The Autodesk(R) Inventor(R) 2020: Presenting Designs with Image and Animation Tools learning guide teaches you tools in the Autodesk(R) Inventor(R) software that can be used to enhance how designs are presented. You begin in the modeling environment, learning how to customize visual styles, include reflections and shadows in a display, set up and control lighting, and assign material appearances.

The guide also discusses the Presentation and Inventor Studio environments. The Presentation environment enables you to create snapshot views (still images) and animations to help document an assembly and show how parts relate to each other (exploded drawing views). Inventor Studio is an alternate tool that can also be used to create realistic renderings or animations.

The topics covered in this guide are also covered in the following ASCENT guides, which include a broader range of advanced topics:

Autodesk(R) Inventor(R) 2020: Introduction to Solid Modeling Autodesk(R) Inventor(R) 2020: Advanced Assembly Modeling Autodesk(R) Inventor(R) 2020: Advanced Part Modeling

Objectives

Enhance the appearance of surfaces and edges of a model by assigning visual styles, ray tracing, reflections, shadows, and a ground plane. Customize and assign lighting styles to control the number, color, and intensity of light sources in a model. Manipulate the visual appearance of a material using the in-canvas appearance and texture tools. Create, assign, and edit existing appearances in the model using the Appearance Browser. Understand how presentation files can be used to document an assembly model. Create a presentation file with animations or Snapshot views. Publish a presentation file to create images and videos. Render a realistic image of a model that has had appearance, lighting, and camera customizations. Create a realistic animation of a model by applying parameters, constraints, and actions. Create a composite video by combining camera shots, animations, and transitions using the Video Producer. Create a custom environment for use when rendering models.

Prerequisites

Access to the 2020.0 version of the software, to ensure compatibility with this guide. Future software updates that are released by Autodesk may include changes that are not reflected in this guide. The practices and files included with this guide are not compatible with prior versions (i.e., 2019). The material covered in this guide assumes a mastery of Autodesk Inventor basics as taught in Autodesk Inventor: Introduction to Solid Modeling.