Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

How would I get very realistic renders for my parts? Mostly for metals like aluminium, stainless etc in different colors. Inventor's own materials look very unrealistic. I've seen some very realistic looking parts on the internet (not sure if the CAD program used was Inventor though). Is additional software needed or how people do it?

[#2]

3ds Max?

[#3]

Ok I will look into that. If I want animation for my assembly. Should I animate the assembly in Inventor and then change materials and make better renders in 3ds max or is the animation possible to do in 3ds max too?

[#4]

For creating realistic rendered images you should take a look at Inventor Studio. This a package within Autodesk Inventor. You can find some good tutorials on youtube.

[#5]

To get quicly and very nice realistic images use Autodesk Showcase. Its ease and powerfull. Look at suites to undestand if you have Showcase and 3DMax.

Showcase example

[#6]

With enough time spent modifying/playing with the Inventor colors you can get some pretty darn realistic renderings using the new raytracing option alone.. There is almost NO need for studio anymore. And if you have been on subscription you now have access to showcase as well as 3ds max. Start by spending a little time in Inventor and see where you can get with it. I'm very happy with what I can do with Inventor now (raytracing alone) and am very excited to see what 2013 has to offer.

[#7]

Thanks guys. I will play more with Inventor's own material options first before trying the other methods. I will update here how it goes.

Update: Showcase looks very nice from what I saw in youtube and there's also 30 day trial for it so I will check that out for sure too. If I want to make animation for my assembly (about 1min long), do I have to make the animation in Inventor or is it possible to just assemble in Inventor and then make the movement in Showcase?

[#8]

Hi again!

Autodesk Showcase its amazing!!!!! Very very ease.

In Showcase you create scenes from an Inventor file, complete with Materials, Shots, Alternatives, Storyboard, and animated Constraints.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/limage?siteID=123112&imageID=16831153&id=6834016

[#9]

Downloaded the 64bit trial version for my 64bit Win7 Home Edition. I played with it and the software seems pretty easy to use. After a hour or two of testing I quit it and started Inventor and the graphics in the Inventor had changed. I used Inventor with "compatibility" setting and it always used the highest graphics. Now it always uses the lowest graphics. In "performance" mode now the colors are normal but the edges of the part look like crap and with the "compatibility" mode it changes the part color to almost white.

I uninstalled the Showcase and reinstalled Inventor but that didn't help. I had planned to reinstall my OS so I made new clean Win7 install and downloaded all the latest drivers. Same problem with the Inventor. I have no idea what happened.

I have integrated graphics card btw, but that shouldn't make any difference since the softwares worked fine before.

[#10]

Just try doing a system re-boot. There is a screen switch in the DirectX when using Showcase, possible after exiting Showcase it didn't fully switch back because of your integrated graphics card.