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Ambient Occlusion In Any Scene

Wednesday, January 23 2008

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Using some registry settings you can enable an option to use Ambient Occlusion in any scene.

The standard “Ambient Occlusion” scene can really make your models stand out a lot more and look much more realistic.

But what if you really want to use Ambient Occlusion but keep a plain white background with the kitchen scene reflections?

Here is a model using the existing ambient occlusion scene. Notice how real the shadowing is in the wheel wells, and among all the corners, nooks and crannies.

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Here is the same model using the “Plain White” scene. It looks nice, and while there is a transparent floor to catch the shadows from the first directional light, you loose a lot of the “depth” in the model. The wheel wells and other areas that are in shadow just aren’t as real as they should be.

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Using the downloadable registry files, you can double click the “EnableAOForAllScenes.reg”. When you restart SolidWorks, you can apply the same “Plain White” scene but now you can edit the scene and turn on a new option for “Ambient Occlusion”.

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Notice that even though I have turned on Ambient Occlusion here, it has only changed slightly.

In order to get the full effect of ambient occlusion, you need a lot of ambient light, and NOT a lot of brightness from other lights. The brightness value from other directional lights, for example, will wash out and kill the ambient occlusion shadows. So by simply turning down the brightness of my 2 directional lights and turning up ambient light (the ambient light itself or the ambient value in any individual light will do) you can get the full effect of ambient occlusion now:

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Comments

PowerTools wrote on Wednesday, June 10 2009

These registry settings are still valid for SolidWorks 2009.

Be sure you turn on Real View and Shadows to see the effects. If your graphics card doesn't support Real View, then don't bother with the reg file.

Neil wrote on Friday, January 2 2009

Are the reg files applicable to SW09 as well?

Engineer Wael Hagar wrote on Sunday, November 30 2008

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Engineer Wael Hagar wrote on Sunday, November 30 2008

Hi............eng : wael hagar

Kevan wrote on Friday, October 31 2008

emre: If you are looking for SolidWorks models then check out 3D ContentCentral. http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/

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waypererson wrote on Thursday, October 23 2008

Hey! I am using solidworks for about a year but I recently realized that the parts I've modelled looks uncomfortably unrealistic even if I edit material in the FM design tree. In solidworks demo videos, the reflections, the shadows etc. every detail of a steel or a chrome plated parts look astonishingly realistic. What should I have to do to make my parts look more realistic - as I was drawing the parts, I'm not meaning rendering or sth.-

Scott wrote on Wednesday, October 1 2008

This works and looks great. Maybe I am being stupid (I've never really used RealView much previously), but I don't see any way to save a scene so I can just apply it from the list. Surely that's possible?

Monite wrote on Saturday, July 26 2008

Occassionally I'm getting the following error:

"SolidWorks model is too large to be rendered."

I'm rendering small models so something else must be wrong. Also, it seems to come and go with small changes in the configuration of the rendering.

Any suggestions?

PowerTools wrote on Wednesday, July 16 2008

Once you've loaded these in the registry, you will be able to edit the scene from the Feature Manager in SW.

First, select a scene.

Then, to edit the selected scene, expand the "Lights, Cameras and Scene" folder in your Feature Manager. If you do not see this folder in the FM, then go to Tools, Options, Feature Manager and choose Show in the appropriate drop box.
Now you can right click on the scene in the FM and choose Edit Scene. This will show the Property Manager that you see above where you can enable the Ambient Occlusion check box in the Environment Rotation category.

Be sure that shadows are turned on or A.O. will do nothing to the scene.

Try changing the Environment Rotation values to see subtle differences in the image.

Lastly and then I'll shut up, if you're going to put your image into a brochure or slide show, try selecting the Plain White background, enable Ambient Occlusion, reverse the Floor Direction and then add a camera view.

Jonathan Marsh wrote on Tuesday, June 3 2008

Hi Andy
Applied the reg file OK however the scene editor displayed on this page is different from the dialog in solidworks (2008 SP3.0) do I need to change something to get the new scene editor?

Ian wrote on Thursday, April 17 2008

Hey Andy, I'm a little confused as to how you alter the scenery to enable this option. Is it a photoworks setting or is this something that can be enabled outside of photoworks by just adjusting the lighting?

Andy wrote on Friday, February 22 2008

Misty,
The files you download are Windows registry files. When you doubleclick on them, you will be prompted that you are altering the Windows Registry. It will then add the entries there to enable the features discussed. It's a real good idea to backup your registry first, just to be safe.

philip wrote on Monday, February 4 2008

hi i am lerning solid and i need boocs to downelod from the net ceen you help me?

Misty wrote on Tuesday, January 29 2008

I have downloaded the file. Now what do I do with them?

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