What is the most seamless modeling software to use with Keyshot?

Help and Troubleshooting
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Hello all!

I’m was wondering, what is the most seamless modeling software to use alongside Keyshot? For example, if I have a Keyshot scene with a cable and I need to bend the cable so a section of it goes in a slightly different direction, what tool would I use to do that?

Essentially, is there a program that works nearly seamlessly with Keyshot where I could “open” the Keyshot scene in that program, alter the mesh of the cable, and then return to Keyshot? Simply editing the cable by itself via SolidWorks or Blender, without the context of the scene around it, makes correctly editing the cable difficult. I’ve heard that Rhino works pretty well, but I’m unsure if it is the best option.

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where I could “open” the Keyshot scene in that program

Surely no one. You can export objects from KS scene as fbx or obj and edit them somewhere, then import them back into the scene.
From another point, a few CAD apps have ‘app-to-KS’ bridge plugins, which can place CAD objects into KS with a ‘live link’, so updating objects in CAD will cause similar changes in KS.

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Neither of those solutions help with the issue that I am having. As I had stated in my original post, editing the cable by itself via a CAD app, without the context of the scene around it, makes correctly editing the cable difficult.

Surely there has to be a better way to setup and manipulate objects for complex multi-object scenes in Keyshot.

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Yeah, not really. The intended ideal workflow is that all your 3D files are laid out in a modeling app before importing into KeyShot.

Because KeyShot is a standalone rendering app (as opposed to 3D DCC that supports modeling, rendering etc.), this is one of the biggest tradeoffs you make.

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Like others said as well, best is to do all arranging in your modelling software and KS is for the final process of the rendering.

Like Oleksii says, you can export the scene back to a modelling tool as fbx/gltf/obj of course so you have the context and cable inside the modeller. I sometimes use this approach to correct things, but it basically means I screwed up a bit before I dropped it all in KeyShot.

It’s much smarter to have your entire scene completely final in a modeller and just use that as ‘main’. If you need something to change you just do it in your modeller and (partly) import it again.

By using the scene in the modeller as the main stuff you can also more easily add things like UV-mapping if a material needs it, so you stay flexible this way.

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Interesting. I’m assuming that there is some benefit to having the rendering app being a completely stand-alone program compared to being coupled within a modeling application? I imagine that Keyshot, for example, is able to put more resources to improving their rendering engine rather than the tools to effectively model something. Hmm.

Interesting, currently I’ve been using Keyshot as the ‘main’ since I am working with parametric CAD models from SolidWorks. SolidWorks is quite difficult to work with when it comes to multi-object scenes, so I’ve been putting everything together in Keyshot instead, thus the core of my issue.

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I can imagine the issue if you use programs like SolidWorks since those are often also made for detailed product models without an entire scene.

Maybe it’s an idea to see what program would fit best in such a pipeline from CAD > Program X > KeyShot. I think KeyShot is not fast and easy to handle if it’s about adding more environment/items/props in your scene. Some align options would already be welcome but KeyShot is constantly rendering your scene in the viewport which makes it slow to organise a scene.

I would love an option to just use the geometry view to organise a scene including some align functions and other improvements but while doing so it shouldn’t try to render as well.

In your situation I think you could maybe use a very simple and straight-forward 3D tool just to position things and maybe UV-unwrap items, depending on your needs. It also should be able to import CAD and tesselate it like KS does since most software will work with polygons instead of nurbs.

Could be interesting I think to test a few programs because I think a nice 3D pipeline will actually help you save time later in the progress.

I do my modelling in MODO which can do everything like 3DSMax/Blender/etc. so for me the step from CAD > polygon is not really a thing. Sometimes I do download a model from GrabCAD and convert it to polygons. And I always (try) to work as organised as possible. Not that my scenes are that huge but especially if you want to reimport things or have several scenes you need to import in KeyShot it helps a lot if you respect the origin of a scene.

