Poor Render Quality

[traditional.builds]

Hey guys, so I know this has been addressed by different people on the forums but I have not really figured out what is going on with my renders.

I actually have never really noticed how bad they are until a client pointed it out, which is slightly embarrassing.

The renders look fine but when you zoom in they look terrible. I am currently working on a simple concept for a few shelves inside a home and I wanted to show view of the detail. When you zoom into the render, everything get fuzzy and blocky, like a poor JPEG image.

I tested out some different render methods, changed the settings to as high as it can go. I also tried using cloud render (although I really dislike having to use credits/pay for renders on a service I am already paying for) so I just use local render. I have found no big difference in the quality. 

The quality nearly looks better before even rendering, so my question is how can I get better renders, specifically renders with close up framing to show detail to clients.

I'll attach the specific render I am talking about, directly from Fusion 360 renders. I'll also attach a screenshot of how poor the quality starts to look when you zoom in.

Thank you in advance,

Mike

[TrippyLighting]

I'd need the design in .f3d format to evaluate this.

[traditional.builds]

Sure thing!

[TrippyLighting]

I looked at your file and I am not sure what to tell you. It renders crisply on my machines.

[traditional.builds]

Could you possible send a render over from your machine? I'd love to just see how they compare.

[barry9UDQ6]

This is something I struggle with as well.

[barry9UDQ6]

[traditional.builds]

It's been slightly annoying but I don't think there is much I can do.

I actually just used the render tab without actually processing the render and used the snipping tool to screen capture an image, this sometimes turns out better than the render from Fusion 360. 

Something is definitely wrong

[traditional.builds]

Okay so it looks like my settings must be off. Your render looks much better than mine. How did you get the detail, like in the walls? I am using the powder coat material but on my end I don't see nearly that much texture.

Any chance you could tell me your environment settings and your export settings? I think I just have mine set up differently.

Thank you for showing me this!

[barry9UDQ6]

I cheated, I used Blender 😊.

I rendered 2 000 iterations at 8K to produce a 142 MB png. It took my GTX 1 660 (6 gig) 12 mins.

I would love to be proved wrong, but in my understanding Fusion's render environment is rather modest.

[traditional.builds]

Ah okay. No worries at all. Thank you for trying to help

[traditional.builds]

"I don't know what to tell you".. Thanks for helping out 

[barry9UDQ6 · Accepted solution]

My 2 cents, if you require better renders to sell your products, learn Blender. It's free and there are loads of good tutorials available. Export as .fbx from Fusion.

[traditional.builds]

Much appreciated! I currently have it on my desktop but I will need to practice with it!

Thanks again

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

While I cannot comment on the fuzzyness of your renders, I think just changing to a different render engine will do very little for you. I've worked with Computer graphics since college (since DKBtrace, the precursor of POVRay) and also programmed some in the rendering area (progressive refinement radiosity). You can get so-so renders in any render engine, or create excellent results even if you are not working with the most sophisticated render engine.

What is often forgotten is that modern PBR render engines work like cameras, so familiarizing yourself with some photography terms and principles is indeed a good idea.

The next big area in rendering is materials. You can have some luck in Fusion 360 just slapping materials an objects and then render them, but more often than not you need to be aware of the scale of textures etc..
Do you know what bump and normal mapping are, for example ?  
You don't see the bump mapping on your walls, because you need a light source that is smaller. The studio light sources that ship with Fusion 360 are mostly not suitable for an interior render. They are meant to light objects.

Lighting is another big area. So, for example, look up Blender tutorials for interior renders. Despite the difference in tools, The general principles and concepts apply. Once you are familiar with the right terms, changing to a different render engine will be a much smoother experience.

There are a few tings that need to be considered when modeling as well. No physical artifact has unnatural sharp CAD edges, so put fillets/bevels) on almost everything. The highlight that creates can make a significant diffenence. As such I would use materials for the shelves that are more specular reflective then the un-finished woods in Fusion 360.  

Keeping the above things in mind, I personally also tend to use External render engines for interiors. I prefer to use unbiased render engines and have a licenses for Indigo Renderer and also have started using LuxCore render, both through Blender.

However, be aware that when exporting from Fusion you are exporting un-textured triangulated meshes, so your geometry really needs to be completely finished in Fusion 360 as such meshes  are hard to modify and all materials need to be applied in Blender or in the render engine. So in essence, external render engines are for the final "high gloss" render.  

[traditional.builds]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I am still new to this so I really had no idea what was happening.

[hawwijaya]

It is most likely to do with the resolution (and the environment that controls the lighting, the environment is always applied in the render regardless we choose the solid colour).

Fusion 360 only allows up to 4000 pixels x 4000 pixels. So if you require higher details on the parts, zoom in and render again.

I agree sometimes is better just to save/capture the on-screen image which allows more than 4000pixels.

here is a small render on the zoomed part

[stiller.design]

wishful thinking, but GPU support for rendering would be amazing 🙂

[mmfusion360]

How did you import fusion files into Blender?

[TrippyLighting]

I usually export into .fbx format. Then I import that into Blender.

the advantage of .fbx over .obj is that it retains the entire assembly structure  of a design.