controlling lighting direction for shaded views?

[JasonCSC]

Hi everyone, I've been running into issues in IV 2010 with the shading where I need to show a part in a perspective view on my IDWs and depending on the angle I rotate to the majority of the part is shown in shadow. It's frustrating because I need to show a feature in that particular orientation, but the whole part looks dark. Especially when I am showing left and right mirrored parts. One side always seems to end up dark. FYI I almost never show the material as a texture map in my part drawings so I use white as the color default because I am simply trying to get across the shape of the part in a shaded 3D view. These don't really serve as renderings to me per say. Is there any way to control the light source direction for custom views in terms of shading? Could I make it more of an ambient light or similar to the Global Light Style in Inventor Studio?

[mcgyvr]

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/2011/02/disable-reflections-and-gradients-in.html

Don't know why you posted this twice.. Please go into your other post and delete it before someone posts in it and you can't anymore. (you can delete a whole post ONLY if there are no responses)

[JasonCSC]

Sorry for the double post.  My browser was frozen so when I refreshed it must have posted twice.  The other one is deleted.

So the registry edit will remove reflections and the gradient effect from the shading?

Will it essentually give it sort of a "flat" shading look that is uniform across the surface then?

Will you still see a normal gradient shading effect in shadows though?

Can it be reversed if I don't like the effect? 

If I upload a part would you mind showing me a left and right side 3/4 shaded view so I can get a feel for what it will do?

Sorry for playing 20 Questions here, just trying to understand what it would do before I implament it.  Thanks.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi JasonCSC,

This setting will make your drawing view look just as they appear in the model enviornment. If you don't like it, you should be able to just delete the key you created (called Suppress Specular Color) to reverse it.

If you want to up load a part, I'll be happy to show you what it looks like in Inventor 2010.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[cwhetten]

Try editing the active lighting style until you find one you like.  You can create more than one if you need to switch back and forth.  You should be able to edit the lighting styles by going to Manage tab > Style and Standard Editor.  This is what you should see (from 2011, but should be similar if not the same in 2010):

[JasonCSC]

Thanks Curtis.  Here's the part I have been having trouble shading as an example.  If you could show me this as a left and right 3/4 view that would be great.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi JasonCSC, 

Here it is on a white background.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi JasonCSC,

I wonder if using the Move Bodies tool would provide a solution for you. I think this would allow your left and right hand pilasters to share the same orientation to the lighting, and therefore display the shadowed shading consistently.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com