TurboCAD Pro V18.1 Preparing a Model for Final Rendering ... Pro V18.1 Preparing a Model for … ·...

Donald B. Cheke www.textualcreations.ca

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TurboCAD Pro V18.1 – Preparing a Model for

Final Rendering

(A Look at Materials, Lighting and Environment)

Donald B. Cheke

www.textualcreations.ca


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Copyright © 2011 Donald B. Cheke TurboCAD is a registered trademark of IMSI/Design.

Published by: Donald B. Cheke Saskatoon, SK Canada Visit: www.textualcreations.ca

All rights reserved No part of this document may be reproduced, copied, stored on a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author. The purchaser may, however, print one copy of the document to paper and may make one backup copy of the downloaded material for personal safe keeping. Limitation of Liability While every effort has been taken in the preparation and the writing of this document the author assumes no responsibility for errors and/or omissions nor for the uses of the material and the decisions based on such use. No warranties are made, express or implied with regard to either the contents of the document, its merchant ability or fitness for a particular purpose. The author should not be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the contents of this document. Special Note All of the work presented within this tutorial is based on TurboCAD Pro V18.1. Although users of previous versions are welcome to try the tutorial it cannot be stated what results will be achieved. Many changes, some subtle and others not so subtle, are made with each program revision. Although many steps and directions would be generic some may not be. The same can be said for tools between versions. Older versions may not have the same tools as Pro V18.1 and if the same tools are available the tools themselves may have been revised and hence, work in a different manner than they previously did.




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Table of Contents Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Bug Fix ........................................................................................................................................................................... 6 The Model...................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Standard Lighting ...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Materials Application ................................................................................................................................................ 29 Named View ................................................................................................................................................................ 53 Standard Lighting Tweaks ........................................................................................................................................ 57 Render Scene Luminance (Luminance Lighting).................................................................................................. 58 Render Scene Environment ..................................................................................................................................... 63 Material Tweaks ......................................................................................................................................................... 72 Saving the Rendered Image..................................................................................................................................... 83 Optional Render ......................................................................................................................................................... 85 Optional Photoshop Tweaks .................................................................................................................................... 87 Additional Resources ................................................................................................................................................ 97



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Introduction If there has been one area where I have received more tutorial requests than any other it has to be for a tutorial that looks specifically at Materials, Lighting and Environment. In essence - preparing a drawing for a final render. As daunting a task as this was, I decided that it was high time to make it a reality. To aid in the task I have decided to forgo creating a model during the tutorial, which is always time consuming. As such, I am providing a model that will serve as the subject matter (the MP3 Player), thus allowing all tutorial time to be spent on the three desired areas - that of Materials Application, Lighting (Standard and Luminance) and Environment. All three areas require review as all three affect one another at every level. This is one of the main reasons that so many users struggle with these particular TurboCAD functions. Readers will discover that I stick to a fairly narrow set of parameters when it comes to rendered output. Although each drawing (and sometimes each scene) requires it own approach, my settings have much in common. It is finding those 'right' settings that require a good portion of time and then making tweaks as needed. I also want to confess that I feel I have become a little less experimental than I once was and have not delved deeper than perhaps I should. For instance, I have not looked into the Advanced Render options that made their debut back in V17. It just seemed like another layer of complexity that I didn't want to deal with. When I compare my work to others l can see that they are achieving much more stunning renders. This is likely due to the use of the Advanced Render parameters and to the experimentation they have done - and truth be told, to the willingness to endure much longer render times than I am prepared for. Please note that I will not be explaining every setting in every properties dialogue, mostly because I don't know what much of it means. Much of my own confusion comes from the techno speak used is the LightWorks help files. Most just goes over my head – probably something many readers can identify with. In addition, I will not be illustrating every procedure that can be worked toward to get top notch rendered results, but I will be spending much more time describing these things than I do in my regular TurboCAD tutorials. I hope that my confession above will not keep you from trying this tutorial. Hopefully what is presented in this tutorial will bring some comfort and perhaps offer a starting point for further personal experimentation. Best regards, Don Within the tutorial the reader will be led through each keystroke to produce the rendered MP3 player that is illustrated on the cover of the tutorial. The reader will learn about the relationship between materials, lighting and scene and what it takes to get decent results. The user will also learn how to set up the drawing and how to insert standard lighting. The reader will learn how to establish render scene luminance and a render scene environment. The reader will also learn how to render their drawing and save it in a high resolution image format. Unfortunately, the reader will also learn that there is not one quick and easy setting that will work for every drawing – that experimentation and persistence is key to success. This tutorial is in no way intended to be the foremost authority on TurboCAD rendering but rather it is intended to introduce (or offer a stepping stone) the new user to the tools that are available to create a good rendering in the shortest time possible. The author feels confident that the techniques outlined



