Render Questions

[Anonymous]

I have a few questions that hopefully people here can answer. I'm coming from 3dsmax and although I've used Inventor for years, I never really had a need to render in it often. I'm confused and surprised by the render situation in Inventor. So here it goes

1) Studio render: What is this? I don't mean what it does, I mean what render engine is it using? The forum searches and googling I've done leads to me to believe it's inferior to the newer ray tracer in Inventor. Some people say don't use it at all. I've tried it on/off over the years, it's not great, but is this the 3ds max equivalent of the old scanline renderer? I cannot find anything technical about this renderer. It seems legacy though and seriously outdated. 

2) Is Inventor ray tracing the same as Autodesk Ray Tracing (ART) in other Autodesk products (e.g. 3dsmax)? If so, what happened to all the options? In 3dsmax, you can define a noise filter, the level of quality, the accuracy of the ray trace, etc. All I see in Inventor is draft, low, high-quality options. What does any of that mean in technical terms? How can you seriously render with 3 completely relative terms and no technical details? And from what I can tell, all I can render is my current view. There's no render queue... really?

I've looked at Vred, it's pretty simple to use, but I still need to reapply materials in Vred to really get the effects of its Ray Tracing technology (at least that's what I've been told). I see some people using Vred in conjunction with Inventor to render, is that standard workflow now for Inventor users needing high-quality renderings? Why doesn't Autodesk bring over some of the 3dsmax rendering capabilities into Inventor? It seems goofy that Inventor users need a license to another piece of software, which is primarily aimed at automobiles, to get photorealistic results. The ray tracer (assuming ART) that Inventor currently uses isn't bad, my point is, it's too limiting to be really useful. I need more settings/options, I need a queue, etc. What am I missing about this picture? 

Thanks for reading

[Bill_Bogan1]

Hi adr5109,

The Inventor Studio uses the same render engine as the modeling environment. I do not believe it is a scanline renderer, but that is best left to the graphics folks to say.

The old Studio render engine was replaced some releases back. Originally, it was based on Mental Ray. Then, that was replaced by I forget what. Much later, the current ray tracing engine replaced that tech. 

As to "all the options"... the design intent was to make a rendering task as simple as possible. With some products the abundance of options presents a daunting task for someone not schooled in the nuances of that rendering engine. The easier the better/Push a button and generate good output, meanwhile move on to the next task.

I'll stop at this point, because I'm curious, and ask you... why not take the Inventor model into 3ds Max? You've got great experience there, can quickly get to the render you want.

In 3ds Max, File > Import > file type Autodesk Inventor (IAM, IPT).

[Anonymous]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for your reply. So that helps to know that Studio is using the same Ray Tracer engine as the modeling environment. 

I get making it simple, but there could be an advanced tab for people that come from render backgrounds.

Why don't I import Inventor files into 3dsmax?

Well, the short answer is that I have a finite lifetime.😉 Just try to import the Inventor stock model _Jet Engine Model.iam, it will take over 15 min for that file. Imagine importing a complex assembly? It would never happen, 3ds max just stalls after a certain point. I've imported simple parts into 3ds max, and that works fine, but usually, I'm not trying to get high level renders on simple individual parts. Previously, when I need to make something complex, I would remake it in 3ds max if I needed good photorealistic results or more flexibility with the renderer (Arnold provides more flexibility than ART).  For obvious time reasons, I'm trying to avoid that workflow. The import process between Inventor and 3ds Max, in general, is not very well optimized. I've also played around with exporting Inventor to other CAD types and then importing those, it's faster, but then you can run into model geometry issues that need repairing and materials issues. 

     Hence, the move to Vred for large assemblies. Vred handles the import process a lot better than 3ds max and understands materials assignments. Unfortunately, the Autodesk materials in Inventor have to be swapped out of their Vred counterparts (or Substance) to really benefit from the Vred ray tracing, but that's still less time consuming than 3ds max. I suspect that's why I don't see a lot of users combining Inventor and 3ds max in their workflow. It seems like Vred is the only reasonable option for large Inventor files that need better rendering than Inventor studio. It's a shame because the ART options are there in 3ds max, and presumably could be added to Inventor. Understanding the ART noise filter can save hours on a big render when you don't need high resolution on small details. I thought maybe I could access those options in the Inventor API, but no luck. Only functions are for the "quality" of the ray trace, with no explanation of what those subjective terms (low, med, etc.) mean. Unless someone here has a suggestion, I think I'm stuck using both Vred and Inventor to get the job done. 

[lena.talkhina]

Hello @Anonymous  !

Great to see you here on Inventor Forum.

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