How to Make Vectric Rendering Images WAY BETTER
A few different methods for changing the way image renderings look in Vectric software. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve, Aspire, and Cut2D.
Want to learn more??
Click the link below to take your Vectric skills to the next level!
Video Transcript:
Hello everyone in this lesson, I'm gonna show you how to get these really cool renders, where you could see the background has changed, and you could save these as a picture to send to customers, put on your website, share on social media or whatever you'd like to do with them. And you could see this is inside of the 3D view.
The 2D view looks normal and you could see, we can export these images. And this is a actual final image that you can send to any anyone you'd like. So I'm gonna show you how to do this and a few more things you can do by changing the background in the 3D view of Vectric. Okay to start out here this is what you'll normally see in Vectric software, in the 3D view.
And it's generally this purple blueish color background, and it's a gradient color. So it's a little darker at the top. And then it fades down to a lighter color at the bottom. And then sometimes you may also see the modeling plane in the background and that's that very light colored piece of material, that's the size of your job.
And then finally, you may see this blue, green, and red arrows that represent your origin position. So if you see those two objects and you would like to hide those, just go up to view and then click draw origin that will turn the origin off and then click view and click draw modeling plane.
And that will turn the modeling plane off. And now you'll be left with either your 3D model or your toolpaths, whatever you're previewing at the current moment. So in this case, this is actually a 3D model that we're working with. But everything I'm about to show you applies for toolpaths as well, if you're previewing those and this all works in Cut2D, VCarve, and Aspire.
So first off, if you wanna change just the color of the background, you can go up to edit, then come down to options. And then in your option settings, you'll see 3D view settings. And then right here, you'll see some options for changing the background. So you can see where the first option is here. It has the shaded background style by default, it's set to gradient and that's that dark color fading to a lighter color at the bottom.
And then you could choose both colors of the gradient right below that. So to change a color, just click on the color you want to change and then click the three little dots on the right side. And you could choose a brand new color from the color options here. Or you can go to custom, and you can enter in a custom color or select it on the color panel up here.
So there's lots of different options for changing the color. So we're gonna cancel that and you could do the same thing for the gradient color. So the second color would be the bottom color. The first color will be the top color, and then they'll fade together. If you have the gradient option turned on.
Our next option for the background color is dropping down this box. And we have either a solid color or an image. So if we click solid color, now it's only gonna take this first color. So let's say for instance, maybe you wanted a white background. You can click on this color and then click the three little dots and you could choose a white color or any color you'd like, and then click okay.
And now to accept that change, click okay at the bottom. And there we go, now we have a white background. So now whenever you save an image from your rendering, it will have the white background that you see here. And I'll show you one more trick with that at the end of the video here. But before we do that, let's go back to edit and then options.
You can also see my origin came back on. You can actually turn that off into settings here as well. So where it says draw origin click no, and that will no longer appear automatically. And then you can also turn on and off the material block. You can turn on and off the color shaded view, which I would recommend leaving that on.
And then the one below that is an important one if you wanna save ink on your printer, if you wanted to print your images. So this is going to ask you if you wanna print the background. So if you click, no, that will save you some ink when you go to print your projects. And then below that we have animate camera moves.
So that's when you switch the views up in the top right corner. That will animate it if you leave that on, the only reason I would say to turn that off is if your computer was really slow and was having trouble with the 3D view. Okay, and then the last option down here, you can see it says image file path.
So that's gonna be our background image if we wanna use one. So to use that we first have to go up to the top here and drop this down and click image. Now it's gonna ignore these colors here. And the only thing it's gonna use is whatever image we want to use, that we'll place down here. So in order to use an image, we need to have it downloaded onto our computer first.
So you can use whatever image you'd like for this. You can use your company logo, uh, just a random background picture or whatever random picture you'd like to use to have as a background image. And if you wanna find one online, you can do a quick search. You can see, I just searched for background wallpaper and I'm left with many different options to choose from.
You can also add in some more keywords there, if you wanted something more specific. And you'll see, this is the one I used in their first example at the beginning. And there's many more images like that, but you will see that some of these may have the watermarks on them as. So you may have to pay for those images.
Uh, there are some free images you can use, but just be careful of copyright claims with the images. But you could see here, this one's a real nice one. It's like a brick wall with a little light on it. Let's try that one. So what we can do is right click on that image. And then click save image as, and then here I'd recommend saving it in a folder that you don't plan to move it from.
And then you can even give it a specific name if you wanted to. But when we go to Vectric, we need the exact location of this file. So if we were to move this image later, it will most likely not be able to find it again. So that's why I recommend putting it in a folder that you're going to not move it from.
So I'm just gonna click save in this folder, and then I'm gonna go back to Vectric. And then where it says image file path. We need that exact path location. So we're gonna go to our file folders on our computer and you could see this is the image we just downloaded. And to find that location, you can either right click on it.
