Why does my SOLIDWORKS Model look so dark?

One of the questions that I often receive is “Why does my SOLIDWORKS Model look so dark?”. It gets even worse if you switch to a ‘Shaded’ display style. Our customers ensure they have a supported graphics card and driver, and in most cases there are no appearances assigned to the model.

SOLIDWORKS Model looks dark?

Fortunately, the answer is simple. The lights have literally been turned off!!! All you need to do is:

1. Switch to the “Display Manager” tab.
2. Click on “Scene, Lights, and Cameras” and then click on “Lights”.
3. As you can see in the image below the “Directional1” light is grayed out which means it is turned off.
4. To turn it on again simply right-click on the Directional light and select “On in SOLIDWORKS” from the shortcut menu.

And your model starts to shine again like a diamond.

Model illuminated