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I'm an electronics designer and currently working on a printed circuit board project. I use Autodesk Fusion 360 to do all rendering and 3D conversion, however I'm sure there are other ways to get better results than what I got:

enter image description here

I'm trying to get the same rendering result as this one from PCB Arts:

enter image description here

You can clearly see the shiny USB-C which is what I want to also achieve in my design, also the matte finish.

(I use Autodesk Fusion 360, but can also use Blender or other software)

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  • Why is this tagged adobe-indesign?
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Aug 12, 2020 at 18:46
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    Just for information: The not so glossy version is typical for low end CAD software which uses algorithmic shading instead or ray tracing. The wanted result needs ray tracing and a library of photorealistic materials such as polished steel and gold. Using those materials must be defined in the model and the rendering settings should define ray tracing and proper light environment. There's tutorials of it for Fusion 360 youtube.com/watch?v=sejMq84YREs
    – user287001
    Aug 12, 2020 at 18:47
  • if you need help with Blender check the Blender community
    – Luciano
    Aug 14, 2020 at 8:36
  • @user287001 path tracing.
    – joojaa
    Aug 14, 2020 at 13:43

2 Answers 2

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It's best to have proper lights, raytracing and photorealistic materials in the 3D model as your own results show.

In case they are not available but there's decent non-glossy shading in the rendered image you can separate the glossy metallic parts in the rendered image to new layers and apply to them the old "metallize with curves" trick. A non-glossy shading can be turned to chrome-like with partial tone scale inversion with curves. There cannot be color, so desaturate at first.

The result isn't especially impressive if the resolution is low like in your screenshot, but it hopefully shows the idea:

enter image description here

The USB connector is copied manually with the direct selection tool and pasted to a new layer. All color is removed with Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. A curves adjustment layer on the top has "next layer only"-switch ON.

Clipping with path would be a better way to make the selection and a there's no actual need for making a copy because masked adjustment layers would be enough.

Existing selection generates the right layer mask shape automatically as soon as the layer mask is created. The next "colorize it to gold" trick with Hue&Saturation layer uses a layer mask:

enter image description here

The color of the gold isn't the same as the real thing, but it can be good enough. The layer mask appeared with the next steps:

  1. Apply Select > Reselect or Ctrl+Click the layer icon in the layers panel (I had a copy of the connector) to get an active selection

  2. Insert the adjustment layer

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Just found out that Fusion 360 offers tons of materials and auto-render functions. For those interested in this topic, you can find all the materials in "Apperances" tab.

The result:

enter image description here

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