And then come down and click properties all the way at the bottom, or you can click properties up in the top menu if you have that there. We're just gonna click on the bottom there and click properties. Okay, then here, it's gonna tell you the location. So that's the folder that it's in and then at the top is gonna be the file name, but we want all of that together.
So if you go to the next tab that says security at the very top here is gonna be the exact path location. So we're gonna select all of that click and drag on it to highlight all of it. And then right click and click copy. And then we can close that out and go back to Vectric. And then where it says image file path.
We're gonna right click in that box and click paste. And there is the path location of the picture that we want to use. So now we're gonna click okay. And there we go, now there's our new image. Now, wherever you place this on, the image is how it's gonna save when you save a rendering image. So you wanna make sure the part is rotated the way you want it and located on the image where you want it.
So let's say we did it right there and we were happy with this look. So to save this there's two different ways. If you're not previewing a toolpath, you can just go to view. And then come down where it says, save shaded image. And then when you click on that, it's gonna ask you where you want to save it.
So I'll just save it in the download folder and you can see, I already saved one from our first example. I'll just name this one example number two. And you can even choose what type of file you'd like it to save as. If you want a higher quality image I would recommend PNG. So we'll select that and click save.
And now that just saved this as a rendering. So now if we go to our file folder, you can see our example, number two is right there. We can double click on that. And there we go there's our image that we can send to anybody that you'd like. And once you add the background image in Vectric, that's gonna stay there until you change it again.
So when you open up a new file, that background will still be there. But you can change that at any point, just by going to your settings. Okay. I did mention there was a second way to save images from here, and that is in your preview toolpath option. Once you preview your toolpaths, you're gonna click the button here that says save preview image, and that will do the exact same thing.
Just pick a folder, you want to save it and you'll save it as an image. Okay now I'm gonna show you one last option here for editing the background in a different way. And what we're gonna do is change the color of the background to make it easily removable. So we're gonna go back up to edit and then go to options.
And then what we're gonna do is go back to the style and change it back to solid. And we're gonna leave that white color there. You can use whatever color you'd like, but the white will be easy to remove. And you'll also notice that our image file path is still here. That can stay there for as long as you want, because now we can switch back and forth between colored or the image.
So if you wanna use that image often, just leave it there and you can switch back and forth very easily. Also at any point, if you mess up the settings too much and you want to go back to the original settings, then just click the button down here at the bottom to restore all original settings. Keep in mind though, that will affect all the settings within the program options here.
Okay so now we're back to our white color let's click okay. And now you can see that background is nice and easy to remove if we had to. So now what we're gonna do is position this however we like. We can even use our controls up here, like the isometric view, and then zoom in some, another tip that you can use is going to view.
And there's also an option that says use shadow shading. And if you click on that, you can see that will add a little bit of a shadow around the taller objects. So if that's an effect you're looking for that can add a little bit more realistic touch to your design. And there's also an option if we go back up to view, there's an option that says light follows viewer.
If you click on that, that will change the lighting of your project. Now that might not be exactly what you want. So if it's not, then you can go back and turn that off. And it'll be a little bit brighter. So those are some more settings you can play around with, but once you're happy with the view, we're gonna go back up to view and click save shaded image, and then we're gonna save this as example number three and click save.
And now if we go to our file menu, you can see now we have an example with a white background. And it's the exact view that we were looking at there. So if this is all you wanted, you can perfectly use it just like this. But if you want to do some additional things with this, I'll show you a few more options.
So if you're familiar with like a Photoshop program or any photo editing programs, you can definitely use those and edit these even further. But if you also want a free program that you can use, that's very easy. You can go to this website right here, it is called remove.bg. And this is for removing backgrounds.
So what you wanna do is click upload image and select the image that you want to remove the background from which in this case, that white background's gonna be very easy to remove. These other images will be a little bit more difficult. So that's why we changed it to that solid white color. So now we're gonna click open and you can see that automatically removes the background.
And now the background is transparent, and then you also have further editing options with this program and you can download it right away from here. Now, one thing about this program is it is free to download regular images, but if you wanna higher quality image, I believe you do have to pay for those.
There is some pricing with those. I don't think they're very expensive, but depending on how much you use this and how quality of the images you want, you'll have to look into that. But another really cool thing about this program is this option right here, where it says magical designs, click on that and click use in designify, and you'll see it'll generate some additional design down here.
So as you can see, it did some simple designs with a rendered background. We can also look, there are some with shaded backgrounds. There are some with picture backgrounds, even holding it in a hand, and you can see all these different designs here. So there's many different, uh, backgrounds and different designs you can, uh, choose from here.
So these are just a few more options of different things you can look into for previewing your design on different backgrounds. And once we find one of these that we like, let's say it was this one here, because it matches the color. You can now just click, download and download this image right here. So as you can see, that was a few different options that we can do to change the backgrounds of our images.
