Vray 1.5 Beta impressions

[ALTO]

Hi all, i'm posting here my impressions on the vray 1.5 beta, generally new features are great, anyway there are some new and old things that need to be finalized/fixed.

Here is a bit "disorganized" list of my thoughts:

- If i'm not wrong you said a long time ago that we can copy layers between materials. For example if a need to modify two reflective layers of different materials in the same way, i'd like to edit only one and copy the modified layer to the other material this unfortunately doesn't work. Also if i try to drag layers holding the Shift button, layer is deleted from list but is present on the right panel. I think it's a bug.
That's the error message from the debug utility: "tried to drag Reflection on to DefaultMaterial, but Reflection doesn't have DefaultMaterial set as it's parent, instead it is DefaultMaterial1. This is where drag + drop between materials would be done"

- In Rhino Object Properties > Material by Object > Plugin > Browse ... the Vray Material Chooser window now has a ComboBox, but a ListBox like in v 1.05.29 would be more convenient.

- In Rhino 5 64bit (the version i use to test vray 1.5) there is no way to assign Vray Material using Rhino Layers Panel, the plugin check box does not appear when Vray is used. Here is an old discussion on Rhino Newsgroup : http://news2.mcneel.com/scripts/dnew...ed=View+thread

- If Brute Force is selected as primary GI engine, Bounces spinbox should be hidden (in fact, if i'm not wrong correct name is Secondary Bounces)

- In VFB the Hand cursor replace the Arrow cursor in wrong places

- Like in the old version, _renderwindow in the Vray Toolbar needs Pause - Enter to finalize the command, could you add this by default?


Considering the VfSU version, you did a nice job re-organizing the UI, but there are some glitch here and there, for example:

- The bitmap multiplier outside of the texture editor, I'm not sure about it, it's good for quick edit without open new windows, but the interface looks too much empty and a bit confusing. Maybe you can hide the spinbox when there is no Map applied and show it when Map is present, something like this:



- Personally i prefer how Maps are named in the old version: Bitmap, Blend, Bulge... instead of TexBitmap, TexBlend, TexBulge...

- There are too many, unnecessary and misaligned Borders in the whole UI, some example:



Also layout for Lights Panel is a bit different for some lights (Enabled checkbox is under Intensity Group with Directional Light, in other cases is under Enable group, or not in any group; Shadow Group for IES does not respect the order used in other Light Panels)

- UVW options in Texture Editor are always at bottom, i don't know maybe it would be better to place them at first or second place.

- Texture Editor need a bigger preview.


Some wishes:

- Per-Object panel really this is the n.1 missing feature of Vray!

- It's nice that we can choose each color for the Material ID pass, but could you give us an option to Randomize them? Just a simple checkbox in the VFB Channels panel could work!

- Live Update should be available for textures as well and maybe without seeing the buckets calculation, a progressive rendering like RT would be better if possible.

- It would be nice if we can lock the RT to a specified view, maybe you can add a general option like in Max:



- Please add conversion for basic Rhino materials (i mean converted and editable in the vray material editor)
Also since the beginning transparency in Rhino materials is not rendered in Vray could you fix this?

- It seems the new version does not support VRayUtilities plugin or at least not the 64bit, could you look on this?

- Another very old wish, please give us the possibility to drag&drop textures and colors between slots with the option to copy and instance, also directly drag textures from explorer would be very welcome.



That's all for the moment, thanks for your hard work and i really hope to see a fully integrated version for the future, maybe for Vray 2.0 (i mean with all the RDK stuff supported)


Andrea

[Micha_cg]

Looks like a list from me.

[ALTO]

Just added two elements to the list.

[kostenurka]

Thanks

Good work Andrea, I totally agree.

I usually create a named viewport (with assigned name) which substitutes the perspective one in Rhino. I guess most of people do that, especially when you have to adjust camera to fit to existing background bitmap

Maybe it would be nice if RT by default is set to the last created named viewport or in case of lack of such - to the perspective one?

cheers

[ALTO]

Thanks,
of course in my example there's a dropdown list of all existing views (like in 3ds max).

[kostenurka]

Actually double click on material works and I can rename in that way!

[ALTO]

It doesn't work here, but i've just realized that i'm not using the latest version...

EDIT: Ok i see in the last version that they are working on rename Layers/Materials with doubleclick, i'm removing this from the list.


PS: I think i've posted this discussion in the wrong forum, feel free to move to the Open Beta Forum, thanks.

[ALTO]

Well, i don't know how is the final version, but it would be nice to hear something from Chaosgroup....

[dkendig]

You posted this list at the very end of our development, just before we released. Not much has changed at all in the final release when compared to the last beta.

[Micha_cg]

Looks like it's never the right time to talk about the UI - to early, to late, ... .

The UI is an important part of the software and the current 1.5 UI need a refinement. In the past I gave some of my clients a VfR training ... the new UI will cause a lot of confusion, believe me. I'm a daily user and I'm confused too. I don't ask for a complete redone of the UI, only grey out unused options and a better placement (some times only like at 1.05.29). It should be not to much work.

[dkendig]

We have been addressing UI issues throughout development Micha. There are still some UI tweaks that could be made, but we have addressed many UI issues already, and will continue to address more UI issues in future releases. Just submit reports about any issues you encounter, we will continue to integrate those changes in to our development as we have been doing. It's always a good time to talk about UI, it's just not always the most important item on our list, so we don't spend as much time on it as we do other tasks. The other tasks effect what happens after you're done using the UI (the rendered output), or the ability to use the UI without interruption (crashes), or the ability to view or modify values within our UI correctly (upgrade issues, scene corruption, etc). What good is UI if the data it represents is trash? We realize that the UI is also important though, so that's why we have been addressing UI related issues as we go along. We appreciate your patience and input.

[Micha_cg]

Please let the developer add grey out feature of all unused options like in the past first - often I'm not sure which one is active and which not. Also I'm confused about the new order of the reflection options:

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...e-Bitmap/page2

But I will send bug reports for this issues. I will be very glad if we reach the UI-fixing-state and all strong bugs are fixed.

[ALTO]

Hi all, i've found how to fix the Emissive Layer Layout, as seen in my starting post.

Here is the corrected code from line 10974 to 11009 in VRayPlugins.xml file:

[I]<arrangement id="main" staticBox="0">
			<row>
				<entry colSpan="2" param="None" showLabel="0">
					<arrangement id="color_and_tex" staticBox="0">
						<row>
							<entry param="color" showLabel="1"/>
							<entry param="color_tex" showLabel="0"/>
							<entry param="color_tex_mult" showLabel="0"/>	
						</row>
					</arrangement>
				</entry>
				<entry colSpan="2" param="None" showLabel="0">
					<arrangement id="transp_and_tex" staticBox="0">
						<row>
							<entry param="transparency" showLabel="1"/>
							<entry param="transparency_tex" showLabel="0"/>
							<entry param="transparency_tex_mult" showLabel="0"/>
						</row>
					</arrangement>
				</entry>
			</row>
			<row>
				<entry colSpan="2" param="None" showLabel="0">
					<arrangement id="intensity_doublesided1" staticBox="0">
						<row>
							<entry param="UISpacer"/>
							<entry param="intensity" showLabel="1"/>
						</row>
					</arrangement>
				</entry>
				<entry colSpan="2" param="None" showLabel="0">
					<arrangement id="intensity_doublesided2" staticBox="0">
						<row>
							<entry param="doubleSided" showLabel="1"/>
						</row>
					</arrangement>[/I]