I'm an Office Designer and have been doing this for a few years, but to me it seems my 3Ds are still a bit 'childish' or 'amateurish'. Below is one typical that shows how my 3Ds generally look.



I'm hoping to move to AutoCAD 2012 very soon, but for now, in 2009 or 2010, is there a better way to present my 3Ds? I've heard about lighting, and seen some pretty remarkable renderings, but I don't know much about it yet and can only get the simplistic grade drawings shown above.

Anyone have thoughts or recommendations on where I can get more information about how to present better quality 3Ds?

Autocad 2012 doesn't exist yet. It won't be released until March or April next year, but 2009 or 2010 should work just fine. I can't see the image you posted for some reason, so I don't know what sort of quality you're getting currently, but you should be able to produce very realistic renders with either of those versions you're working with. You just need to know how to set up your scene and adjust all the parameters.

Take a look at these tutorials:
http://www.we-r-here.com/cad/tutorials/level_3/3-17.htm
http://www.dscohn.com/AU/handouts/GD115-2%20Rendering%20part%202-DOC.pdf

Cad64 wrote: Autocad 2012 doesn't exist yet. It won't be released until March or April next year, but 2009 or 2010 should work just fine. I can't see the image you posted for some reason, so I don't know what sort of quality you're getting currently, but you should be able to produce very realistic renders with either of those versions you're working with. You just need to know how to set up your scene and adjust all the parameters. Take a look at these tutorials: http://www.we-r-here.com/cad/tutorials/level_3/3-17.htm http://www.dscohn.com/AU/handouts/GD115-2%20Rendering%20part%202-DOC.pdf

Thanks Cad64, that sounds like exactly what I need to learn. I'll check those links out ASAP.

Yes, it's true, producing a quality realistic render does take time. But that's not something that's exclusive to Autocad. It doesn't matter what program you use. Producing a high quality photo-realistic render is going to take some time. A high end, multi-processor machine will render faster than a low end machine, but you will still have to wait. That's just the reality of 3D rendering.

Cad64 wrote: Yes, it's true, producing a quality realistic render does take time. But that's not something that's exclusive to Autocad. It doesn't matter what program you use. Producing a high quality photo-realistic render is going to take some time. A high end, multi-processor machine will render faster than a low end machine, but you will still have to wait. That's just the reality of 3D rendering.

I understand completely! I'm not running a low-end system, but it isn't high-end either. Most of my current drawings are pretty small anyways, so I think learning it won't be too difficult. I think I'll just dive into those tutorials you provided and do some Help File reading.

Thanks!!