Create NEW camera

I’m building a scene in Rhino 5 (Win64) that I will be rendering from the top viewport at 8192x2048 and using strictly for building maps (Bump, normal, etc) to use on a different model. The problem is that I need to actually USE the top viewport during modeling, and every time I zoom in and out, my renders move ever so slightly.

How can I create a camera view of the top viewport that I can set up EXACTLY where I want it and with the specific dimensions I want? This is quite easy in every other 3D application I have used, but for some reason, in Blender, all I can seem to do is show or hide the camera for each view, and those cameras change any time the view changes! I need a camera I can setup for rendering, that doesn’t change and I can switch back to whenever I need to render, without having to worry about what the regular views are showing. How do I do that?

Hello - use NamedView for this. Does that do it?

-Pascal

Hi Pascal,
That kinda works, but I still have to fiddle with it to get it to render what I want. See, in the render properties, I have to specify my width and height, otherwise it only renders the actual dimensions of the viewport, BUT, when those dimensions don’t match the actual aspect ratio of the viewport, you might not get exactly what you’re looking at in the render. It can be shifted to one side, or too big to fit in the image, and that is a pain in the butt to have to deal with. Having an actual camera, with an actual frame that shows the bounds would be preferable. I mean, I can make this work, but is there not a way to create arbitrary cameras like every other 3D app in existence?

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No there isn’t (and FWIW, I don’t remember seeing camera objects in Solidworks, Pro/E, Creo, NX either).

Is the size of the final render larger than your screen? NamedView will restore a viewport to the correct aspect ratio if you check that option in the dialog. You might want to restore a floating viewport for that purpose.
-wim

I think this touches a very important problem. Where does Rhino live? Should it behave like Solidworks, NX, etc. and copy their limitations or incorporate some useful things from 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, etc.

Rhino is so versatile program that many users (often including myself) do not understand why it lack of functions which are so obvious and standard in every mesh modeling software.
Making renders based on NamedViews, switching between them, is a horrible experience
everything is too easy to break, change proportions, move slightly.

Having render cameras will certainly not make Rhino worse CAD software, but much better general purpose program.

I think once you have V-ray and Cycles as rendering engines working with Rhino, then it is really a time to make some adjustments.
Rhino costs 1000€ for a perpetual license, and V-ray for Rhino costs 250€ annual.
I think that only shows people really want to do good renders inside Rhino.
And again, we are not talking about any direction shift but about adding handy, absolutely standard tool.

Personally, I went away from rendering inside Rhino because of many things, but I would love to see dedicated Rhino render camera for renders.

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+1 Cameras needs a workover.
Having the ability to always see the entire camera view with it’s safeframe and all has been on the wish list for more than a decade. That would solve the issue with matching a camera view to a background image too.

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This is exactly what I am talking about. Yesterday I figured out how to create a new view, drag it out to a new window and then view the safe frame to make sure my render was actually showing the stuff I wanted to show. It took close to 4 hours to get everything the way I want it, and I could have done that in 2 mins in Blender. There was also an issue with dragging the new view out to a new window that seems buggy as hell. When I did it. I created a new view, which placed it in the middle of the screen, on top of my main 4 views. Well that’s just plain useless, so to actually make use of this new viewport, I had to drag it out to a new window. The problem is that it left 5 copies of the new viewport in the middle of the screen that I had to close one by one. I only clicked “New Viewport” once.

@Holo you CAN turn on the safe frame for all active viewports. In the settings panel, click the plus next to Render, and you will see a setting for Safe Frame. At the top, there are 2 checkboxes, “Show Safe Frame in Active View” and “Show in Perspective Views Only”. If you turn the first one on, and the second one off, you will see the safe frame in every viewport (While it is active).

If you are able to repeat that behavior, please post the exact steps to take. Thanks.
-wim

@Keith1

What render engine do you use?

Now, after I spend a couple of hours exploring what Rhino has to offer in terms of rendering, I must back up my harsh words a little. A lot of frustration came from the fact, that V-ray for Rhino ignores a lot of useful stuff build in Rhino.
For example, you can select which viewport/named view/snapshot to render inside Render panel. If you change the engine to V-ray, this option disappears.

image

I finally found a time to take a closer look at the Snapshots and they addressed my need from the past perfectly! (Quick toggling between completely different angles, lighting scenarios, visible objects)

As penance, I obligate myself to help find bugs and take more interest into Cycles.

I don’t usually render at all in Rhino, but for this exercise, I was simply trying to use the standard rhino render engine to produce a heightmap from a top viewport. I found a workaround as I mentioned above, but it’s really hacky and a pain in the butt to deal with. I just wish Rhino had a regular camera system instead of this backwards “views” system, but now I’m just looking at using some other software to do it, which is almost as much trouble.