Above image created with 10 minutes of work and <10 minutes cloud rendering
One of D3’s marketing guys asked me this the other day: “Where are you getting all these stunning and inspirational Fusion 360 images you’re submitting for the Blog?” Well, ok, maybe I’m embellishing a little… But he was sure there was some graphics database I was scouring for just the right image.
The answer: Fusion 360!
Most of the time I have such a specific idea of the image I’m looking for that even if there is a database of Fusion 360 or tech-related imagery out there, I’d never find exactly the right image. I’m a little obsessive about it honestly, which is why Fusion 360 works so well for me! In fact, every single feature image for our blog so far was produced using Fusion 360. We’ve even started producing other graphics for our website with it.
Nice! I’m starting to realize how great Fusion 360 is for marketing imagery, not just engineering design. I’m almost tempted to learn it!
-unsolicited Slack message from Aaron Lancaster, D3 Marketing Specialist
With the flexibility to use parametrics, direct modeling, even freeform – in the same model – I can pretty quickly model up just about anything I want in Fusion 360. Of course, many of you reading already engineer your 3D files in other software. That works too; if I have an existing model in just about any file format that I want to use, I just drop it in. The CUSH suspension in the image above originally came from Inventor. Of course, if it stopped with importing models, it wouldn’t really help me much with graphics. But it doesn’t stop there.
I’ve actually fallen in love with the rendering in Fusion 360. It’s quick and convenient. With really hardly any work you can get amazing renderings. This may be shocking to hear, but we’ve even had D3’s sales team in Fusion 360 creating their own renderings if you can believe it. It’s that easy. I know I’ll catch some flack from them for that comment, but I was excited about it!
The drone D3's sales team rendered in Autodesk Fusion 360
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There is a really great material library ready to use when I don’t want to dig into my own material mods. If I do want to tweak any material I can do it, and then I can save it to my cloud material library to use across all my designs.
The in-canvas renderer is more than adequate for most setup and test renders, even many of my final images. And if I want to go further to get that final high-quality render with all the advanced camera blurs and quality settings, I send it to the cloud and let other servers process it for me. I continue working in Fusion 360 instead of having my computer tied up by the rendering (you know what I mean if you’ve ever needed to render) and by the time the notification comes that it’s complete… I’ve already made 10 new changes and I have to re-render. Well, that last part may not be the best result for me personally, but there it is.
Want to email your renderings to others you need to collaborate with? No need to; all your cloud renders are automatically linked to the design files in Fusion Team. Anyone involved in the project can access them without taking up your precious design time. You can even set it to automatically update renderings with each save.
Renderings linked to the design page in Autodesk Fusion Team
On a side note, I’ve seen several customers who were previously using Showcase switch to Fusion 360 for renderings once the discontinuation of Showcase was announced. Fusion 360 is even easier to use than Showcase was, and offers so much more. Now, it’s not going to be as advanced of a tool as say 3ds Max or Maya is in the hands of an expert. But if you’re not a 3ds Max expert, Fusion 360 still offers plenty of power.
Fusion 360 makes a great rendering companion whether you’re modeling in Fusion or dropping in your designs from pretty much any other design package out there. Give it a try today, I think you’ll be impressed!
