How about a new graphic interface?

[karamouza]

I know that you guys are up to your nostrils with programming and debugging Vray for Sketchup , but isn't it high time you started considering updating the interface?
I wouldn't mind having to work with sliders instead of decimal values and I wouldn't certainly mind having a preview window.
You have to understand that if you want make people buy your fantastic in other ways application, it needs to be simple for the newbies to understand, giving also the opportunity to the more advanced users to exploit vray's potentials.
That's the reason we are working with Sketchup in the first place!
I used to work with artlantis, not because I liked the way it handled materials, but it was less time consuming to get some decent results, without having to fully understand what radiosity and opacity and defraction are.
A nice example is the interface of Crazybump. Clean cut graphic interface and immediate results. I enjoyed "playing around" with it even if I didn't get the results I was expecting (I was trying to produce some decent displacement grass, but all I got was a green bumped blob...)
I know that is extremely difficult to rewrite the whole application, but you could at least start trying with the material editor.
Also I wouldn't mind if vray became an external application, so I can run my renders without having to stop working with Sketchup.

[thomthom]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

Damien mentioned that they are working on a new interface for VfSU2. One advanced and one Beginner. Maybe even an intermediate. so it's something they are working on addressing.


As for having to stop while rendering; In General Switches, untick Batch render and you will be able to work while V-Ray renders.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

The new version will feature an updated user interface and as Thomas said, it will have 3 different levels of UI.

[karamouza]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

Looking forward to that then!
Oh and thanks for the tip dalomar!

[Jackson_cg]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

I'm sure ASGvis wouldn't even consider such a move, but I just wanted to say that although I'm all for an improved GUI, I sincerely hope that slider controls will not replace numeric inputs. One of the sloppiest things about SU is that some of it's parameters ("soften edges" for example) are only controlled with sliders, while incredibly others such as watermark blend don't even have a numeric display. Although it's not the end of the world in terms of usability that sort of shoddy design and inconsistency (across several versions!) is really disheartening. (Don't even get me started on Google's insistence on using 1 to 100 for HSL parameters rather than 255 :) Needless to say adding sliders to the current numeric inputs (plus copy and paste for colours and tones) would nevertheless be a fantastic addition to V-Ray.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

We wouldn't ;D...all GUI alternatives will be in addition to our current interface. There are people who do want to be able to adjust (via numbers) all the parameters, and since V-Ray is a really meant to have all its bells and whistles tweeked we wouldn't dare keep you from that. However, we understand that thats not everybody...in fact is not even most of the people probably. So its a choice you make. If you want to work with 3 sliders, then work with 3...if you want to work with a few more and have a bit more control, go ahead...if you want to get under the hood and crank on every bolt, then be our guest

[thomthom]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

We wouldn't ;D...all GUI alternatives will be in addition to our current interface. There are people who do want to be able to adjust (via numbers) all the parameters, and since V-Ray is a really meant to have all its bells and whistles tweeked we wouldn't dare keep you from that. However, we understand that thats not everybody...in fact is not even most of the people probably. So its a choice you make. If you want to work with 3 sliders, then work with 3...if you want to work with a few more and have a bit more control, go ahead...if you want to get under the hood and crank on every bolt, then be our guest

I know the architects at my office would like a simplified UI. I hear them murmur when they see me tweaking the Options. I say it's like looking at the Matrix, you have to see the Lady in Red behind all the number. thehehe

[karamouza]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

The bottom line is that you have to work with a serious application, that gets the job done.
I'm an architect and I would invest in a tool that helps me do my work faster and better. If I needed a toy for my spare time I could get those other render applications you get for free.
I also need a tool with a shallow learning curve that grows with me, so beginners  can experiment a bit with it by moving sliders around and immediately see the results in a preview window and expert users can use numbers and extra drop down menus to fine tune.
Although not a fan of artlantis (too many bug splats and no serious support), I find amazing the fact that I can see what my tweaking does IMMEDIATELY.
It is very comforting that the next vray version is going to be as described and I'm looking forward to it.
P.S. How come a multiplayer first person shooter map, with HDR lighting and bumped and displaced materials and moving trees and a dozen of blood thirsty players loaded with hand grenades and rpgs, can be handled by my pc in a 1920by1200by70fps rate and a simple interior rendered scene takes half a day of life to complete? ???

[Jackson_cg]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

P.S. How come a multiplayer first person shooter map, with HDR lighting and bumped and displaced materials and moving trees and a dozen of blood thirsty players loaded with hand grenades and rpgs, can be handled by my pc in a 1920by1200by70fps rate and a simple interior rendered scene takes half a day of life to complete? ???

AFAIK (not much!) there's still no actual lighting effects other than OpenGL style binary shadows in FPS games, any claim of HDRI lighting refers to baked textures which is rather misleading. Combined with procedurally rendered terrains and geometry and normal mapping it all does a very good job of impersonating a real-time rendered environment on your PC whereas all the hard work was done in the developer's render farm. Still, all that geometry and particles flying about the place in Crysis, Fallout, etc makes my little SU heart ache. :'(

[stinkie]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

We wouldn't ;D...all GUI alternatives will be in addition to our current interface.

Good thinking. Where's that "thumbs up" smiley?

[karamouza]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

I've been doing a little research lately since I'm hoping to invest in a good renderer and I came across Indigo which has what you describe, an interface that can be toggled between numeric and sliders.
Is that what you are talking about?

[Jackson_cg]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

I'd suggest that sliders should be part of any renderer GUI as they're so much faster to adjust than any other method. As long as they have an accompanying numeric display which is also editable for fine tuning (and copy/pasting) I'd say everyone's covered from noobs to pros. The only catch is that some V-Ray parameters such as lighting can be almost logarithmic in their range, from 1 to 100,000,000 which doesn't work at all well with sliders (see PS's brush size slider >).

[dalomar_cg]

Re: How about a new graphic interface?

Exponential display... 1 to 1.0e+10 ?? ;D