Can someone help me to know how to narrow down the widespread floor shadow below the tank?
Here is a screenshot of the workplace;
I would like to achieve a shadow that looks like this;
What am I doing wrong? Looking forward to your feedback. (I'm a beginner so please excuse me if this is a stupid question).
Can I do this function inside Solidworks Visualize?
Sorry, I didn't realize you'd posted this in Visualize section. I don't have Visualize, but the Floor setting a few paragraphs down at SolidWorks: Quick Rendering and Shadowing — Perception Engineering may solve your problem.
Thanks, Matt for the tips and advice. It's a big help.
The tools within SW for lighting and cameras are pretty confusing to me. I can only imagine how much more difficult Visualize is. Anybody got any tutorials for Cam? As I don't have Visualize, I can't go to the tutorials within Visualize under the help menu. Are those a good starting point?
I'd argue that Cameras and Lights are easier to create and manage in Visualize compared to SOLIDWORKS. In my opinion, the Visualize interface is more streamlined for using these tools since they are core features of the application. The tutorials accessed through Visualize are actually just links to videos hosted on my.solidworks.com (SOLIDWORKS Visualize | MySolidWorks Training). You'll need Visualize installed to follow along, but I highly recommend going through the tutorials as a starting point. That was how I got up to speed before official training was offered .
Hope this helps!
-Chris
Thanks, this is the type of help I was looking to get posted here. Was that official VAR training? I've used Solid Professor and Linked In training for other things and was happy with what they provided. Anyone have any experience with an online resource like those two that may help get Cam up to speed with Visualize?
Matt Peneguy yes this is official Visualize training through a SOLIDWORKS VAR. I'm the primary Visualize trainer at my VAR. It's a 2 day class that covers material for both Visualize Standard and Professional.
Other than the 2 big players in the eLearning space that you've mentioned, my.solidworks.com is the only other structured tutorials that I'm aware of. You always have YouTube though. I would check out VAR YouTube channels and search for Visualize. Those would generally have higher quality and better organized videos, but I'm sure there are independent channels with valuable tutorials.
This is definitely NOT a stupid question! The floor shadows in Visualize are the direct result of the lighting environment being used in Visualize. These environments are spherical images that surround and project their light onto the model. So the shadows are fully dependent on the environment you use and where the light sources are located on the sphere.
Since you're a beginner, the best thing to do would be to experiment with applying other environments to your scene. You can access them from the Library tab, then select 'Environments' from the drop-down list. You can drag-and-drop the environments directly into the viewport to apply them. You can also enable the 'cloud library' tab to access additional scenes that you can download.
Based on the image you used as an example, I'd try the environments 'Big Overheard Square', 'Dazzler' or 'Classic Photo Studio. You may have to download a few of these from the 'Cloud' portion of the environment library. These feature mainly an overhead light source which will give you shadows tighter to the model.
Thanks, Chris for the tips and advice. It's a big help. This scene is using the environment High Contrast Studio and doesn't have any other lights. Just hoping if there is any way how can I able to narrow down the widespread shadow. I will also try to explore different environments. Thank you.
No problem! Unless you have Visualize Professional, you won't be able to add 'lights' as you might be used to in PhotoView 360. I honestly rarely use lights because I almost always find an environment that achieves the lighting I need. It's one of the best aspects of Visualize in my opinion.
The only way to narrow down the spread of the shadow is to alter the lighting that is illuminating the scene. The High Contrast Studio environment does illuminate the model from above, but it also has additional 'rectangular' light sources that surround the model, which is why shadows are spreading in various directions. If you like the High Contrast Studio environment, then try rotating, resizing and adjusting the floor height properties and see what you get for a result.
Otherwise, experimenting with other environments is your best avenue. Also try the 'Auto Photo Studio' environment. It mostly projects light from above and doesn't produce the spread out shadows.
You're screenshot of Visualize shows you have Visualize Professional, so you can add additional Lights from the scenes tab.
