Currently on Keyshot 4
Keyshot online manual – HERE
Tutorials – http://www.keyshot.com/learning/tutorials/
Interactive 3D-enabled viewing with Keyshot VR – HERE
Help > Manual for the full instructions
File format: .bip – the model, scene and materials are saved in this file
Type K for hotkeys list
RMB Menus – context sensitive – place the cursor over the part or background and then RMB
These are the main steps in order:
Model Import
Keyshot in the labs has the Creo plugin installed and will therefore recognise native Creo parts and assemblies. Assemblies will keep the part structure.
Pick Options or Dbl Click on any of the parts to access the Options window. In the Scene tab you can manage the parts in the scene.
Bad Data? – are your model surfaces corrupted on import?
Live Link
Keyshot now has has functionality which allows you to update the render scene if the source CAD model changes – HERE
Import Issues
If your Creo model does not import correctly there could be a number of reasons:
Does the assembly import with the parts incorrectly oriented? Check your constraints in the Creo assembly, if the parts are not fully constrained or there are ambiguous constraints then KeyShot may misinterpret their relative position.
Are construction surfaces showing in the model? Make sure any unwanted surfaces are hidden on a layer.
If all else fails, which it sometimes will in the world of 3D import/export, from Creo, Save As a neutral model format such as Step.
Merge with current scene – select this option when you want to add multiple models into the same scene. You may need to move the existing object first so the newly imported object doesn’t overlap it – see below.
Model Orientation
If you’re lucky your model will import in the correct orientation, if not…..
Options > Scene tab > pick the part/asm name at the top of the tree
Use the rotation increase/decrease arrows to rotate the model and then the Snap to Ground option.
Shft + Alt + LMB – move the model off the centre on the ground plane
Camera Position
In rendering software, visualise the camera position moving rather than the model moving – we are viewing a scene.
Alt + LMB – Tumble the camera around the focal point
Alt + MMB – Pan the camera
Alt + RMB – Zoom or ‘Dolly’ the camera
Applying Materials
Open the Materials library, simply drag and drop onto the model.
Dbl click a part or RMB (over the part) > Edit Material to edit the Material properties
Textures
These are pixel based images which over ride the Material. Access through the Texture tab in the Material properties.
Bump Maps
See Bumpmaps
Bumpmaps give the impression of a textures surface by adjusting the surface normals. There are some bumpmaps in the Materials library under the Texture tab.
Labels
You need to use a tiff with transparency layers to create a see through ’label’, and move it on the model to see it when you first apply.
Setup scenario:
Liquid in Glass Setup
The image at the top this page took some input from some experts to get up and running as this was my initial result:
First suggestion was to put a tiny gap between the glass container model and the liquid model. This worked fine and produced this image:
But the gap in the model above means there is no glass air interface – the light travels from liquid to air then from air to glass. The input back from this was that for maximum realism the model should be created not with a gap but with 3 surfaces;
the glass air interface – liquid top surface
the glass air interface
the glass liquid interface
Download the file below RMB, save target as
This was from the KeyShot guys:
” That does look good, but it is still a bit off due to the small gap you had to create. The reason you need to set up this model like the wine glass is to be able to pull the refraction of the liquid inside the glass to the very edge of the outer glass surface. Being able to see the thickness of the glass surface like this is incorrect.
This file is already set up for proper “liquid-in-glass” rendering and it shows the important steps beyond just having 3 surfaces to represent the varying “interfaces” between liquid, air, and glass.
Splitting up the surfaces in this way is important because you need to set different “IOR” and “IOR out” settings for each of the surfaces.
The IOR is the index of refraction for the “inside” of the surface, and IOR out is for the “outside” of the surface.
So, looking at the wine glass bip file we do see that there are three surfaces. The outer most surfaces covers most of the glass itself and you’ll find the material is a solid glass with an IOR of 1.5. This means the inside of the surface will refract light like glass since glass typically has an IOR of 1.5. The IOR out for this part would be just 1, since the outside of the surface should refract like air (no refraction) and air has an IOR of 1.
That’s the easy surface, the next surface, the top of the liquid is similar. You need to have the inside of the surface represent the liquid and the outside should represent air. So, for the wine glass the top of the liquid has an IOR of 1.33 (the IOR of water) and an IOR out is 1 since it is, again, air.
The third surface, the “interface” of the liquid meeting the glass is the tricky one. On the inside of the surface you have the liquid, and the outside you have glass. So, for the wine glass you will see that this surface has an IOR of 1.33 since the liquid is on the inside, and an IOR out of 1.5 since glass is on the outside.
You can get even more complicated by applying the same technique to the color settings of the dielectric material to create proper colored liquid and colored glass renderings.
Here is my rendering of the wine glass that has these techniques applied, notice the accurate refraction of liquid within the glass. Just like the real photo above.