easy rendering for Rhino in Windows

Product Materials and Lights

This tutorial shows how to render a Rhino model using nXt. The model includes some images that will be used as decals and a material library.

Support files for this tutorial can be downloaded here...

The tutorial covers:

Inserting materials from a library
Adding a decal to the rendering
Adding a spotlight to the rendering

To begin:

Open the model Rackmount Start.
Renderthe model.

This model is setup to add materials out of a material library.

To activate the material library press on the Material Tab and the Folderbutton:

This opens the location of the Material Libraries for NXT. Each material is a separate file in a series of standard directories on your hard-drive. Navigate to the folder called Stereo Materials that you downloaded with the Rhino model.

Unlike previous versions of Flamingo, once a material is assigned to a model, it is stored within the model. In this model we will assign the materials to separate layers. Do this by Opening the layer control and then dragging the materials to the layer.

Render the model.
The result should look like this:

To add a decal:

While this is a good start, the face of the rack unit would benefit from decal graphics that mark the controls.

A decal is a way to apply a single bitmap to an object. It can be used to apply labels and images to objects in the scene.

Select the face of the stereo.
On the Properties dialog, change the dropdown to Flamingo nXt Decals.
On the Properties dialog, Flamingo nXt Decals press the Addbutton.
Select the bitmap Label.png.
On the Decal Properties dialog, make sure the Projection is Planar, and then press the Placebutton.
Place the decal by snapping to the Lower Left Endpoint, then the Lower Right Endpoint, and the Upper Left Endpoint on the front of the face, the press Enter.

This will place the label correctly on the face of the rack unit.
Render the model.
The result should look like this:

To add a ground plane:

Next step in the tutorial is to add a ground plane for the unit to sit on.

To do this, go to the Environment tab, Ground plane section, check Enabled.
Press the Material button and select Reflective Base for the ground plane material.
Render the model.
The result should look like this:

To add a spotlight:

A next step might be to add a spotlight on the rack system to vary the lighting a little. The lighting in studio mode is controlled by an HDRI file, but we can also add another spotlight to the rendering.

Insert a Spotlight that highlights the face of the stereo.
Render the model.
The spotlight draws attention and interest to the front of the unit.

To depth of field:

For small studio objects it is sometimes nice to add depth of field to accentuate the depth of the object.

To do this, go to the Render tab, Depth of field section, check Enabled.
Set the Focal distance by pressing the button, and snap to one of the LED lights. This will set the point in the scene that is in focus. The Strength slider adjusts the focus in front of and behind the focal point.
Render the model.
Depth of field can take a few passes to resolve. The first few passes might be rough in appearance. The final image should look like this: