Need SW assembly rendering options

I need to render a SW assembly but do not have Photoworks. I am trying it
with Blender by pulling the assy in as a vrml file. Unfortunately, it loses
some geometry this way. Also, the mates don't stay hooked up. Anyone know of
a good cheap way to render a SW assembly?
Mark

 

Have you tried using RealView? You can get fairly good results and then save
as a .jpg or .tif.
A RealView video card can be purchased for less than $200.00
Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

 

If you have $650 or so, try XSI fundamantals and Deep Explorer - its a
pro level animation and rendering package and uses the mental ray
engine. You can export the assembly from Solidworks as STL (save
assembly as individual files) - open one of the files in Deep Explorer,
drag and drop the rest of the files in to the original and save as a
..xsi file - this should allow you to open the file in XSI and keep the
part names in the file structure tree (I use Maya, but I'd imagine XSI
uses a similar structure). See Mike Tripoli's threads for suggestions on
getting rid of excess geometry (basically you need to get shot of
anything you cant see)
Once you have the file in XSI, you can add materials, lights and
suchlike to get awesome renders. Look at sites such as
www.highend3d.com, www.cgnetworks.com and search for XSI tutorials -
there are heaps of resources around. Especially look at HDRI lighting -
Essentially using an image of a surroundings to light your object -
gives really nice reflections and if you couple it with a basic light
set to soft shadows, you can get some good results pretty quickly. Dosch
design do a nice range and the setup is pretty quick.
A quick disclaimer though - I use Maya and Mental Ray, which is £1300
($2500) and haven't used XSI..... but as XSI is supposed to be better
integrated with Mental Ray and uses the same concepts, there should be
no reason for you not to get very good results for a lot less money -
XSI stood at $2000 a year ago! STL - Deep explorer works well and keeps
good detail in the geometry and allows you pretty good control over how
much detail to keep.
Hope this helps
Deri

 

There's a "competitive upgrade" for Lightwave 3D for $495.00. Not usre
what you need to get this price (I almost think you can claim
anything, but I could be wrong.. for example, I *think* I saw SW on
the list...!). Anyway, this and Baren-Boym's 3D File Export ($295.00),
and you're home free. I use this all the time with great results;

www.jfww.com/renders

These are all SW models brought into LW and rendered.

There are lots of ways to go, (XSI, 3DS Max are all great prgrams in
one regard or another) and all offer something that the other doesn't.

I use LW simply because it's what I'm used to at this point (and the
fact that 3DFE does a great job of keeping "surface colors" such that
shading is a breeze). Maxwell Render is coming on fast, but it's still
not ready for prime time.

Mike Tripoli