[sdiy] Best program for photo realistic renders of synths?

[dh at atoav.com]

Hi,

in a former life I was a VFX-freelancer. I'd agree that Blender would be 
the best choice for this. I tend to also use Illustrator for panel 
graphics. You can export vector graphics to dxf and import them into 
blender giving you a polygon shape if you need panel holes and such.

For prints I would just use an image texture (e.g. export a PNG from 
illustrator and map it onmto the panel geometry in Blender). The 
important concept to learn here would be "UV mapping" (this is the same 
in nearly every 3D-software, so learn once apply everywhere).

Then you need to model jacks and knobs and such, which you can reuse on 
every model. Blender allows for python scripting so you could also 
script something up to automate this.

If you are curious, here are Blender renders for my upcoming module: 
<https://n.atoav.com/s/PDNcdxELdTENZ3d>

Cheers,
David/atoav

On 31/10/2022 20:49, Davide Romboli via Synth-diy wrote:
> +1 for Blender ... free and Open Source
> 
> Il giorno lun 31 ott 2022 alle ore 18:10 Danjel van Tijn / intellijel
> <danjel at intellijel.com> ha scritto:
>>
>> I want to start making photo-realistic renders of synth projects but I am trying to choose which program is worth focusing my learning efforts on.
>>
>> We do all our 3D CAD work in Fusion 360 (PCBs are in Altium) and all our panel graphics in Adobe Illustrator.
>>
>> One step that is really important for me is to be able to take my panel graphic from illustrator and add them as decals to the 3D models. This needs to be precise in scale/position and should be easy to do or else it will be a real bottleneck for productivity.
>>
>> If I import graphics to Fusion, it is a real pain to try and scale them to the correct size and there is no option for 1:1 import. Fusion has very poor tools for this; they only allow coarse, concentric scaling (unless you manually try an enter scaling values but then you are just guessing) and it is very slow. Also, Fusion does not allow the import of vector images.
>>
>> I have taken a quick look at Blender and Rhino so far as alternatives.  Rhino allows for import of native Ilustrator files and will import at the correct scale.
>> Blender will allow SVG import but not at the correct scale. The scaling too is a bit easier to use than Fusion but it is still not ideal.
>>
>> In terms of Blender vs Rhino,  it is difficult to know which one is worth the time investment. Blender seems deeper in features, is free and has a large support community. Rhino at least offers a one-time purchase option that is not unreasonable and I like the interface better but the user community seems a lot smaller and I need to understand the NURBS approach.
>> Also, a lot of people, whether they are using Blender or Rhino, seem to do the final rendering in Keyshot (which is quite expensive).
>>
>> Does anyone have experience with these or another program?  What would you recommend?
>> I still need to make photo realistic models of UI elements like knobs and switches and for this, I am probably always going to be more familiar with the parametric cad modeling approach.
>>
>> thanks!
>>
>> Danjel
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