And to give it a little bit extra design element to them. And these will really make your design stand out if you're sending them to a customer or even just sharing them on your website or social media. So that's all for this lesson, if you enjoyed that, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
The 2D view looks normal and you could see, we can export these images. And this is a actual final image that you can send to any anyone you'd like. So I'm gonna show you how to do this and a few more things you can do by changing the background in the 3D view of Vectric. Okay to start out here this is what you'll normally see in Vectric software, in the 3D view.
And it's generally this purple blueish color background, and it's a gradient color. So it's a little darker at the top. And then it fades down to a lighter color at the bottom. And then sometimes you may also see the modeling plane in the background and that's that very light colored piece of material, that's the size of your job.
And then finally, you may see this blue, green, and red arrows that represent your origin position. So if you see those two objects and you would like to hide those, just go up to view and then click draw origin that will turn the origin off and then click view and click draw modeling plane.
And that will turn the modeling plane off. And now you'll be left with either your 3D model or your toolpaths, whatever you're previewing at the current moment. So in this case, this is actually a 3D model that we're working with. But everything I'm about to show you applies for toolpaths as well, if you're previewing those and this all works in Cut2D, VCarve, and Aspire.
So first off, if you wanna change just the color of the background, you can go up to edit, then come down to options. And then in your option settings, you'll see 3D view settings. And then right here, you'll see some options for changing the background. So you can see where the first option is here. It has the shaded background style by default, it's set to gradient and that's that dark color fading to a lighter color at the bottom.
And then you could choose both colors of the gradient right below that. So to change a color, just click on the color you want to change and then click the three little dots on the right side. And you could choose a brand new color from the color options here. Or you can go to custom, and you can enter in a custom color or select it on the color panel up here.
So there's lots of different options for changing the color. So we're gonna cancel that and you could do the same thing for the gradient color. So the second color would be the bottom color. The first color will be the top color, and then they'll fade together. If you have the gradient option turned on.
Our next option for the background color is dropping down this box. And we have either a solid color or an image. So if we click solid color, now it's only gonna take this first color. So let's say for instance, maybe you wanted a white background. You can click on this color and then click the three little dots and you could choose a white color or any color you'd like, and then click okay.
And now to accept that change, click okay at the bottom. And there we go, now we have a white background. So now whenever you save an image from your rendering, it will have the white background that you see here. And I'll show you one more trick with that at the end of the video here. But before we do that, let's go back to edit and then options.
You can also see my origin came back on. You can actually turn that off into settings here as well. So where it says draw origin click no, and that will no longer appear automatically. And then you can also turn on and off the material block. You can turn on and off the color shaded view, which I would recommend leaving that on.
And then the one below that is an important one if you wanna save ink on your printer, if you wanted to print your images. So this is going to ask you if you wanna print the background. So if you click, no, that will save you some ink when you go to print your projects. And then below that we have animate camera moves.
So that's when you switch the views up in the top right corner. That will animate it if you leave that on, the only reason I would say to turn that off is if your computer was really slow and was having trouble with the 3D view. Okay, and then the last option down here, you can see it says image file path.
So that's gonna be our background image if we wanna use one. So to use that we first have to go up to the top here and drop this down and click image. Now it's gonna ignore these colors here. And the only thing it's gonna use is whatever image we want to use, that we'll place down here. So in order to use an image, we need to have it downloaded onto our computer first.
So you can use whatever image you'd like for this. You can use your company logo, uh, just a random background picture or whatever random picture you'd like to use to have as a background image. And if you wanna find one online, you can do a quick search. You can see, I just searched for background wallpaper and I'm left with many different options to choose from.
You can also add in some more keywords there, if you wanted something more specific. And you'll see, this is the one I used in their first example at the beginning. And there's many more images like that, but you will see that some of these may have the watermarks on them as. So you may have to pay for those images.
Uh, there are some free images you can use, but just be careful of copyright claims with the images. But you could see here, this one's a real nice one. It's like a brick wall with a little light on it. Let's try that one. So what we can do is right click on that image. And then click save image as, and then here I'd recommend saving it in a folder that you don't plan to move it from.
And then you can even give it a specific name if you wanted to. But when we go to Vectric, we need the exact location of this file. So if we were to move this image later, it will most likely not be able to find it again. So that's why I recommend putting it in a folder that you're going to not move it from.
So I'm just gonna click save in this folder, and then I'm gonna go back to Vectric. And then where it says image file path. We need that exact path location. So we're gonna go to our file folders on our computer and you could see this is the image we just downloaded. And to find that location, you can either right click on it.
And then come down and click properties all the way at the bottom, or you can click properties up in the top menu if you have that there. We're just gonna click on the bottom there and click properties. Okay, then here, it's gonna tell you the location. So that's the folder that it's in and then at the top is gonna be the file name, but we want all of that together.
