Hello people, welcome to this video! We will see here how to apply
filling and materials on 3D Objects and how to render your projects with
AutoCAD 2016!
Please leave feedback to improve our future guides!
In our previous videos, we have seen how to fill 2D objects, using the
Hatch command. When you move to 3D objects, this tool does not work
fine anymore, since you are able to fill just bases or any parallel face
to it. Plus, the filling created is still a 2D object.
A 3D Object is composed by wireframes, such as sides and vertices - that
you can check with the 2D Wireframe or the Wireframe view - and the faces,
that are visible if you use any 3D view, like the Realistic one.
You can personalize both of them in different ways.
If you want to give to a 3D Object a uniform color to all its edges and
faces, simply select the whole object and change its color going to Home
and then to Properties.
To color sides and edges shown in the Wireframe views, go to Solid
Editing under the 3D Tools panel, and then to Color edges. Select the
edges one by one, press Enter key, and decide the color to give to them.
Choose Index Color to pick a quick list of colors, or click on the True
Color tab to be more precise.
To color faces instead, you can use Color faces inside Solid Editing. The
procedure is equal to the one seen for the edges before.
With the tools inside Solid Editing, you can define just one color per
time, so apply this tool more than once if you want to give to faces or
edges different colors.
In professional projects, you usually need to fill objects using materials,
representing grass, bricks, or a roof structure. This is quite useful for the
final render of your project, used to present your work when it's done.
All that is used to apply materials and render your project is inside a
section called Visualize, that is hidden by default. Simply right-click
on a vacant space on top, go to Show Tabs and then click on Visualize to
make it appear.
In Materials you have all settings to apply and edit materials. The first
button opens the Materials Browser, that lists all materials that AutoCAD
has.
Before applying a material on any object, you must import it into your
Project first. By default, your Project has just one material included,
called Global. To import other materials, just hover a material and click
on one of the two buttons on the right to add it to the list on top.
You can also check and edit each material imported in your project
double-clicking on one in the list. This will open the Materials Editor,
where you can edit the material name, its color and style. Use the small
black arrow on the right side of the preview to change the kind of sample.
When you finish, just close the Editor: all the material settings
will be saved.
You can also rename or delete an imported material right-clicking on it.
To apply a material on an object, select it and then click once on the
imported material you want to apply to it. Mind to use a 3D rendered view,
or you won't see any material.
You can also apply materials to one face only, just hold CTRL down to
select one face per time and then click once on the material you want to
apply.
All materials applied may be shown badly with low resolution. In these
cases, you need to install the Medium Image Library. If you type RENDER
in the command line and press Enter, you can download and install this
library from the dialog box that appears.
Let's see now how to render your project.
Although the Realistic view is very good, it doesn't include all the
full details like a full render on your Project.
To start rendering, simply click on the Tea button in the middle of the
Visualize panel. AutoCAD needs some little time to complete the rendering.
You can check its progress through the Render Progress Bar percentage.
It is rendered what is shown in your workspace at the moment you click on
the Render button, taking all objects present and also the point of view
chosen in the ViewCube, like a screenshot.
AutoCAD saves each render made on your project, inside a list more below,
clicking on the down arrow. You can also save a selected rendering made
clicking on the Save icon on top. You can also set the zoom or print the
rendering.
Moreover, you can adjust the render settings going to the Render section.
Click on the first bar to adjust the render quality: the higher it is,
the more additional time you need to wait to perform the rendering.
Click below the tea icon to set the pixel resolution. You can adjust
other settings clicking on the arrow in the right corner.
Through the second bar, you can select different ways to render your
project: choose Window to open the rendering done in another window, as
seen before. Choose Viewport to render directly on your main workspace.
Choose Region to render just a selected area on the workspace.
Mind that, if you render directly on the workspace using Viewport or
Region, you won't be able to save your rendering, since this is lost when
you move or edit something on the workspace.
To improve the final rendering on your project it can be useful to add
any environment, light or sky.
To add sunlight, click on Sun Status in Sun & Location. Apply the
recommended settings that AutoCAD suggests and a new window called Render
Environment & Exposure appears. Here you can adjust the general Exposure
and turn on Environment to add a general sunlight, that you can edit
through Image Based Lighting.
Plus, if you click on Sun & Location, you decide what kind of sunlight
you prefer, based on the date chosen and the hour or geographic location.
You can also add shadows on objects in Lights section. Choose Ground
Shadows to show just shadows on the ground, often used when you have
sunlights only. Choose Full Shadows if you want to show ground shadows
and also all other shadows that can appear between objects.
You can also add secondary light sources. Point adds a light with a point
as a source. This spreads in any direction, so you simply have to decide
where to place it, clicking on your workspace and then using Enter key.
Such point is shown as a small orange sphere on your workspace.
If you choose Spot, you will add a spotlight, a light source with a
defined direction. Simply fix where to place the origin and then a second
point to fix the light direction. Use Enter to apply. You can adjust
such light source selecting it and using the triangles to set the radius
and the feather of the light edges.
The spotlight does have a target, that is kept even if you move the
light. You can adjust the target simply moving the central blue square.
There are some settings that can be applied to any kind of light source
selected. You can set all general settings going to Lights. To move any
light source, select it first and use its Gizmo system.
If you want to add a light source from an infinite distance, use Distant.
This is a kind of light source very similar to the Sun.
There is also Weblight, to add special non-uniform light sources, try it!
To complete the render, you just need to add sky and horizon. To do this,
turn off Environment from Sun Status, and active the Perspective view
going on the bottom corner icon that appears when hovering the 3D
ViewCube. This adds the horizon to your project. This is fixed, even if
you rotate the carthesian system.
Add Sky clicking on Sky Off on top. To add other things in detail, like
grass or streets, you have to make them.
When you are ready, just render again!
Thanks for watching! Check out our full guide for AutoCAD 2016 for more!