AMD ProRender - line in renderings w/ground plane (fixed) + Material Library

Thank you for providing the AMD ProRender plug-in for Mac! At present, it provides sufficiently viable speed for visualization inside Rhino on Mac OS. Appreciated!

Not sure if the following is coming from AMD (the plugin code you implement) or something Rhino is doing? Only tested on Mac OS and one workstation, though I see the issue across multiple different .3dm files/models I’ve tried.

When rendering with a ‘white studio’ and a ground plane for shadows, a gray line runs across the render, which appears to be the edge of the Rendering Pnl produced ground plane. (If I rotate the model, the line moves its location up or down.)

Anything I’m doing wrong to cause this?

Using ProRender v1.0.0.6 - Rhino 7.5.21100.03002
Graphics processors
AMD FirePro D500 (3 GB)
AMD FirePro D500 (3 GB)

That most likely is the groundplane going off into the distance? @Joshua_Kennedy you know better what this is.

@nathanletwory is correct. This is the ground plane causing the issue. The reason is ProRender and Rhino don’t understand the ground plane the same way. I suggest you disable the Rhino ground plane and add a surface object below your chair large enough for the shadow. Then assign the surface the ProRender Shadow Catcher material.

image

where do we find the AMD Prorender for Mac ?

You can download it from the PackageManager if you search ProRender

1 Like

cheers :+1:, something funky happening with my materials though, images attached, the viewport image, and the Prorender output :person_shrugging:

Can you share the model? My email is joshua@mcneel.com. You can also use the file upload tool here.
Rhino - Upload to Support
Your model will be kept confidential

something strange going on with the website when I go to the upload to support link above. Page just keeps reloading and saying you’ve been logged out, over and over and over again :joy:🤷🤷

You can share it to my email in whatever way works best for you then. I’ll get some attention on this logout issue.

shared via GoogleDrive link :+1:

1 Like

Thanks for the workaround @Joshua_Kennedy… it works of course!

Any chance the Rhino/ProRender ground plane issue is able to be fixed, some way, in future, on the Rhino side?

While not a deal breaker, it is a buzzkill to have to turn that layer on/off repeatedly when using ProRender for repeated real-time photorealistic visualization (as opposed to Render), especially considering that ProRender is the only viable (speed) alternative inside Rhino on Mac OS at present.

You still get a Solution :white_check_mark:, but in terms of completeness, it’s a Solution :white_check_mark: :heavy_minus_sign::wink:

1 Like

To be honest managing the ground plane manually like this is much better from rendering technicality perspective anyway. An automatic ground plane is a rather huge and messing with accelleration structures. Doing it manually allows you to improve performance - perhaps I should add a Raytraced shadowcatcher material as well.

I’ve logged it as a bug for ProRender and will look into it

Thanks!

Interesting! I don’t doubt the technical specifics, especially with complex scenes, nor your expertise. My scenes, however, are almost exclusively product oriented - a single object in a white room. Out of curiosity, I ran a ProRender test with this simple Eames chair reference model. Good quality - 500 samples - 1920 x 1080. It confirmed your performance thesis:

1:17 - Ground Plane
1:05 - Plane/Shadow Catcher

Faster is better! No doubt!

Then I interacted with the real-time viewport set to ProRender, first with the ground plane enabled, and second using the manual method - Plane/Shadow Catcher. I could not perceive a difference. (though I’m sure there was a marginal measurable difference based on the 500 sample render test.)

So in this use case, I’d still appreciate the convenience of a ground plane. I supposed my opinion is influenced from years using Keyshot.

As for a Raytraced shadowcatcher material - heck yeah too! That has got to help someone, and I look forward to the day (if I live that long… :wink:) when Cycles Raytraced is viable (speed) on Macs.

1 Like

@Joshua_Kennedy have also noticed that if I use some transparent png cut outs the transparency is not respected when using the AMD Prorender :person_shrugging:

I can reproduce this. I’ve got a fix and it should be resolved in the next version.

1 Like

Hi,

There’s a new version of ProRender available from the PackageManager with both of these issues resolved. Let me know if you find something else.

Thanks,

Joshua

2 Likes

Thank you @Joshua_Kennedy . Working great and nice to able to utilize the Rhino automatic ground plane, especially for quick interactive real-time viz. Appreciated!

Another question please (I should probably start a new thread?)…

Is it possible (future?) to utilize the AMD provided ProRender Material Library for MacOS? Installed it and poked around a bit to try and find a way to ‘point’ to the library in Rhino without luck.

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-prorender-downloads
https://drivers.amd.com/other/radeonprorendermateriallibrary.dmg

2 Likes

ProRender for Rhino currently doesn’t support the material library. I’ve looked into supporting it before and it could be a possibility. I’ve logged a request so I don’t lose track of it and I’ll keep you updated.

1 Like

the material library look really useful, thanks @ec2638 for bringing this up!
would be an awesome feature to have!

https://radeon-pro.github.io/RadeonProRenderDocs/en/plugins/matlib/materials.html

3 Likes