So if you go to the next tab that says security at the very top here is gonna be the exact path location. So we're gonna select all of that click and drag on it to highlight all of it. And then right click and click copy. And then we can close that out and go back to Vectric. And then where it says image file path.
We're gonna right click in that box and click paste. And there is the path location of the picture that we want to use. So now we're gonna click okay. And there we go, now there's our new image. Now, wherever you place this on, the image is how it's gonna save when you save a rendering image. So you wanna make sure the part is rotated the way you want it and located on the image where you want it.
So let's say we did it right there and we were happy with this look. So to save this there's two different ways. If you're not previewing a toolpath, you can just go to view. And then come down where it says, save shaded image. And then when you click on that, it's gonna ask you where you want to save it.
So I'll just save it in the download folder and you can see, I already saved one from our first example. I'll just name this one example number two. And you can even choose what type of file you'd like it to save as. If you want a higher quality image I would recommend PNG. So we'll select that and click save.
And now that just saved this as a rendering. So now if we go to our file folder, you can see our example, number two is right there. We can double click on that. And there we go there's our image that we can send to anybody that you'd like. And once you add the background image in Vectric, that's gonna stay there until you change it again.
So when you open up a new file, that background will still be there. But you can change that at any point, just by going to your settings. Okay. I did mention there was a second way to save images from here, and that is in your preview toolpath option. Once you preview your toolpaths, you're gonna click the button here that says save preview image, and that will do the exact same thing.
Just pick a folder, you want to save it and you'll save it as an image. Okay now I'm gonna show you one last option here for editing the background in a different way. And what we're gonna do is change the color of the background to make it easily removable. So we're gonna go back up to edit and then go to options.
And then what we're gonna do is go back to the style and change it back to solid. And we're gonna leave that white color there. You can use whatever color you'd like, but the white will be easy to remove. And you'll also notice that our image file path is still here. That can stay there for as long as you want, because now we can switch back and forth between colored or the image.
So if you wanna use that image often, just leave it there and you can switch back and forth very easily. Also at any point, if you mess up the settings too much and you want to go back to the original settings, then just click the button down here at the bottom to restore all original settings. Keep in mind though, that will affect all the settings within the program options here.
Okay so now we're back to our white color let's click okay. And now you can see that background is nice and easy to remove if we had to. So now what we're gonna do is position this however we like. We can even use our controls up here, like the isometric view, and then zoom in some, another tip that you can use is going to view.
And there's also an option that says use shadow shading. And if you click on that, you can see that will add a little bit of a shadow around the taller objects. So if that's an effect you're looking for that can add a little bit more realistic touch to your design. And there's also an option if we go back up to view, there's an option that says light follows viewer.
If you click on that, that will change the lighting of your project. Now that might not be exactly what you want. So if it's not, then you can go back and turn that off. And it'll be a little bit brighter. So those are some more settings you can play around with, but once you're happy with the view, we're gonna go back up to view and click save shaded image, and then we're gonna save this as example number three and click save.
And now if we go to our file menu, you can see now we have an example with a white background. And it's the exact view that we were looking at there. So if this is all you wanted, you can perfectly use it just like this. But if you want to do some additional things with this, I'll show you a few more options.
So if you're familiar with like a Photoshop program or any photo editing programs, you can definitely use those and edit these even further. But if you also want a free program that you can use, that's very easy. You can go to this website right here, it is called remove.bg. And this is for removing backgrounds.
So what you wanna do is click upload image and select the image that you want to remove the background from which in this case, that white background's gonna be very easy to remove. These other images will be a little bit more difficult. So that's why we changed it to that solid white color. So now we're gonna click open and you can see that automatically removes the background.
And now the background is transparent, and then you also have further editing options with this program and you can download it right away from here. Now, one thing about this program is it is free to download regular images, but if you wanna higher quality image, I believe you do have to pay for those.
There is some pricing with those. I don't think they're very expensive, but depending on how much you use this and how quality of the images you want, you'll have to look into that. But another really cool thing about this program is this option right here, where it says magical designs, click on that and click use in designify, and you'll see it'll generate some additional design down here.
So as you can see, it did some simple designs with a rendered background. We can also look, there are some with shaded backgrounds. There are some with picture backgrounds, even holding it in a hand, and you can see all these different designs here. So there's many different, uh, backgrounds and different designs you can, uh, choose from here.
So these are just a few more options of different things you can look into for previewing your design on different backgrounds. And once we find one of these that we like, let's say it was this one here, because it matches the color. You can now just click, download and download this image right here. So as you can see, that was a few different options that we can do to change the backgrounds of our images.
And to give it a little bit extra design element to them. And these will really make your design stand out if you're sending them to a customer or even just sharing them on your website or social media. So that's all for this lesson, if you enjoyed that, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
