Is this product still being updated?

[Hoop]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

-V-Ray RT probably won't be in the next release, but our latest plugin rewrite that we have been doing over the past year or two, will allow us to roll out new features and updates MUCH faster than we ever could before.

Hey DKENDIG,

Thank you very much for this information, it's good to hear! I do have one additional question, I hope you do not mind. I realize you may not know the answer to this at this point in time, but I've got several of the designers at my company asking me about this and I told them I'd ask your team and try to find out.

We read on the Chaos group website that VRAY RT GPU will be part of Vray Release 2.0. ( http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vraygpu.html ) It, as usual, specifically mentions for 3DS Max. I know that in your above post you mention that RT will not be available in the next release for Rhino, but I'm assuming that the next release will not be version 2.0.

So, my question is, if RT GPU will become part of Vray2.0 for 3D Max, does that mean that when Vray for Rhino version 2.0 gets ported to Rhino by your team, that this version will also include RT ?

Thanks DKENDIG. You guys are doing a great job, we all love VFR here at our studio!

Hoop

[dkendig]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Hoop- V-Ray RT is something we would like to have working with VfR and VfS at some point, but we honestly have no idea on the timeframe. We also don't know when we're going to release a 2.0 version of VfR or VfS. I can't even give you a positive timeframe on the next update of VfR!

[Hoop]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Hey Devin,

Gotcha, I completely understand. Thanks for the feedback.

Hoop

[Parker]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Any update on VfR? its been a while since we have heard any update of this product?

[annapheiffenberger]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Yes, seems a long way since we got an update?

+ Could you guys please support all the RDK in Rhino 5, such as material editor? it looks and works well I wish I could use that for Vray, now only flamingo and Brazil users can enjoy this effort. are there plans for this, or will Rhino continue to use its archaic material Browser/Editor??

[Parker]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Jesus, still no answer to this, there are a few new posts here everyday, you would think developers would take a few minutes and answer these.

[gallystops]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

You have to understand these developers are very busy. They would love to answer all these questions and concerns. And i am sure they would like to answer them correctly.

It is hardly an everyday thing...it is a few posts here and there. No need to exaggerate to try and put down these developers.

[Parker]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

ahh common, busy developers? really? on what? certainly not the product I paid for 4 years ago!

There is no excuse from not looking at your own bloody forum and answering your own bloody users.

[dkendig]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Parker - what would you like to know? I've tried to answer everyone's questions to the best of my ability, if I missed something, please let me know.

ANNAPHEIFFENBERGER - We're going to keep using our material editor, the UI won't be much different than what you have in the current release for now. We did this rewrite so we can update the UI and features faster and squish bugs easier/faster.

[dkendig]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

latest developer blog entry

Hope that helps

[Parker]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

So basically what we are waiting for is exactly the same plugin (same look and feel), with 1 or 2 extra features (that should be in there 4 years ago) and with some code that is easier for the developers to add features in the unknown future?

So if I am right, you guys have been hard at work fixing your own mistakes with the original code?

[dkendig]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

That's a fairly accurate description of what we've been doing. We've updated to the latest V-Ray sdk, and have only added a few changes here and there. Most of the work we've been doing has been done to make future development much more streamlined, which in the end will result in features being added faster, bugs being fixed faster, etc.

We have been fixing bugs when we come across them as well, such as the issue we had with nested Blocks in the 1.05 version. We've also switched to 64-bit, and are working on ways to improve our ability to handle larger scenes. It's hard to say how this plugin rewrite will effect future development without spouting out an imaginary feature list with make believe due dates, so all I can really say about expanding the features of our product, is that we now are able to implement features at speeds that were unimaginable in our previous version For example, Ambient Occlusion took 7 minutes to add.