Play around with different area lights like Christopher Mowatt mentioned.
Try this
Attachments
Hi Cam,
In the Scenes tab, first make sure that you checkmark the flat Floor option, and then also you can increase the Shadow strength also. Beyond that, like others have mentioned, you'll have to find an environment that has a strong key light as part of the HDR scene. I've found that the "Dockland's Bridge" is very good for this since it is outdoor, has a strong sunlight at about the 10 o'clock position and has a lot of shadow detail close to the center of the scene (the bridge)
If you save your image from Visualize with the alpha in a format that supports alpha (png, tiff, etc) then you can remove most (sometimes all) of the unwanted shadow area in PhotoShop easily using the alpha mask and eraser. Giving you a nice "tight" shadow. This is also true in PhotoView 360.
I think Rob would agree with me that anyone that uses Visualize and Photoview regularly also uses Photoshop (or some other image editor) to do "post" processing on many images created by either. It is a worthwhile investment to have...
Now if we can just get the quality of the program up to par - I'm experiencing one to two crashes a day...
Mark Biasotti I would tend to agree with you but what if someone also wants to export an animation, interactive image or 360-degree VR content that require consistent shadows across the formats? I'm sure in PS there's a way to batch edit an image series and clean things up in a '360 VR' mode but what would be the learning curve and time taken for that type of post-work?
By taking the time to achieve the desired look using only the environment and/or lights in Visualize, you'll guarantee visual consistency across all mediums. Of course PS or a similar tool would be the only way to achieve a Stephan Tobias level 2D rendering, but I try to reduce post as much as I can since I can't assume that the people I train know how to use other tools. Granted most of my interaction is with novice users, often SOLIDWORKS designers who are new to rendering. You, Rob, and most contributors here are CLEARLY not in that category.
Hi Chris,
Hum... Well I still consider myself a Visualize novice and have a lot to learn still :-) but to get to your question: yeah, I think the best bet is to try to have the output from Visualize as good as you can for the more casual user. But keep in mind that Visualize is built for the casual user, so by nature, capabilities will be limited as is any user-friendly tool like this; Keyshot would not be much different, but you might want to look into it with their free trial - their latest version now supports RTX also. To go beyond would be to use Modo or another higher-end modeling/animation/rendering package.
I was not considering animation but only stills - which is the majority of what I do. If you want to post-process on animation from Visualize then Adobe After Effects would be your tool - it could most probably do what you want it to with enhancing your shadows (with an alpha sequence). If you're not familiar with After Effect, it is, in the simplest terms, the Photoshop for animation, and you can do pretty much anything you do in Photoshop in AE and apply the layer setting or filter to an entire sequence (animated frames).
Hi,
1. You have used the option "Flatten Floor". This option results in deforming the HDRi environment an rises the "lights" (white spots) higher. With this said, the shadow will be much more from the top, than from the side. With this said, de-activate this option and use another environment wich other ligths.
2. As you can see on your attached sample of the vehicle, the shadow is under it and much smaller, than the object itself! Imagine this with your tank... (won't work).
So: Turn down the envirmonments lighting and use addtional lights from one side, to add a defined shadow. If your customer don't have Viz Pro, than add a plan or other object with light emission. You have to use "Accurate Render Mode" then.
Environment "High Contrast Studio" and one light.
I'm going guess the shadow in the "Bobcat" image isn't real. Isn't real meaning, if its a photo then it was Photoshoped in and if its a rendering then it was PhotoShoped in or Photoshop adjusted.. Make life easier. Use the right tool for the job. Set-up your perfect product lighting in Visualize. Create your perfect floor shadow in PhotoShop. It will save tons of time and probably some frustration
While the "point and shoot" rendering applications are great pieces of software they can't do everything well and are just one tool of many you probably have in your workflow. At the end of the day, there is no such thing as push button rendering LOL.
An example. Top image is direct from Visualize. Bottom image is after less than 60 seconds of PhotoShop work using the alpha from Visualize.
Two issues with the ground shadow.