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within the tutorial can help lay the foundation for future successful TurboCAD rendering for even the newest user. As with any technically advanced software, the user is generally faced with a steep learning curve. It is the hope of the author that the money and time spent working through a Textual Creations tutorial will help ease the learning and allow the reader to come away feeling confident that they made a wise decision. This tutorial will assume that the reader has the Platinum Edition of TurboCAD Pro 18.1 with its extra architectural and mechanical tools, although no architectural or mechanical specific tools are used that the author is aware of. There are many ways to approach a project and it is likely that each person using the program would proceed in very different ways, so be open to alternative methods as experience builds. Many questions can only be answered through experience, but hopefully some of them will be answered by the time the beginner has worked through this tutorial. There is a great deal covered in this tutorial and the author urges the beginner to be patient, to read very carefully and to take the time necessary to do a good job. Try to enjoy the process as much as you will enjoy the final results. This tutorial assumes that the beginner has studied the desktop to some degree and can locate most of the tools. Since there are endless desktop configurations that can be set up in TurboCAD the author has opted to illustrate the required tools with the Office 2000 user interface, and the default toolbars in their undocked format (Office 2000 theme).

Please remember that any supplied images and files are for use within the tutorial only and may not be shared or sold to others. Place tutorial images in a permanent location on the hard drive. Two of the supplied hdr images are available from Paul Debevec's Light Probe Gallery but have been supplied for convenience. Visit: http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/Probes/ One of the supplied hdr images is available from Keith Bruns HDR Probe Gallery but has been supplied for convenience. Visit: http://www.unparent.com/ Also note that render times are much better in V18 than one will see if using previous versions of TurboCAD. TurboCAD now uses Multi-Threading for renders and can make use of multiple processors. The author has a fairly new Acer with 6 processers and has enable 5 for rendering.


http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/Probes/

http://www.unparent.com/


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The Model The M3P Player has a number of components that will require materials. They are illustrated below in exploded format so that the reader can become familiar with them. They are not exploded in the model file that is supplied with the tutorial download, but the parts are assigned to layers as labelled below.

From the File menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop select Open.



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Locate the supplied file MP3 Player for Tutorial.tcw and click Open.

The file opens in Isometric SW view.

From the File menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop select Save As.



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Select the Quality Rendering icon on the Render toolbar to render the screen. Note that it looks the same as rendering without lights.

If a user adds just one standard light, it will override the defaults lights when none have been placed. From the menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop select View and select Lights. Select the light names as indicated in the picture below and then select Delete.



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Double click Spot to open the Properties dialogue.

Select the Light tab. The fields that the author usually changes for the spot light is the Cone and Umbra. Cone is the angle and Umbra is the region of shadow. The closer those numbers are the sharper the edge of the shadow will be. Change both Cone and Umbra to 50.

Click OK to exit the Properties dialogue and OK to exit the Light Properties dialogue. Close the Light palette.



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For comparison, open the Materials palette. Locate the Metals category and double click the default Polished Brass thumbnail to apply the material to the selection.

