Will all pases be in one file? And in a neat collapsible/toggable folder separate than the RGBA pass?
And yeah I do worry because you are using a cryptic file format. Cryptic is not discoverable, bad UX IMO, This is not to help me personally Nathan, I’m just trying to remind you how users think (and don’t think). That’s all.
All passes in one file. If you don’t know what an EXR is you don’t need it either. But users who do know it, and probably have use for it can use it. It is thus for those users (there really are those who know this…)
Other fileformats can always be requested.
Condescending and completely out of touch statement. Whatever dude. I’ll go back to my group of ignorants, where I belong.
Why not wise up and read up on the fileformat instead?
EXR are both high dynamic range and supports multiple layers.
I do agree that PSD is a more common fileformat, so this should be supported as well since it is a well know format for designers and architects. And that could make more people interested in moving up from JPEG .
(edit: I removed the comment on Tiff)
if you want to have real quality one should stick to tiff with layers i believe. psd saves the images as jpg internally at least so has it been when i still studied the formats a while ago. but for the rest i must agree, one could try to find out what EXR is and for this it should be also promoted well.
Jumping back to the original topic; Octane has a photoshop plugin that takes the render passes and arranges them in photoshop as layers for you; with all the gamma etc applied.
From what I understabd, If you work in linear space it can be a big time saver…
To be fair – those Rhino users who enhance renderings in image editors and can deal with the concept of stacked render-layers and blend-modes and masking clearly can no longer get called beginners.
With layered .exr files one had an open, high performance file format which is nicely supported by every popular image editor Photoshop used to have some issues but they are sorted out
Edit: I see that one still needs to use one of two free plugin to do so. ProExr or exr-io.com. The latter links has a Video demo. Newer apps like Affinity have native support for layered exr.
This is nonsense Richard. Photoshop depending on its configuration offers to save an additional flattened version of the file, so that lower end applications which are limited to 8 colour depth can deal with the file. All psd’s retain full native data from embedded RAW files, text, vectors etc.
Why this topic to discuss exr file? The main point may be support channel, that is ok!
would make sense, but since its about 20 years ago when i studied this it might have changed, otherwise i carried a 20 year misconception around causing me to avoid psd at all costs 
Hehe, 20 years is a long time…
Back to the original topic -
I have V-Ray3 and Thea. I force myself to use V-Ray every so often because it’s been paid for and therefore I think it should get used but I’ll admit that I use Thea three times as often as I use V-Ray. It lacks many things V-Ray has - render regions for instance. But for ease of use and for getting a good image right away without a lot of tinkering, it can’t be beat in my experience.
@D-W
I fully agree with your sentiment about the PBR workflow and principled shader - for archviz and realistic renders it has already made life so much better. Filmic color transform is, IMHO, the final piece of the puzzle that has held Cycles back (which is now in Blender 2.79).
For materials, I use Allegorithmic substances, bake them to maps and plug those into the principled shader and get superb results without having to muck around. Now I just wish Blender (and Rhino) had Physically-based lights - e.g. 60 watt tungsten filament bulb, 15w cool white T5 flouro tube … etc
@arail Thea also have regions you have to open darkroom and top right corner. Btw i get prev image so fast that i never need to use those 
Guys EXR most important thing in exr is 32bit color range which allows you to edit lot of stuff in post - psd would be worst idea… Things like nuke or fusion supports without any problem - actually PS is very weak in compositing images with 32bit color range.
Thanks for that tip. I’ll admit I have never used Studio as the Rhino plugin is so complete I haven’t needed to do so. I’ll open it soon and take a look around.
I completely AGREE. I think the more settings that a render engine has that are based on real world concepts the easier it is to learn. We all have a good idea of what a 60w bulb looks like for example, and learning camera settings (fstop, film speed, etc.) is pretty easy if you’re not already familiar with them.
Several users have brought up render regions. Not sure if Cycles for Rhino has this feature yet or not, however, I do think it’s an extremely important feature. Very useful if you have a spot or two that it taking far longer to solve than the rest of your render. Octane does this nicely as you can select render region an area and it will blend the selected area into the surrounding render so you don’t have to comp it in PostPro.
If render region means selecting a part of the viewport to be rendered then Cycles supports it, I just haven’t gotten to expose that. Yet. A YouTrack it for that is on my list.
Yes, that’s exactly it. Thanks Nathan, good to hear it’s on the list.
@CountryGolden Thanks. Yes couple of those were featured images.
@Ryan4 I remember that time exporter for rhino was awful and most of work had to be done in thea studio. Now it is fully integrated but as you pointed out Octane supports well bongo i havent tested that but i think thea isnt working well with it. I also think that way - it is just better to choose right tool to get job done.
@nathanletwory Will cycles support latest principled shader? IMHO it is the best thing so far introduced by cycles - pbr metalness workflow will dominate render world very soon if it didn’t yet. And yes full ranged EXR files with passes are crucial and should be one of primary features of serious render engine.
On the topic of Bongo, I noticed that they made the Thea plugin for Blender open source (you still need Thea studio) so that may be a decent alternative if animation is a must.
Hi CountryGolden,
That may work for some, but for our company it’s problematic to use another program entirely to do animation in because the design portion of our business the work is all done in Rhino and designs change and develop over time . . . so having to export to another program every time the design changes (which is a lot) is painstaking. MUCH easier to stick in one program, especially since the animations aren’t that complex. Plus, renderings are always done way before an animation is done and if we used a different program just for animation then all of the “render setup mats and lights” are lost when switching to another program. And the alternative for rendering and animating everything in another program all together is a real efficiency killer.