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Ground shadow does not appear in Inventor render

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Message 1 of 15
aries.1482
4591 Views, 14 Replies

Ground shadow does not appear in Inventor render

aries.1482
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

I have a problem in rendering a model with Inventor 2019. I turn on all shadow option, and in model view the shadow look well, but in rendered picture there no ground shadow. I try with many others model and still no ground shadow. Plz help me. Thanks!

(Sorry my english is not good.)

 

 

 

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Ground shadow does not appear in Inventor render

Hi,

I have a problem in rendering a model with Inventor 2019. I turn on all shadow option, and in model view the shadow look well, but in rendered picture there no ground shadow. I try with many others model and still no ground shadow. Plz help me. Thanks!

(Sorry my english is not good.)

 

 

 

14 REPLIES 14
Message 2 of 15
mdavis22569
in reply to: aries.1482

mdavis22569
Mentor
Mentor
Accepted solution

Can you share your file ?

probably just missing a light or something 


Did you find this reply helpful ? If so please use the Accept as Solution or Kudos button below.

---------
Mike Davis

EESignature

Can you share your file ?

probably just missing a light or something 


Did you find this reply helpful ? If so please use the Accept as Solution or Kudos button below.

---------
Mike Davis

EESignature

Message 3 of 15
aries.1482
in reply to: mdavis22569

aries.1482
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Here the part, but i think there is no problem with it. May be my setting or Inventor issue.

 

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Here the part, but i think there is no problem with it. May be my setting or Inventor issue.

 

Message 4 of 15
-niels-
in reply to: aries.1482

-niels-
Mentor
Mentor
Accepted solution

I think @mdavis22569 is right and you need to add a local light in order to create your desired "hard shadow"

Here's what i did:

afbeelding.png

afbeelding.png

You'll probably have to play around with the intensity and Attenuation Compensation to get the end result you want, i just maxed them out.

(i left the settings for "Grey Room" on their default, you could try changing those as well)

 

Good luck and feel free to show your end result in a Friday pictures topic!


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

I think @mdavis22569 is right and you need to add a local light in order to create your desired "hard shadow"

Here's what i did:

afbeelding.png

afbeelding.png

You'll probably have to play around with the intensity and Attenuation Compensation to get the end result you want, i just maxed them out.

(i left the settings for "Grey Room" on their default, you could try changing those as well)

 

Good luck and feel free to show your end result in a Friday pictures topic!


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

Message 5 of 15
aries.1482
in reply to: -niels-

aries.1482
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank for reply. I created a local light as you said and I get the ground shadow. But I wonder why:

- The "Grey room" lighting style has it own shadow, why this shadow doesn't appear so we must creat new local light.

- The ground shadow show in rendered picture (I think it is shadow of local light) is different from "preview" in model view (may be it's the shadow of "Grey room"). So we can't preview result before render.

 

Capture1.png

 

 

0 Likes

Thank for reply. I created a local light as you said and I get the ground shadow. But I wonder why:

- The "Grey room" lighting style has it own shadow, why this shadow doesn't appear so we must creat new local light.

- The ground shadow show in rendered picture (I think it is shadow of local light) is different from "preview" in model view (may be it's the shadow of "Grey room"). So we can't preview result before render.

 

Capture1.png

 

 

Message 6 of 15
-niels-
in reply to: aries.1482

-niels-
Mentor
Mentor

@aries.1482 wrote:

Thank for reply. I created a local light as you said and I get the ground shadow. But I wonder why:

- The "Grey room" lighting style has it own shadow, why this shadow doesn't appear so we must creat new local light.

- The ground shadow show in rendered picture (I think it is shadow of local light) is different from "preview" in model view (may be it's the shadow of "Grey room"). So we can't preview result before render.

Yeah, i think Inventor is a bit misleading in that part.

Look at the tooltip in this screenshot for the shadow settings:

afbeelding.png

These are settings that only affect the "preview rendering", which i understand/suspect to be the viewport shadows.

