Assigning materials to layers - rant

[Rumlab]

Please CG... It's really pulling teeth here. The assigning of materials to layers is so slow and frustrating, its ruining the otherwise nice experience of a decent renderer. EVERY professional office I have come across who work with Rhino also work with a lot of sublayers - which makes completely sense with something as complex as architecture. But with 2 sublayers - assigning materials becomes crazy cumbersome. Maybe with product viz or jewellery, it is less important, but this is not where V-Ray shines the most. It's been almost 1,5 years now since the first remarks on this came during the beta fase.

[Peter.Chaushev]

Hello,

Currently, applying V-Ray materials to layers can be done in a couple of ways:
- the V-Ray Asset Editor's Material list Right-click > Apply to Layer
- through the Rhino Layer Material panel by enabling "Assign material by plug-in: V-Ray for Rhino" (or "Use plug-in: V-Ray for Rhino" in R6) and browsing the materials dropdown list.

The dev team is always keen on improving the UI and all feedback in this matter is truly appreciated. How do you imagine the best way of applying V-Ray materials to layers? What do you think will save you most time when working project files with complex layer structure?

Kind regards,
Peter

[palosanto]

Sorry to jump in but I agree with Rumlab that the material assignment to layers needs improvement and it's very frustrating at times. Here is my experience:

- through the Rhino Layer Material panel by enabling "Assign material by plug-in: V-Ray for Rhino" (or "Use plug-in: V-Ray for Rhino" in R6) and browsing the materials dropdown list.

Selecting a layer or layers and using this method doesn't always work as often times the material doesn't "stick" and the old material stays. I find it to be a 50/50 hit and miss. By the way (and I realize that this is a Rhino design decision) when a renderer other than Rhino's native is active (vray or any other) the "Assign material by plug-in" should be checked by default.

Also, and more importantly, again a Rhino problem, the Rhino material panel is unnecessarily wide and unable to remember its size and position so it always ends up buried under vray panels. So, often, after browsing and selecting a material I forget to click ok in both windows because the Rhino panel is out of sight and of course the process doesn't complete. That panel should be closed automatically once the material has been selected. At least is happening in Rhino 5, I can't speak for Rhino 6 interface because I don't use it yet.

- the V-Ray Asset Editor's Material list Right-click > Apply to Layer

As already noted very early in vray 3 development, the layer selection menu in the vray asset panel should unfold to accommodate the full width of the layer hierarchy, not only 12-14 characters. Even though the full name appears when hovering over the list, it is very time consuming to find the right layer when there are dozens of sublayers and all you can see is the top level names. Also it would be very useful to be able to multi-select layers in the list with the standard Shift and Ctl (or Cmd) methods specially because the method of selecting multiple layers in the Rhino material panel and trying to assign a material doesn't always work as I mentioned above. So trying to assign a material to 10 layers involves doing the process 10 times. Not very efficient ...

How do you imagine the best way of applying V-Ray materials to layers? What do you think will save you most time when working project files with complex layer structure?

Solving the above problems would be a great improvement but the fastest, and definitely my preferred method, would be to be able to drag and drop directly both to layers or to objects like it's done in other renderers like Flamingo and others.

Thanks

[ALTO]

This was discussed so many times already.....

Here is what we need, a new window with Full Layers structure and multiselection (checkboxes):


This is Rhino using assign to layers from the material editor. I'm pretty sure you can get access to this somehow...


Also an old post from last year: (unfortunately links to beta forum don't work)

Drag&drop directly to Objects and Layers would be very nice (very long time wish...).

I just finish watching the 3.6 for SU video, i like the new features and the work done in the UI, could you please consider to redesign also the Browse materials window (the one that pop out assigning materials to layer)?



Something more convenient like the Library Panel in the Vray Asset editor, would be perfect, with thumbnails, grid and list view.

Also the right click > Apply Material to Layer problem described here it's not fixable with that menu, we need a new window like the one posted by me in that thread (which is the default used by Rhino).
Layers structure with CAD files could be very complicated and the current way is not working at all.

Thanks

Regarding Drag&Drop i found this in Rhino Developer forum:
https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/drag-...ne-object/9422

[Rumlab]

I know this is problably way too late developement wise, and maybe you had a good reason, but why is the vray asset windows not "embedded" in rhino? Like Maxwell Render, where you can dock everything if you want? I suspect the lack of material drag and drop stems from this separation? Not too important though, but the above mentioned changes are. A (flyout) docked layer list in asset editor would solve a whole lot, if material drag'n'drop is not possible.

[Peter.Chaushev]

I know this is problably way too late developement wise, and maybe you had a good reason, but why is the vray asset windows not "embedded" in rhino? Like Maxwell Render, where you can dock everything if you want? I suspect the lack of material drag and drop stems from this separation? Not too important though, but the above mentioned changes are. A (flyout) docked layer list in asset editor would solve a whole lot, if material drag'n'drop is not possible.

Beside a bunch of other reasons, the V-Ray UI is separate in order to keep it more uniform between multiple products (V-Ray for SketchUp, partially V-Ray for Revit) and not limited by each host-app's native UI.
Drag&drop functionality is not limited by this decision. It has not been implemented yet due to complications of how material data is synched and managed between V-Ray and Rhino. The dev team is keen on the whole idea but I'll have more info to share on this only after a safe and robust implementation has been devised. Right now a lot of effort is focused on UI improvements. Layer material management will be revised and possibly improved for the V-Ray Next for Rhino release.

Kind regards,
Peter

[kvorning]

Is it correctly understood, that we have to pay 400 bucks for latest update, that supposedly fixes the UI problems? So it goes like this: Release beta - don't listen to users - sell upgrades, telling people its an ongoing process and fixes will be made - dont fix problems - instead develop new version to sell more upgrades.
The featurelist for NEXT looks fine, but mostly I just needed the good UI. Its really a maintenance license scheme, so might as well go all the way.

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi kvorning,

...we have to pay 400 bucks for latest update, that supposedly fixes the UI problems

V-Ray Next is a major upgrade which is paid.
On the other hand you are not forced to upgrade in any way.
There is a trial version of Next with no functionality limitations that you can download and test and just then decide whether you'd like to upgrade.

that supposedly fixes the UI problems

Can you be more specific about the problems you refer to?

Release beta - don't listen to users

We had 3 beta releases with each one addressing our testers' requests and suggestions.
Naturally, there will always be things that can still be improved and new user requests are constantly logged and considered.

telling people its an ongoing process and fixes will be made - dont fix problems

We do fix all issues with the active version and make that available to users via free Hot Fix or Service Pack release.
And we usually don't stop there - each release we do comes with new features and possibilities.
Keep in mind that the things discussed in this post can't be classified as 'fixes' or bugs that prevent the software from functioning.
Forum discussions like this one are quite useful for us to show that there is a workflow that can be improved (not fixed) and that there are multiple ways in which this can be achieved.
The apply to layer issue has been addressed in Next in 2 ways:
1. The Apply to Layer menu is bigger with the right fly-off panel open
2. An 'Apply to Layer / Active Layer' function is introduced - it lets one use the Rhino panel to select a layer and then apply the material to it

...but mostly I just needed the good UI

Have you gone through the release notes on Next?
release announcement
I hope that the amount of work that went into the Asset Editor and the V-Ray Rhino side UI is clearly visible.

Regards,
Konstantin