Tips and Tricks

General Tips

When assigning appearances to a robot with colors that are hard to distinguish from each other, it is best to separate each appearance by setting it to a vibrant color and changing it afterwards. For example, Team 9's robot in the CCC was mostly dark; as such the appearances were first set like below and then converted to shades of black and gray.

Appearances are set correctly, but colors need to be adjusted.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Instead of navigating to the Appearances tab, you can press the A key on your keyboard. This is one of the most useful keyboard shortcuts to know when rendering.

Tables

Creating a table and placing your models on it in your renders can add another level of depth and realism to your renders. A simple extruded sketch with a wood appearance is all that is needed for this. You can refer to Commonly Used Appearances for some of the wood appearances that we like to use.

A simple rectangular prism with the "3D Maple - Glossy" appearance

FTC 10497 Ultimate Goal robot rendered by FTC 15887, which includes a table

"Custom" Lighting

Sometimes, the HDRI or environment you are using just doesn't focus enough light on a certain area, no matter how much you rotate it. If this is the case, you can try creating "custom" lighting. This is done by creating three-dimensional bodies in an area that will not be visible in the render (usually above the camera's position) and applying an emissive appearance to them.

Extruding a 2-dimensional sketch to create "custom" lighting

Result of adding "custom" lighting with a yellowish emissive appearance