So "Grey Room" doesn't really have a shadow of it's own, it's a global light that can only cast diffuse shadow.

(which you could see in your first screenshot)

 

The ground shadow in your render is indeed from the local light, the way it looks depends on how you position the light.

You are correct in that you do not get a preview of this shadow until you render, which isn't very user friendly.

 

A sort of workaround would be to set your render settings to a low quality and only a few iterations in order to create a quick preview, but you'll have to go back & forth between the light settings and rendering in order to get the shadows where and how you want them.


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

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@aries.1482 wrote:

Thank for reply. I created a local light as you said and I get the ground shadow. But I wonder why:

- The "Grey room" lighting style has it own shadow, why this shadow doesn't appear so we must creat new local light.

- The ground shadow show in rendered picture (I think it is shadow of local light) is different from "preview" in model view (may be it's the shadow of "Grey room"). So we can't preview result before render.

Yeah, i think Inventor is a bit misleading in that part.

Look at the tooltip in this screenshot for the shadow settings:

afbeelding.png

These are settings that only affect the "preview rendering", which i understand/suspect to be the viewport shadows.

So "Grey Room" doesn't really have a shadow of it's own, it's a global light that can only cast diffuse shadow.

(which you could see in your first screenshot)

 

The ground shadow in your render is indeed from the local light, the way it looks depends on how you position the light.

You are correct in that you do not get a preview of this shadow until you render, which isn't very user friendly.

 

A sort of workaround would be to set your render settings to a low quality and only a few iterations in order to create a quick preview, but you'll have to go back & forth between the light settings and rendering in order to get the shadows where and how you want them.


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

Message 7 of 15
aries.1482
in reply to: -niels-

aries.1482
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Oh, so confused!  Smiley LOL But i look for some videos tutorial on youtube, exam this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrlfLYJfwXQ.

You see, in this he chose "Photo booth" lighting style, and no local light was activated. But the ground shadow show well as preview in model.

 

 

 

0 Likes

Oh, so confused!  Smiley LOL But i look for some videos tutorial on youtube, exam this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrlfLYJfwXQ.

You see, in this he chose "Photo booth" lighting style, and no local light was activated. But the ground shadow show well as preview in model.

 

 

 

Message 8 of 15
-niels-
in reply to: aries.1482

-niels-
Mentor
Mentor
Accepted solution
Yeah, i can understand your confusion.
Inventor does use IBL (Image Based Lighting) so the lighting in your scene is generated by the "background image".
The background images for "Grey Room" and "Photo Booth" differ, so this is why the rendering result is different.

Just try some of the other lighting styles, they won't have local lights but will have different light & shadow features depending on the image used.
With rendering, lighting is a big part of your setup... so it's best to choose a starting scene that gives a result you like and then add local lights to highlight specific area's of your model.
(or create hard shadows like you wanted here)

Just have fun with it! Smiley Wink

Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

Yeah, i can understand your confusion.
Inventor does use IBL (Image Based Lighting) so the lighting in your scene is generated by the "background image".
The background images for "Grey Room" and "Photo Booth" differ, so this is why the rendering result is different.

Just try some of the other lighting styles, they won't have local lights but will have different light & shadow features depending on the image used.
With rendering, lighting is a big part of your setup... so it's best to choose a starting scene that gives a result you like and then add local lights to highlight specific area's of your model.
(or create hard shadows like you wanted here)

Just have fun with it! Smiley Wink

Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

Message 9 of 15
aries.1482
in reply to: -niels-

aries.1482
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok, I think that's alright. We must accept this "confusion" as a function in Inventor Smiley Very Happy. They have to do something with this, hope better in next version.

 

 

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Ok, I think that's alright. We must accept this "confusion" as a function in Inventor Smiley Very Happy. They have to do something with this, hope better in next version.

 

 

Message 10 of 15
davis.j
in reply to: aries.1482

davis.j
Advocate
Advocate

Sorry for the bump but does anyone have success with adjusting the density of the lighting in Studio?

