Block Instances and Materials

[Travis Serio_cg]

Does VRay's material editor not assign materials properly to Rhino Block Instances? Mine does not seem to work unless I explode the Block and rejoin it making it a polysurface.

[joe_b]

Block Instances and Materials

When I apply a material to a block with just regular Rhino it doesn't seem to do anything either. I believe thats just how blocks are - its the same with mapping. You have to explode it and do it to each component individually. At least in Rhino3 - I'm not sure if they are changing that for Rhino4

[Travis Serio_cg]

Block Instances and Materials

Interesting, Flamingo aka "flaming oh no" manages to do it so somewhere it's possible.

[joe_b]

Block Instances and Materials

I guess they do some kind of custom algorithm - I guess applying it to each component. The default Rhino behavior of applying materials (which is all we have at the moment) doesn't handle that. We can look into it for a future service release though.

[Travis Serio_cg]

Block Instances and Materials

thanks joeb. Unfortunately for the Matrix development team Block instances are a blessing and a curse. Blocks have been the only way (so far) to manipulate and create massive amounts of gemstone geometry for complex jewelry models on the fly ex pushing, pulling, twisting, moving along surfaces and so on. The blocks are a pain and McNeel is aware of it. They dont cursor select when standard geometry shares a plane with them or is under them, they dont change layers well, they dont export well... I think blocks were a great idea for McNeel but are proving to need lots of help. No worries.