How seamless is the Rhino/Keyshot plugin before committing?

Rendering
1

I’m on a Rhino V7 and have the Keyshot 9.3 trial installed w/ plugin on PC. Although I am restricted in many ways with the trial, but I incredibly impressed by Keyshot itself and am interested in purchasing, but it’s a high price point and I want to know for sure that the workflow with Rhino is great.

I love the quick Rhino buttons for (1) sending a scene to Keyshot, and (2) updating an instance. It’s nice for me to constantly check new details as I add them in a better rendering setting.

However, because I cannot save my Keyshot files, it’s all temporary and I can’t test the integration beyond this basic pattern.

In the full version, how seamless/tight is the integration?

What I’d hope for is a 1:1 at all times between Rhino/Keyshot, so that I could work on a 3D model over the course of several weeks, and have an equivalent Keyshot file at all times so I could occasionally focus on lighting/materials.

Is that possible right now? How does it work in practice, and when/where might edits in Rhino “break” what’s going on in Keyshot?

Let’s say I designed 40% of a motorcycle. I decide to start exploring it in Keyshot and I build out my lights, build some materials, etc. I spend several days on it.

I then return to Rhino and start building more parts. Perhaps I even make edits to other parts of the model I already created.

Is there risk of this blowing away all of the light/material work from the Keyshot file? That’s the major concern. I’m wondering if ultimately you can only do significant work in Keyshot AFTER you’ve finished using Rhino, or if you can safely move back and forth between the two over time.

2

I’m using Rhino and Keyshot for many years. The live-link has been a huge time-saver in my workflow. It works fine in most situations. However, if you rename files or layers, obviously you might run into issues.

I also remember I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to use Keyshot Model Sets and Cameras / Named Views which I set in Rhino / Grasshopper.

In case you only want to render geometry, I’d almost say you could do that in Rhino. Personally, I find the benefit of Keyshot are the capability to render panoramic 360° images and animations with html scripts.

3

Thanks Martin.

So how does it ultimately work in practice? You start with a Rhino file, you start modeling, and at some point you send it to Keyshot via the plugin. Then, I presume, you save your Keyshot file.

But from that point on, are the files somehow considered permanently “linked”?

What happens when I close both pieces of software and come back to continue working another day. When I re-open Rhino, how do I make sure that I continue to send updates to my existing Keyshot file, instead of it going to a completely new instance?

4

You just save and close and open and update and close and so on. It’s easy when the file name remains the same but even if you change it you can also change the naming inside keyshot.