About Rendering - Civil 3D 2020

A realistic rendering of a 3D model can often give a product team or prospective client a clearer vision of a conceptual design than a plotted drawing.

Rendering is the process of creating a raster image based on the 3D objects in a scene. A renderer is used to calculate the appearance of the materials attached to the objects in a scene, and how lighting and shadows are calculated based on the lights placed in a scene. Environmental and exposure settings of the renderer can be adjusted to control the final rendered image.

While the final goal of rendering is to create an artistic or photorealistic presentation-quality image, you might need to create many renderings before you reach that goal. The basic rendering workflow is to attach materials to the 3D objects of a model, place user-defined lights, add a background, and start the renderer with the RENDER command.

A rendered image can be created for a new model without attaching materials, placing user-defined lights, and adding a background. By default, a default material is added to all 3D objects in a model and the renderer automatically uses two default distant lights when user-defined lights are not placed in a scene. As an alternative to the two default distant lights, you can specify the use a single default distant light that shines from over-the-shoulder. Default lights cannot be moved or adjusted.