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After experimenting with our grasshopper batch process to create multiple geometries I found the Vray timeline is actually quite handy instead of using a looping plugin like Anemone. Now rather than render the scene in Rhino, because - lets be honest - Rhino is pretty terrible for actually setting up scenes, we would just like to save the Vray proxies.
No problem I thought, thats what the V-Ray Exporter node does. Well, its doesn't. It can do everything EXCEPT export multiple vray proxy meshes. Why? How is it any different to my right-clicking and exporting the Vray Proxy, except it does it for every frame of the animation?
And speaking again of the right-clicking - don't do that. Its terrible usability and prohibits actually using the power of Grasshopper, which is to build complex systems where things can be created parametrically. And what you do when you hide functionality in right-click menu is break that parametric workflow. If you just had a boolean input for "Export" and one for "Export Type" (Single, Animation or Sequence) you wouldn't need any of the right-click options.
Here in the description of the V-Ray Exporter you can see the 2 places where you even explain the limitations:
Instead if you had inputs:
You attach a Grasshopper button and you can do normal Export. You can place that button anywhere you want. Normally in GH you have a little control area with all your inputs and buttons and so on. You can also add a button to the RCP Panel of Rhino, which is great.
You attach a toggle and now when you run the animation it does it for every frame - either as single file, animation or sequence depending on the second input.
That's 2 inputs and all of a sudden you are not breaking the power of Grasshopper, but you leave everything intact. Its still super easy and you can build it into your logic. Notice Elefronts "Bake" component. That has a button on the component and a boolean input. Easy. Imagine they also opted for the ridicolous right-click thing. Now for every frame I would already need to locate and right-click several components.
What I think happened here is that you underestimate the kind of setups people build in Grasshopper. Us and many others have built huge intricate patches with thousands of components. There are loops, instancing and tons of other automations. Its usually not just the 20 nodes you show in the examples. And even there, there would be no harm in just sticking to the Grasshopper concepts. And I am sorry to say that right-clicking and triggering things is not one of them!! Its like building a function in code, but you can only use it in one specific place and not reference it from anywhere else. It would drive you mad and you would seriously question the developers sanity. But that's what you do if you hide functionality in right-click menus. Some very niche settings are okay, because you usually don't need to change those parametrically, but even those should be actually parametric.
Here is what a normal sort of GH patch can look like. Now imagine I have to hunt down that exporter or renderer node just to right-click it and trigger something.
So please, please, please, fix this break in the UX of Grasshopper. You can still have the right-click options, but please add the proper parametric inputs to not have to rely on those! That way its still perfectly backwards compatible. Don't worry about adding a few extra inputs, its normal in Grasshopper and space is unlimited and there are tons of components with lots of different inputs. But that's kind of the point of Grasshopper.
Thank you for considering or giving us a really compelling reason why it has to be like it is now!? And of course why we can't export a sequence of .vrmesh files!?
No problem I thought, thats what the V-Ray Exporter node does. Well, its doesn't. It can do everything EXCEPT export multiple vray proxy meshes. Why? How is it any different to my right-clicking and exporting the Vray Proxy, except it does it for every frame of the animation?
And speaking again of the right-clicking - don't do that. Its terrible usability and prohibits actually using the power of Grasshopper, which is to build complex systems where things can be created parametrically. And what you do when you hide functionality in right-click menu is break that parametric workflow. If you just had a boolean input for "Export" and one for "Export Type" (Single, Animation or Sequence) you wouldn't need any of the right-click options.
Here in the description of the V-Ray Exporter you can see the 2 places where you even explain the limitations:
Instead if you had inputs:
You attach a Grasshopper button and you can do normal Export. You can place that button anywhere you want. Normally in GH you have a little control area with all your inputs and buttons and so on. You can also add a button to the RCP Panel of Rhino, which is great.
You attach a toggle and now when you run the animation it does it for every frame - either as single file, animation or sequence depending on the second input.
That's 2 inputs and all of a sudden you are not breaking the power of Grasshopper, but you leave everything intact. Its still super easy and you can build it into your logic. Notice Elefronts "Bake" component. That has a button on the component and a boolean input. Easy. Imagine they also opted for the ridicolous right-click thing. Now for every frame I would already need to locate and right-click several components.
What I think happened here is that you underestimate the kind of setups people build in Grasshopper. Us and many others have built huge intricate patches with thousands of components. There are loops, instancing and tons of other automations. Its usually not just the 20 nodes you show in the examples. And even there, there would be no harm in just sticking to the Grasshopper concepts. And I am sorry to say that right-clicking and triggering things is not one of them!! Its like building a function in code, but you can only use it in one specific place and not reference it from anywhere else. It would drive you mad and you would seriously question the developers sanity. But that's what you do if you hide functionality in right-click menus. Some very niche settings are okay, because you usually don't need to change those parametrically, but even those should be actually parametric.
Here is what a normal sort of GH patch can look like. Now imagine I have to hunt down that exporter or renderer node just to right-click it and trigger something.
So please, please, please, fix this break in the UX of Grasshopper. You can still have the right-click options, but please add the proper parametric inputs to not have to rely on those! That way its still perfectly backwards compatible. Don't worry about adding a few extra inputs, its normal in Grasshopper and space is unlimited and there are tons of components with lots of different inputs. But that's kind of the point of Grasshopper.
Thank you for considering or giving us a really compelling reason why it has to be like it is now!? And of course why we can't export a sequence of .vrmesh files!?
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