Place the cursor over the Polished Brass thumbnail and then right mouse click and select Edit material. If a user right mouse clicks over a gray area between the thumbnails and selects Edit Materials it will open the Metals / Iron.

Left mouse click the icon by the Material dropdown menu to create a new material. Enter MP3 Link Chrome A in the Name field of the New Material dialogue that opens and click OK.

Select the Pattern tab in the window on the left. Left mouse click the color box to open the color menu. Enter an RGB of 47, 47, 47 and click OK.



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• Scale = width of object (Size X in this case). • Aspect Ratio = Height ÷ Width (10.6 ÷ 25 = 0.424). • Origin = negative of half the X, Y and Z sizes, although Z (thickness in this case) is not important in this instance and can remain 0. • Normal Vector specifies which direction the image sits. (Using a mixture of settings will angle the wrap.) • Up specifies the orientation of the image. See Don Cheke's TurboCAD Tip 14 for further insight into this. The author often creates a test wrap on a similar sized object on the world plane and in Isometric SE view. This means that Normal Vector and Up are mostly the same when creating other warps and experimentation is not required. If the new object wrap is then applied to the real object and does not align, the test object is resized and used as a coordinate seed. See Don Cheke's TurboCAD Tip 6 for further insight into this. Click OK to exit the Material Editor and click OK to exit the Properties dialogue. Press Esc to deselect the selection.

Select the Wireframe icon on the Render toolbar to end the render. With the Design Director opened, select the Letter, Buttons and Frame Surround names on the Design Director and then select the Select By icon at the top of the palette.

Select the Quality Rendering icon on the Render toolbar to render the selection. Press Esc to deselect the selection. Select only the surround. For starters, open the Materials palette. Locate the Lacquer category. Right mouse click over the Aegean Blue Metallic thumbnail and select Edit Materials.


Donald B. Cheke

Select Edit Environment. Select the Light probe tab and then select the folder to locate a new image.empty_kitchen2_half.hdr. Click Open

Click OK to exit the Render Scene Environment Editor and click OK to exit the Drawing Setup dialogue. Allow the scene to rerender (11 seconds on the author's off the shelf Acer).

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Select the Light probe tab and then select the folder to locate a new image.

Click OK to exit the Render Scene Environment Editor and click OK to exit the Drawing Setup dialogue.

seconds on the author's off the shelf Acer).

If the readers reflections aexactly as the author's it is likely because the named view is at a somewhat different angle.


Select the Light probe tab and then select the folder to locate a new image. Locate and select

Click OK to exit the Render Scene Environment Editor and click OK to exit the Drawing Setup dialogue.

If the readers reflections are not exactly as the author's it is likely because the named view is at a somewhat different angle.



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Press Esc to deselect the selection after the screen renders.

Select the surround. Back on the Materials palette, right mouse click on the highlight MP3 Black thumbnail and select Edit Materials. This is material that was specifically created for use in this file so it is not applied in any other file. As such, it can be edited to suit. If it had been used in a different file at some point a new material would be created based on it. Select the Pattern tab in the window on the left. Left mouse click the color box to open the color menu. Select Black.



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Optional Render Save the drawing file now. The next render is totally optional. It is to show how to easily create a mask for use in Photoshop when enhancing TurboCAD renders for use elsewhere, like the cover of this tutorial. Select Refresh at the top of the Design Director to deselect any selected names, or left mouse click below the names in a clear area to deselect. Turn off the Ground Plane layer. Press Ctrl + A to select all objects. Open the Materials palette. Right mouse click between the material thumbnails and select Set None.

Press Esc to deselect the selection after the screen renders.

This render will now be saved. With the desired view now fully rendered on screen select Save As from the File menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop. Under the Save As dialogue, select the desired Save in location from the dropdown menu at the top of the dialogue.



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The original layer is then selected.

Delete is then pressed one time.

While the outside is still selected, Select / Modify / Feather is selected at the top of the desktop. A Feather Radius of 1 is input and OK is selected.


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