How to Turn Off Floor Reflections and Shadows by DEFAULT?

[DennisD]

I want a plain white background (None) and no floor reflections or shadows. I edit the scene, setting Background to None, and unchecking Floor reflections. I do not have the option to uncheck Floor shadows as it is grayed out (???). And then I make sure it is set for All display states. I save this as my Part and Assembly templates.

However, when I start a new part or assembly using these templates not all of these settings are kept: Floor reflections is checked and the display state is set for This display state.

How do I make my defaults a) have None for the background, b) have no floor reflections or shadows, and c) apply to all display states?

It is probably simple to do this, but I have searched this forum and the SWX Help and not found the answer. TIA!

[bnemec]

And to think these mostly worthless features were a big deal in some "What's new in SOLIDWORKS xx"

Why would you want to turn off these productivity enhancing features that drive innovative ideation? They're on by default for a reason, DSS knows best.

[Glenn Schroeder]

What do your View Settings look like? I suspect they're turned on there.

[jcapriotti]

And to think these mostly worthless features were a big deal in some "What's new in SOLIDWORKS xx"

Why would you want to turn off these productivity enhancing features that drive innovative ideation? They're on by default for a reason, DSS knows best.

[DennisD]

What do your View Settings look like? I suspect they're turned on there.


image.png

I don't see a problem with my settings here.

DSS confuses frustrates me. Why should something so simple be so difficult to even find its information?!

[Glenn Schroeder]

I don't see a problem with my settings here.
image.png

DSS confuses frustrates me. Why should something so simple be so difficult to even find its information?!

Can you post your Part template so we can see if we get the same behavior?

[DennisD]

Can you post your Part template so we can see if we get the same behavior?

I don't think the problem lies in the templates themselves, but here is one.

I see this happening on the SWX versions I have installed, 2019-2022. I recently re-installed 2019 and think maybe something during that installation happened, so I am guessing it is a system setting in the Windows registry or it is a SWX system option that I've never paid any attention to.

Thanks for your efforts.

[AlexLachance]

Lol I have a feeling this is graphics related. You do not have the "Realview graphics" button in your bar and that is one thing that generates those.

[DennisD]

I've found something that at least gets me past the immediate aggravation, but I still do not understand why the templates did not save all the scene settings.

@AlexLachance mentioned Realview graphics. It is greyed out for me and I can't find anything that explains that in the SWX Help. (Perhaps because I don't have a high-end officially sanctioned graphics card I am not allowed to use Realview graphics?! I dunno fer sure.)
However, in searching for that I poked around and found this SWX setting:

This gives me the plain white background I want. However, if I do try to edit a scene I am forced to change this to "Use document scene background". The funny thing is that I tried to make the document scene background white, but it shows with an Image instead of None and the Floor reflections are checked.

@Alin, @matt, or @zxys001, can you explain WTH is going on?

[zxys001]

I've found something that at least gets me past the immediate aggravation, but I still do not understand why the templates did not save all the scene settings.

@AlexLachance mentioned Realview graphics. It is greyed out for me and I can't find anything that explains that in the SWX Help. (Perhaps because I don't have a high-end officially sanctioned graphics card I am not allowed to use Realview graphics?! I dunno fer sure.)
However, in searching for that I poked around and found this SWX setting:
image.png
This gives me the plain white background I want. However, if I do try to edit a scene I am forced to change this to "Use document scene background". The funny thing is that I tried to make the document scene background white, but it shows with an Image instead of None and the Floor reflections are checked.

@Alin, @matt, or @zxys001, can you explain WTH is going on?

Hi Dennis, well, in the past and present, my workaround to remove the floor reflections and shadows is to edit the floor size to be 0.01 X 0.01 or less.

[Rob]

So I just opened up an old part and was cursed with the reappearing floor reflection bug again which led me here.

Anyway I found the answer on reddit



The trick is to turn off reflections/shadows with a RMB click on Scene.

The problem is the settings aren't saved unless you also edit scene and hit the green tick.

enjoy!

[ryan-feeley]

Thanks @Rob! That was actually my reddit comment, and I'd forgotten myself how to do it.

There are various bugs and quirks involved. Here is what I believe is happening under the hood. There are two ways to get at these shadow and reflection settings. I'll call this one the "Higher Level menu"

I'll call this one the "Lower Level menu"

1. Suppose you have disabled “Shadows in Shaded Model” in the heads-up view. Then the floor shadows setting is greyed out under the "lower level" menu, as @DennisD pointed out in his original post. However, you can still manipulate the setting under the "higher level" menu. One of these must be a bug.
2. Suppose you have RealView off. Then you will not see a floor reflection, whether or not your Scene settings have it activated.
3. Suppose you make some changes via the Higher Level menu. They apply while the model is open, but are not saved to the file when you click save. For that to happen, @Rob is correct. You need to get into the lower-level menu with Scene > RMB > Edit Scene... and just click ok. And then save the file. This is a bug.
4. Suppose your scene file has no floor appearance associated with it, and you haven't explicitly added one to the model (which would take precedence) via Scene > RMB > Add Floor Appearance. Then manipulating the checkmarks under either the higher- or lower-level menus will effectively manipulate the list of text that controls the scene of your model. Call this the in-memory `.p2s` file, which per #3 isn't actually saved with the model unless you do step #3. Two of these implicitly add a `.p2m` floor appearance, but it isn't exposed anywhere in the GUI.
   
   • If you have nothing checked the relevant text becomes:

     Code: Select all

     shadow \n none \n floor visible nonreflective

   • Only shadow checked -- you get an implicit and hidden floor appearance:

     Code: Select all

     shadow \n transparent 0 0 \n floor visible nonreflective "Materials\miscellaneous\studio materials\shadow floor.p2m"

   • Both shadow and reflection checked -- you get an implicit and hidden floor appearance:

     Code: Select all

     shadow \n transparent 0 0 \n floor visible reflective "materials\miscellaneous\studio materials\reflective shadow floor.p2m“

   • Only reflection checked: not possible, you must enable shadow to activate reflection
5. Suppose you have a floor appearance, either directly from the scene file, or applied directly to the model/template that is anything other than the implicitly added and hidden `shadow floor.p2m` or `reflective shadow floor.p2m` mentioned in #4. Then manipulating the checkmarks via the lower-level menu is strange (see the lower-level image above). Whether or not floor shadow or floor reflection is actually active in your scene, you will find both set shown as filled-in squares, rather than on/off checkmarks. If you click in attempt to manipulate the lower-level settings, you will get a warning that these settings are coming from a floor appearance file, so any changes will force the removal of the floor appearance. However, manipulating the settings via the higher-level menu work as expected (modulo the bug from #3 where you need to edit the scene and click ok for the new settings to be saved with the file. This inconsistency is at best a quirk.
6. The settings for floor reflection exposed in the Solidworks UI apply only to RealView and the PV360 Integrated Preview. The settings for PV360 are the `reflectivity` parameter in the .p2m floor appearance file. I don't know how it works with Visualize.