some cases, you might like to use the image that's creating the lighting in your design window.

04:53

Let's change to "Empty Lab". This is an environment that's better sized for smaller components.

05:00

As we look around, we can see that there are direct light sources in the ceiling,

05:05

as well as ambient light sources bouncing off of the brightly colored objects in the room.

05:13

At the bottom of the lighting environments pulldown, we can go to "Settings".

05:17

In Settings, we can edit the scene by doing things like changing the rotation angle.

05:23

If we zoom out, we'll see now our model is in a different position on the countertop.

05:30

Going back into Settings, I can restore the angle and I can turn off display scene image.

05:38

This will allow us to take advantage of the lighting from the scene, but not have to see the image that's generating the lighting.

05:47

Now that we have the lighting the way we want it, let's go ahead and save out an image to share with others.

05:55

Under the file pulldown, we can go to Export, then Image.

06:00

We can then choose the file format we want to use and save the file.

06:09

After a few moments, we can open up that file and see what it is that we're able to share with the world.