I prefer to use the "Photo Booth" Style but I cant seem to adjust the density. I move the slider and the preview changes but the final render is identical to the one with a different density value. Is there another way to adjust the density. Everything else works fine. My Products renders look great except the darkness/weight of the shadows is overwhelming and looks too dark.

0 Likes

Sorry for the bump but does anyone have success with adjusting the density of the lighting in Studio?

I prefer to use the "Photo Booth" Style but I cant seem to adjust the density. I move the slider and the preview changes but the final render is identical to the one with a different density value. Is there another way to adjust the density. Everything else works fine. My Products renders look great except the darkness/weight of the shadows is overwhelming and looks too dark.

Message 11 of 15
-niels-
in reply to: davis.j

-niels-
Mentor
Mentor

As far as i can tell, this is the only setting that influences the shadow density in the final render:

afbeelding.png

But i don't really use Studio for rendering, so i might be wrong...

 

You can always try using Ray-tracing instead of Studio, then your settings in the lighting style will have more effect.


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

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As far as i can tell, this is the only setting that influences the shadow density in the final render:

afbeelding.png

But i don't really use Studio for rendering, so i might be wrong...

 

You can always try using Ray-tracing instead of Studio, then your settings in the lighting style will have more effect.


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

Message 12 of 15
davis.j
in reply to: -niels-

davis.j
Advocate
Advocate

Typically I use draft quality as it is faster and looks better to me.

I do use ray tracing for quick renders but it doesn't have transparency controls so it is useless for larger format content.

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Typically I use draft quality as it is faster and looks better to me.

I do use ray tracing for quick renders but it doesn't have transparency controls so it is useless for larger format content.

Message 13 of 15
-niels-
in reply to: davis.j

-niels-
Mentor
Mentor
I don't know what options you have left then, within Inventor anyways...
You might get better results with post-processing... adding more/better defined shadows in Photoshop or the like, but it would be more work then just rendering.
It might even be worth considering other software, easiest probably being Fusion for decent results without too much learning the software.

Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

0 Likes

I don't know what options you have left then, within Inventor anyways...
You might get better results with post-processing... adding more/better defined shadows in Photoshop or the like, but it would be more work then just rendering.
It might even be worth considering other software, easiest probably being Fusion for decent results without too much learning the software.

Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

Message 14 of 15
davis.j
in reply to: -niels-

davis.j
Advocate
Advocate

@-niels-  Yeah that is basically what I have been doing. Just shape the shadows in photoshop with some effects to make it look more photo realistic. That transparency is so nice to have with Studio. I may try and make a new system style that is a copy of "photo booth" to try and get eh desired effect.

@-niels-  Yeah that is basically what I have been doing. Just shape the shadows in photoshop with some effects to make it look more photo realistic. That transparency is so nice to have with Studio. I may try and make a new system style that is a copy of "photo booth" to try and get eh desired effect.

Message 15 of 15
-niels-
in reply to: davis.j

-niels-
Mentor
Mentor

@davis.j Just out of curiosity: are you saving the ray-tracing image through the small ray-tracing dialog (bottom right)?
What happens if you, instead, go to File>export> image?
When you use that method you can select an alpha capable filetype (png, tiff) and select "options" to enable a transparent background.
You'll have to wait for it to finish "generating offscreen image", but you should get a raytraced image without the background.
(i'm not 100% sure if it's truly alpha channel, my quick test generated a white background in a png, but it might help.)


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

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@davis.j Just out of curiosity: are you saving the ray-tracing image through the small ray-tracing dialog (bottom right)?
What happens if you, instead, go to File>export> image?
When you use that method you can select an alpha capable filetype (png, tiff) and select "options" to enable a transparent background.
You'll have to wait for it to finish "generating offscreen image", but you should get a raytraced image without the background.
(i'm not 100% sure if it's truly alpha channel, my quick test generated a white background in a png, but it might help.)


Niels van der Veer
Inventor professional user & 3DS Max enthusiast
Vault professional user/manager
The Netherlands

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