KeyShot 3D Rendering: Showcase your 3D models and create hyperrealistic images with KeyShot in the fastest and most efficient way possible with this book and ebook.

Formerly known as HyperShot, KeyShot is an application developed by the company Luxion, that is run today by professionals in various disciplines to deliver images with hyperrealistic quality. KeyShot delivers physically accurate lighting and a library of materials that allow us to experiment and make changes all through our viewport in real time.

Whether we are engineers, artists, or designers, time is a precious element that we are always racing against, and this is particularly true when it comes to rendering 3D data. On some occasions, the quality of our work is compromised as we need to spend time learning complex new software. KeyShot has been designed with simplicity in mind, allowing the user to create high-quality images while putting aside the technical details.

Unlike other rendering packages on the market, KeyShot is a processor-based rendering program. All the rendering calculations are 100 percent CPU-based, which means we don't need a high-performance graphics card to get the job done. KeyShot utilizes all the cores and threads in your processor, and because it was built on 64-bit architecture, it also gives us more room to increase performance.

In order to work properly, it is important to have the right tools. KeyShot allows you to apply materials, set up the lighting, and obtain hyperrealistic images in a matter of minutes. Traditional rendering applications often have, too many settings, each giving the user a different level of control over the appearance of the project. Although a large number of settings allows for more flexibility, understanding how each of them works can be a time-consuming process.

In this section, we have laid out several points that we consider helpful when using KeyShot for your projects compared to other rendering applications.

The following are some basic points related to working with KeyShot:

The following are a few basic points related to traditional rendering tools:

KeyShot is a powerful rendering tool that is used in a variety of fields within the CG industry. However, it is important to remember that KeyShot has a limited set of animation tools, and I recommend using a different application such as Maya, 3ds Max, or Softimage if your project requires complex character animations or special effects.

Now that we understand the fundamentals of KeyShot and its benefits, we will take a look at how to start using KeyShot for your projects, from the beginning to the end. If you do not have KeyShot, you can download a trial version from the website by performing the following steps:

KeyShot supports a variety of file formats from third-party applications. A list of the files currently supported can be found on the KeyShots website. For our projects, we will be working with files with the OBJ (object file) extension. Let's go ahead and get started. Perform the following steps:

The new settings window allows you to choose the orientation or the direction in which your 3D object will be placed in the viewport. Depending on which application we are importing our files to, some of them have their Cartesian axis orientation set up differently. In this case, the file we will be working with is an OBJ file imported from Maya, and this file has Y Up as its Orientation, as shown in the following screenshot:

When working with our project files in KeyShot, it is important to remember prior to importing any models that, all parts of the model need to have their own material assigned to them. To do this, before exporting any of our 3D files from other applications, make sure that the option material is checked in the export options. Once all the pieces of our model have been assigned with their own material, KeyShot will be able to understand how to assign materials properly to all parts of the mesh. A new feature called Material Template, currently available in KeyShot v3.3 and later versions, allows us to link materials and parts of our models to the materials found inside KeyShot's library. For example, instead of copying and pasting materials from one object to another, we can create a template that automatically applies all the materials to the corresponding parts of a model when it is imported into the scene.

When creating a template, we need to specify a source name and a destination name.The source name is essentially the name of the part or the material exported directly from a third-party application such as Maya or SolidWorks. Once it is added to the template list, KeyShot will search for any parts or materials associated with the names in the source list and apply any assigned materials in the destination list. We can see an example of a template list in the following screenshot, with the parts of our Wacom tablet listed on the left-hand side and the materials we assigned them with on the right-hand side:

Next, let's see how to move, rotate, or scale our model in the viewport. Perform the following steps to do so:

Once our project model has been imported, our 3D file should be displayed in our viewport along with a new project window. This window contains five different tabs, of which we will discuss three in the following sections.

Scene

The Scene tab shows all the parts of our model. The left-hand side of our Project window shows the parts of our mesh under the Parts heading. The order and the name of each of the parts are listed according to the name of the material that was assigned to it by its original application. In this case, our 3D tablet was imported from Maya and all its parts were assigned with a specific material inside Maya. The right-hand side of our Project window shows the list of the current materials that have been applied to the parts inside KeyShot under the Materials heading, as shown in the following screenshot:

Material

The Material tab lists all the available materials in KeyShot according to their category. In the lower part of our Project window, we can see the materials that belong to the specific folder we have chosen from the list. To apply any material to our model, simply drag the material and drop it onto the part of our model where we wish to apply it. Another way of accessing the list of materials is by clicking on the Library tab in our main viewport.

If we need to access the material properties of a specific part of our model, we can do so by double-clicking on any part of the model.

To apply any material to our project, we perform the following steps:

1. Open the Library window by clicking on the Library icon from the viewport menu.

2. Drag the desired material and drop it onto our project.

3. Double-click on our model with the applied material to open the Material Properties window.

Material properties window

The material properties window allows us to modify the attributes of the material we choose. Depending on the material, certain properties will be available for us to modify. For example, any glass models will have the refraction attribute, which won't be available to us if we choose a metallic shader. In general, we have to fine-tune the properties of the materials in order to reproduce the look of real-life materials for most 3D applications such as Maya or 3ds Max. In KeyShot, however, this is no longer necessary since all its materials have been configured to be physically accurate. When using materials in KeyShot, each time a new material is applied to our model, it will show up at the bottom of our material's property window. This is to allow us to recycle a material and use it again if needed. We will discuss the material properties window in more depth in the next chapter.

In this chapter, we have learned how to import our models into KeyShot by clicking on the Import tab from the main viewport, and we have also taken a look at creating material template, which is a newly added feature of KeyShot 3. We have also gone briefly over the three major tabs that can be found in the Project window, which are the Scene, Material, and Environment tabs. Lastly, we mentioned during the chapter that there is also a separate material properties window and a properties environment window, both of which are in charge of controlling the look of our materials and lighting.

Now that we have an understanding of how our workspace is structured and we have learned how to bring models into our scene, we will discuss in the next chapter how to apply materials and textures. We will review what each parameter does and how it differs from other traditional rendering applications.