Autodesk Vault 2020 – Inventor Shaded Views Are Completely Dark When Updating DWF/PDF In Vault

By Miles Nicholson

Some users have reported that the Inventor shaded views are completely dark when updating DWF or PDF in Vault.

As an example:

This incident is currently being investigated by Autodesk® for a possible cause / resolution and is currently on Autodesk’s Inventor IdeaStation under article:

Lighting Adjustability in IDW Shaded Views

Additional Information:

Inventor Server was introduced in Autodesk® Vault 2018.2 and has since been used by default to handle Vault jobs for Inventor files. It doesn’t use an Inventor license.

Workaround:

• Avoid the use of customised lighting in the model file and use a customised appearance instead.
• In Vault Explorer, find out what the default IPJ is:

Open the IPJ and ensure that the design data is set to default. Edit and check in a new version if necessary.

• On the Job Processor client machine, ensure that the default "Design Data (Styles, etc.)" Application Options setting is correct.

It needs to point to the exact same location as the machine that checked the file in, in the first place.

• Try to use a default Reflection Environment in Drawing > Document Settings > “Drawings” tab such as the “Chrome.dds”.

• Consider switching back to use a standard Inventor (license needed) to work around this issue. See how to switch here: How to configure the Vault 2018.2 (or later) Job Processor to use standard Inventor

Article originally published by Autodesk: Shaded views are completely dark when updating DWF / PDF in Vault