How to Render to Key Shot

how Render with KeyShot - Before I begin the tutorial, let me say a few words about KeyShot. KeyShot is a very user friendly 3D rendering application that allows you to create photorealistic visuals in a very short time. It's the solution for many designers who don't want to waste time with complicated rendering software. When I first imported a model to KeyShot, my jaw dropped. “WOW, real time reflections of the HDR image on the model.”, I thought to myself. For those who create hundreds of test renderings just to achieve the right angle for reflections, you'll understand how much time you can save with that feature alone. Many designers have great models but bad renderings--a loss of quality in their portfolio that can affect job prospects or landing a project. KeyShot changes that completely, putting the ability to create stunning imagery in the hands of every designer. You may wonder what the key is to create great renderings. I will tell you. The key to a great rendering is the quality of light and use of material. That is exactly where we see the power of KeyShot. It offers preset environments (HDRI's) as well as physical lighting, hundreds of scientifically accurate materials and settings that are simple to adjust. All of the changes and adjustments to the scene happen right in front of your eyes. This tutorial covers these features along with the settings used for the rendering of the car you see in the image above.  Let's begin: In your modelling software you have to give the same color to those objects that in Keyshot should have the same material. In this way you GROUP the objects for Keyshot. Attention, in older versions of Keyshot it's the color that you must choose, in the new version it works trough materials ! After this step EXPORT the model (I use OBJ files...but there many other choices). Ones you are in Keyshot "IMPORT" the model. You will see a nice real-time rendering in your view.  This will allow you to understand what you should change. Remember that in your modelling software you have to set-up the units. For example METERS!  This will guarantee you to be able to import in a second moment other objects with correct  scale/rotation/size compared to the already existing project. The two most important panels (buttons) are the "PROJECT" panel and the "LIBRARY" panel. The project Panel shows you what you have in your scene. The Library panel shows you what you can add to the scene ( for example an other material on your car, or simply an other HDR image etc...). Let's give a quick look to the Library. You have this sections: Materials, colours, environments, backplates, textures, renderings. Materials: here you can find a list of materials to apply (trough drag&drop on you model). Environments: Here you can find many great set-ups of HDR images to use as background and light source (you can also import your own HDRI). Backtemplates: This are backgrounds with different choices of colours or images (you can create your own in Photoshop). Textures: If you apply them on your model you can choose between: it's colour, bump map, opacity or label (it is a kind of material editor). This for are sections that we use in this tutorial. Before I begin the tutorial, In the Material panel you have different sections. In our case I need a car paint material, so I search in the PAINT section a nice material. As soon you have applied (drag&drop) the material you can of course change the settings of the material to get other effects that you need. Make a double click on the object and you will see in the Project panel the material with several settings. They have very self explaining names. After changing it you can SAVE it to the library and use it again in other projects.