I downloaded the AutoEntourage plugin from here: Auto Entourage | Food4Rhino, in an attempt to rapidly populate a scene with 2D cutout people. However, non of the cutout PNG images seem to be loading. There seems to be a red error bubble when I click the button to ‘Load’, but I can’t see the output of what’s wrong. I’ve double checked the path to the directory of stored PNGs to be correct. The PNGs also satisfy the criteria of having transparent background, etc.
I’m wondering if anyone else has tried using AutoEntourage on Rhino 8, and if this is a Rhino version issue - especially since the plugin was last updated in 2021?
I tried it with Rhino 7 and the images load well. So, it appears that the issue is a version issue. I’ve tried emailing the original plugin author to see if this problem can be overcome, but haven’t gotten a reply so far. This may seem like a long shot - but I wonder if anyone has any insights into possible ways to fix/overcome this version issue?
You can avoid the original error by supplying a layer name (of an existing layer) instead of the default. But the component still doesn’t populate the model with images and throws further errors. But you could try this with your proven images and see if you have more luck.
Otherwise, if it works in Rhino 7, would placing images there and importing that model into R8 work for you?
Thank you so much for this suggestion, it works! Wonder why I didn’t think of that earlier . Therefore, it can be concluded that the issue lies in the step where the plugin has to create a new layer in Rhino. Hopefully, it can be solved in the future - but no biggie for now.
Anyway, I would like to also share the following tip for any future users of AutoEntourage:
I subsequently faced the problem of frequently having to ‘refresh’ the entourage to perpendicularly face the direction of the camera - but by using the default ‘button’ to ‘orient’ the cutouts, Rhino would then create new duplicate materials each time, which then have to be purged manually. To solve this, I rummaged through the forum and found @Gijs ‘s ‘billboard’ toolbar plug-in, which allows re-orienting of all the cutouts with a single click without creating those duplicate materials https://discourse.mcneel.com/uploads/short-url/vpc04bOdAQQQhppcmPY5C6uGjd5.rui
Once again, thank you to the amazing community for helping me lead to this solution
. Therefore, it can be concluded that the issue lies in the step where the plugin has to create a new layer in Rhino. Hopefully, it can be solved in the future - but no biggie for now.
