Lesson 7 – Rendering with Inventor Studio

This lesson contains two exercises. In the first exercise, you create a virtual
studio, position the race car on the stage, and render a high resolution image. In
the second exercise, you animate a constraint that controls the race car ride
height, and then render that animation to a video file.

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
 Apply a decal to a surface.
 Create a camera.
 Apply a surface style.
 Render an image.

Exercise: Render an Image

In this exercise, you do the following:
 Create walls.
 Apply a decal.
 Model the floor.
 Assemble the stage.
 Create the studio.
 Apply a surface style.
 Render a high resolution image.

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Completed Exercise

Create the Walls

1. Open a new Standard (mm).ipt part file.
2. Create a work plane offset from the XY plane by -110 mm.
3. Create a new sketch on the work plane.
4. Project the center point on to the sketch plane.
5. Create a 6200 mm x 5000 mm rectangle centered at the origin.

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 6. Extrude the rectangle upward 3200 mm.

7. Apply the Shell tool:

 For Thickness, select 100 mm.
 Remove the three front faces.

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Apply a Decal
1. Create a new sketch on the back wall.

2. Use the Edit Coordinate System tool to verify that the sketch coordinate
system is oriented with the X axis running horizontally.

3. If this is not the case, click the X axis and then click the top edge of the
back wall, as shown above.
4. Use the Insert Image tool to apply SideView.jpg on the sketch.
5. Resize the image so that it covers the entire back wall of the stage.

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 6. Finish the sketch and use the Decal tool to define the applied image as a
decal.

7. Save the file as Walls.ipt.

Model the Floor

1. Open a new Standard (mm).ipt part file.
2. Sketch a 6100 mm x 4900 mm rectangle on the XY plane.

3. Extrude the sketch upward 100 mm.

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 4. Save the file as Floor.ipt.

Assemble the Stage

1. Open a new Standard(mm).iam file.
2. Place Walls.ipt into the assembly.
3. Place Floor.ipt into the assembly.
4. Constrain the floor to sit directly on top of the base portion of the wall.

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 5. Save the file as Stage.iam.

Create the Studio

1. Open a new Standard (mm).iam assembly file.
2. Place Stage.iam into the file.
3. Place Race Car.iam into the file.
4. Place a mate constraint between the horizontal plane of the race car and
the floor.

5. Drag the race car so that it sits approximately in the center of the stage.

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 6. Click Applications > Inventor Studio.
7. Click Camera. Click once near the center of the back wall. This places the
camera target and makes a perpendicular line for positioning the camera.

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 8. Drag the cursor to place the camera on the near side of the car.

9. Click OK to close the Camera dialog box.

The camera can be positioned manually, but an easier method is to use

the Standard View control tools to get the desired view, and then have the
camera automatically positioned to match the view.

10. Verify that the projection mode is Perspective.

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 11. Adjust the view as shown.

12. Right-click Camera1 in the Inventor Studio panel. Click Set Camera to
View.

This repositions the camera and target to match the viewport.

13. Click Render Image.

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 14. Set Camera to Camera1. Set Lighting Style to Global Lighting.

15. Click Render.

16. Save the file as Studio.iam.

Apply a Surface Style

In this sequence, you define a surface style.

1. Open Floor.ipt.
2. Click Applications > Inventor Studio.
3. Click Surface Styles.
4. Click New Surface Style.

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 5. On the Reflection tab, set the Shininess value to 55%.
6. Open the Diffuse Map tab. Click Use Texture Image.
7. Select BlueTiles.bmp and set the scale to 1000.

The scale value increases or decreases the size of the map, making the
tiles larger or smaller.

8. Open the Bump Map tab. Click Use Bump Image.

9. Select BlueTiles_bump.bmp.
10. Set the Scale to 1000.

The bump map causes the renderer to give the illusion of depth. The
bump map scale needs to be the same as the diffuse map for the grout
lines to match the tiles.

11. Select the top face of the floor. Click Assign Surface Style.
12. Close the Surface Styles dialog box. Save the file.
13. Switch to Stage.iam.
14. Render the Image.

Render to a Higher Resolution

The rendered image is acceptable and it can be rendered at a higher resolution.

1. Click Render Image.

2. Set the resolution to a width of 2000 and a height of 1200.
3. Render the image.

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 High Resolution Rendering

Exercise: Render an Animation

In this exercise, you set up and render an animation showing the suspension
going through its range of motion.

Set Up the Animation

1. Open Animation.iam.
2. Click Applications > Inventor Studio.
3. Right-click Camera1 in the browser. Click Set View to Camera.

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 4. Open the Race Car hierarchy in the browser. Navigate to the work plane
named Ride Height.

5. Right-click the 50 mm flush constraint. Click Animate Constraints.

6. Set the Ride Height to increase from 50mm to 100 mm over 3 seconds.
Click OK.

7. Click Expand Action Editor in the Animation Timeline.

8. Drag the time slider to 3.5 seconds.

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 9. Right-click the ride height flush constraint. Click Animate Constraint.
10. Set the End value to 50 mm.
11. Under Time, click Specify.
12. Set the Start Time to 3.5 s. Set the End Time to 6.5 s.

13. Click OK to close the dialog box.

14. In the Time controls, click Go to Start.
15. Click Play.

Note: The ride height rises from 50 mm to 100 mm, pauses for 0.5 seconds,
and then returns to 50 mm.

Render the Animation

1. Click Render Animation.
2. Set or verify the following values in the General tab:
 Width: 640
 Height: 480
 Camera: Camera1
 Lighting Style: Global Lighting
 Render Type: Realistic

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 3. Click the Output tab.
4. Click the Browse button. Set the Output file name to Suspension.wmv.
5. Set the Time Range from 0 to 6.5 seconds.

6. Click Render.
7. Accept the default settings in the dialog box. Click OK.

Note: The file will take considerable time to render.

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