The folks on the SketchUp side have been fairly pleased by the latest release. There's been a few rough spots here and there, but we have been able to find work arounds for most issues if we haven't been able to fix them yet. SketchUp has been a real challenge in some aspects, especially when dealing with larger scenes. SketchUp doesn't just hand us usable information like Rhino does, we have to sort through all the faces/groups/components/etc, compare things, keep track of materials in SketchUp and our material editor to make sure they're linked together... and there's no 64-bit version of SketchUp on the horizon. So by tackling SketchUp first, we've been able to run our plugin through the worst case scenario first, and make sure that we have things running fairly smoothly, before we moved over to Rhino.

We've made 3 public releases of VfS since April, and 30 or so beta releases. When you compare that to the pace of our old development cycles, you can see that we've come a long way. Once we get Rhino out the door, we will have our plugin in both products, and able to attack bugs in our shared code from both sides, like we could in the 1.05 release, which should hopefully speed up bug tracking in addition to our already sped up development.

You are correct though, most of what this version has to offer, won't come to fruition until later on down the road. We aren't sure how long the road is, but it does seem to be heading in the right direction from what we've seen so far.

[Micha_cg]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

SketchUp doesn't just hand us usable information like Rhino does, we have to sort through all the faces/groups/components/etc, compare things, keep track of materials in SketchUp and our material editor to make sure they're linked together... and there's no 64-bit version of SketchUp on the horizon. So by tackling SketchUp first, we've been able to run our plugin through the worst case scenario first, and make sure that we have things running fairly smoothly, before we moved over to Rhino.

Right, all this isn't needed for Rhino and cost time for the Rhino plugin. Devin, why must the Rhino user wait for the development for an other software? There is no benefit for the Rhino user, only for ASGvis. A Rhino-only-plugin could be much faster developed. For example the Maya and the Max and the Cinema 4D plugins are independent. Why should the plugin for SU and Rhino be developed with the same code? It's a question of business, but from a users view ... .
I wished ASGvis would be a company like Laublab. This guys are Cinema4D and render freaks and tried to develop a strong Vray plugin for her loved application.
I know, it is like it is and we can do nothing now. The situation isn't the best, but only we can hope that compromises between the two softwares doesn't cost to much features and development energy. I have the impression we will not see a Rhino plugin this year and maybe a stable Rhino plugin next summer.

[dkendig]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

Well we don't make a plugin for one product, so we could have two entirely different code bases that have entirely different bugs... but then while we're developing one product, there is no work being done for the other product what so ever. You think updates take a long time now? If we had two entirely separate code bases for our plugins, you'd be waiting a lot longer. The idea is that we fix a bug in one product, and then it's fixed in the other product too.

There isn't a lot of code that has to do with the host application. Most of it just has to do with taking a set of data and throwing it at V-Ray so it will render. So sharing the code base between the two products makes it much easier to migrate changes and updates between the two.

I know the things you quoted in your post are host application specific, but the same argument can be made for "wasting" time for SketchUp users, while we try to get our product to work properly with blocks, rdk, etc. So basically you're only saying that the host application specific work in one product doesn't effect the other product... lol, of course it doesn't! It's host app specific! What I was saying is that we are able to take the jumbled mess we get from SketchUp, and turn it in to something usable, so we handled the worst case scenario first, rather than last like we did in our previous versions. So now our plugin can handle Rhino easily, rather than struggling with Rhino, and then being completely killed by SketchUp, we struggled with SketchUp, and now Rhino's been somewhat of a breeze. That's all I was really trying to say there.

[pickinboy]

Re: Is this product still being updated?

???

ASGVis and others - we still use VfR because it does three things very well

: enables huge time savings - not jumping to something else for shaders/ texturing, etc
: allows the use of animation and bongo directly.
: creates great looking/ real looking imagery

So we are still with VfR - if someone like Luxion addresses these issues and they are closing - we may not need VfR.

However VfR does provide more than you imagine for those that know. The developers only see the number of downloads - not the actual real world capabilities VfR provides and at what cost.

VfR is saving so much time - not - in the final thing - but in how you get to it.

Please can the DR Spawner provide node updates and reconnects? This software comes alive with sufficient horsepower. You have a great plug in that has a committed following, eager to take advantage of your next release, still here afte 4 yrs, most 3D coders would die for that - so keep up the good work!!

best,

Glenn