Inventor Studio - sun (light source) orbiting an assembly.

[Anonymous]

Hello everybody,

as this is my first post, I'd like to introduce myself, I'm Grzegorz, 5th year student of Refrigeration and Cryogenics at Mechanical Department of Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland. I'm 3D modeling enthusiast and a self-learner, thus I love Inventor.

I'm currently working on a wind turbine and photovoltanic panels hybrid, all mounted on a pole. The goal is an animation of the turbine rotating and panels tracking the sun. That was quite challenging but I managed to make an animation of the movements. However the light source orbiting the pole is a wall that I keep hitting with my head now for a few days. Went through lots of tutorials and manuals but with no success. Found a light in a tunnel yesterday - a LookAt constraint in 3ds Max.

So my question is, whether it is possible to animate the orbiting sun in Inventor Studio or do I have to seek the solution in 3ds Max? Also tried Showcase, but the driven constraints woulnd't import properly so I gave up on that.

Any advices are more that welcome!

Cheers

[Daniel248 · Accepted solution]

Hi Grzegorz,

It is possible to animate the lights in Studio, but not the lighting that is used within the IBL environment - see attached.

If you create your own environment (using bitmaps & models of industrial buildings, structures, etc.) the lights (and shadows) could be animated in Inventor Studio.

Regards,

Danny

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the light in the tunnel! 

Could you be so kind and give me some more instructions on that? The only light animation I can get is the on/off one.

EDIT: The Inventor file itself used for the video provided would be helpful for sure.

[blair]

3dMax handles sunlight at different times of the day along with location (Long-Lat)

[Anonymous]

Yep, that's an awesome feature. However it would be easier to stay with Inventor as I'm new to 3ds Max and I'm having hard times reproducing the constraints of the model.

[Anonymous]

Ok, got the lights moving, but shadows won't animate at all :<

EDIT: Got it, thank you!

[Daniel248 · Accepted solution]

File attached.

A few more steps:

- In Studio, Lighting Styles, create New Lighting Style;
- Give it a name (right-click, Rename);
- Delete lights 2 & 3 from within this new style (if you only need "sun shadows");
- Select your new lighting style;
- Shadows tab:Soft shadows, Quality:High;
- Double-click on the light 1 and drag the (Sphere of the light or axis) to where you wanted to START (sunrise);
- tick OK, save lighting style, done;
- Activate the animation timeline & click animate light1;
- Click Definition and drag the light to the END position (sunset);
- Set the other parameters in the AnimateLight dialogue (time, acceleration) as you need;
Animate and correct / modify your settings until you achieve the desired effect. (Remember to turn on shadows in the View tab)
The light animation can be run simultaneous with your other animations (parameter, constraint, fade, etc.)

Regards,

Danny