In the end it will also make a difference how complex your scenes will be and what would be most efficient. I had to do your cable example a couple of times because I needed a cable to fit an animated object. Still I think it would be more efficient if I partly did the animation in the 3D software and exported an Alembic file so you can actually have a cable animating as well.

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Solidworks used for managing complex assemblies for years, it surely has much more tools for the precise placement of objects than KS. If you using SW to KS plugin, you can get live updated scenes in KS.

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that is what i was going to suggest, is that the solution to the original problem is excatly what they have developed which is the LiveLinking plugins/.

Choose your app that youwant to do ALL of your modeling and adjusting in. Create that file, and using the plugin, open the scene in KS. Then if you have both apps open at the same time you can literally bounce between the two and make changes to your scene and render.

The tricky bit is to remember not to do any mods to the scene tree or the geometry in KS or that can break the live linking. KS should warn you. All of your scene stuff should be done in your 3d app, and lighting, materials and rendering are done in KS. If you can work with that sort of mentality, then you should be good. Just like the old school Lightwave 3d packages used to work. They used to have a couple different apps for different functions all for the same scene.

Wow, that just dated myself lol.

Anyway, I use Cinema 4D, and the livelinking has worked mostly. It seems to be a fragile monster, with good prospects but the plugins don’t get updated on the same regimen as the main KS app, but they seem to be backwards compatible in some respect.

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Hmm, an all-in-one program like Blender is something I’ve tried in the past, but I found that applying textures was always been quite clunky. In Keyshot you can simply drag and drop textures onto parts of a model and it seems to wrap perfectly (at least in my experience), the same cannot be said for Blender… unless I’m missing something.

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The label function of KeyShot is something which is a really nice and friendly way to apply textures. I’m not sure what the exact functions are in Blender and you might have a nice plugin which acts like the same.

For complex textures you often need an UV-map and that’s the trickiest part for a lot of people. Needs some time to get handy with those.

For me personally I like to model in MODO (and prepare UV-maps if needed), than I go to Substance Painter to create the textures for the model and for the render I import the model + textures in KeyShot. So I don’t already apply textures in my modeller, faster/easier in KeyShot.

It’s really common to have a certain pipeline that fits your situation best so it’s worth it to invest some time to see what works for you and that will save you a lot of time later.

If you work with CAD models in SolidWorks I can imagine you just use the KeyShot plugin for SolidWorks and that works pretty well I think. But if your renders need some surroundings/props around them it can be smart to use some kind of polygon modeller like Blender to actually prepare the scene.

While you can collect all kinds of external models in KeyShot from different sources I personally think it’s a bit slow to move all things in the right place. That’s mainly because KeyShot is a renderer and the viewport renders always.

In the end it’s personal preferences. KeyShot is the most friendly renderer you will find I think. It doesn’t mean KeyShot is also the best option for other things you need to get done before a renderer.

So it can be interesting to look online what kind of pipelines get with certain kind of companies/renderjobs etc. like the game industry uses completely different software than a company that does video fx renders. And their pipelines can be pretty long but a good/smart 3d pipeline can save you a lot of time if things need to get changed later on or a client wants something a bit different.

I’m mainly doing hobby things and I especially try/test a lot so my sources of models can be very different. But if I create something from scratch I’ll try to be as flexible as possible. I could for example use 3D Paint in KeyShot instead of using Substance Painter but I know that if something needs to get changed in the model I will lose the paint in KeyShot. This way I always try to think ahead and try to use the route/pipeline that I see as best fit.

And if you want scenes to also be fit for animation later on it can be smart to have the cable at the right place in a 3D modeller which can animate a cable/curve. Most modellers which are polygon based and do animation well have to tesselate the CAD model if you import it. And that makes it important you keep an eye on the number of polygons etc so the modeller tool keeps working smooth.

All might sound a bit confusing but there’s no single nice solution for rendering in general. It’s trial and error and see what works for you and the kind of renders you like to create. Maybe you can post a rendered image so people can tell how they would combine different things in what software.