Material preview is still dark

Rendering
1

Hello everyone,
I’m having an issue with the material preview in Rhino 8: As soon as I load a material and refresh the preview, it appears very dark:

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image717×433 42 KB

This happens right after the first refresh – before that, everything looks normal.

Before:

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image664×383 44.3 KB

I’ve already tried all the steps from the linked post Material preview so dark , including:

  • Updating the graphics card driver

  • Updating Rhino to the latest version

  • Checking the render preview settings

  • Adjusting OpenGL/display mode

Unfortunately, none of these helped. Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this or what else I could try?

System:

Rhino 8 SR24 2025-10-8 (Rhino 8, 8.24.25281.15001, Git hash:master @ ba28668a8431990c700173e46ef2dbcb873cf092)License type: Commercial, Build 2025-10-08License details: Cloud Zoo

Windows 11 (10.0.26200 SR0.0) or greater (Physical RAM: 127GB)
.NET 8.0.21

Computer platform: DESKTOP

Standard graphics configuration.
Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation (NVidia) Memory: 19GB, Driver date: 9-22-2025 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 581.42

Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)

  • Windows Main Display attached to adapter port 0
  • Secondary monitor attached to adapter port 1

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
GPU Tessellation is: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
Graphics level being used: OpenGL 4.6 (primary GPU’s maximum)

Anti-alias mode: 4x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 9-22-2025
Driver Version: 32.0.15.8142
Maximum Texture size: 32768 x 32768
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 32768 x 32768
Total Video Memory: 19195 MB

Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino

Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\WebBrowser.rhp “WebBrowser”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoRenderCycles.rhp “Rhino Render” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\MeshCommands.rhp “MeshCommands” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Calc.rhp “Rechner”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\SectionTools.rhp “SectionTools”

Thanks in advance for your help!
Best regards,
Tom

2

Check in the Rendering panel that you have gamma correction enabled and set to 2.2

3

Hello Nathan,

thanks for the reply.

I did everything mentioned in the linked post like changing the Gamma 2.2:

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image1026×1119 63.5 KB

image
image594×374 19.7 KB

Do you have any other suggestions as to what the problem could be?

Is there a way to adjust the ambient brightness of the standard studio in the material preview?

4

After you have changed the gamma settings you need to make sure thumbnails are re-rendered. One way to do that is press the right mouse button on the thumbnail hold it and then drag. You’ll see the thumbnail tumbling. When you release the mouse button you’ll get the re-rendered version with the gamma changes. Any better?

5

Thanks for pointing that out, I did that. Generally, the preview only becomes dark after updating. Regardless of whether you edit the material or rotate the preview, it is dark afterwards:

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image134×221 28.7 KB

6

I’m not sure why they would stay dark.

If you have no customizations in your Rhino you could do a _Reset - probably a good idea to save the settings as offered by the dialog. Then choose to do a factory reset. Restart Rhino after that and see if it is any better?

If not, then please share a small file in which you see this behavior also after reset.

1 Like
7

Thank you, that solves the problem. Now the material previews remain bright.

1 Like