Rendering for Rhino

Consider Keyshot for studio product rendering. Was initially developed and is optimized for this purpose. Fast and relatively simple to learn/use.

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That comment surprised me since RhinoRender is a slow engine.
Could you share an example of an image quality you need? Or even a file? That way we might help you out better in finding the best engine (plugin) for your needs.

Hi Anthony,

You are getting into a topic that might seem practical and objective to you, but for reasons inexplicable to most, the rendering experts treat this shit as religion.

After trying all these tools, and having worked with large studios with people at various skill levels I would tell you that all McNeel rendering solutions (Rhino, Penguin, Flamingo, Flamigo NTX, Brazil, Toucan, Neon, Cycles, maybe more but I can’t even remember) are a waste of time.

There are also esoteric solutions that are completely impractical for everyday use: Maxwell is the best example. Only useful if you live with your parents an you have no deadlines, and you love the slow-rendering movement as much as the slow-food movement.

Octane is really nice for fast accurate result but it’s badly integrated with Rhino. Very cryptic to use too. And have a very small user-base.

I think Vray, but only the new Version 3.0 is fantastic. A lot of nerds and experts are bitching about the changes from Vray 2.0 but that’s because their jobs, lives, and priorities are very different that yours. Now is a lot more intuitive, has a good material library and is acceptably well integrated with Rhino. You can run in in both CPU or GPU (if you don;t know what that meas just ignore it for now, just know that’s flexible in terms of hardware).

Keyshot is also great, a lot easier to use that Vray and 10X-50X better in terms of usability than all the other stuff discussed here. The render engine (actual level of render quality) is not as good as Vray, but it’s close for product stuff. Vray on the other hard is excellent for everything: products, architecture, interiors, complex materials…).
Also Keyshot is NOT integrated with Rhino, it’s a one click export and then you have ways to update your scene as you make modeling changes, but it’s not bulletproof. Pricewise Keyshot (full version) is about 2X of Vray I think, neither are cheap, but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, more expensive than a cheap/free rendered that will suck your time and expect you the user to do all the work. Even making your own materials and dialing all kind of esoteric settings like an animal. That’s what many nerds that make these products or who hang around these forums don’t understand, and I think they never will: this is unacceptable.

In short, if you can afford either: take a look at the new Vray and Keyshot. I cannot even tell you which one is better over the other. I have both and I use both.

I thought I would be using more Octane, but after getting my hands on Vray 3 that changed things for me. That’s because I want more integration with Rhino. Keyshot on the other hand is not integrated with Rhino but it works very well directly with files from any other platform so if you use other modelers like Solidworks, Fusion360, etc. you can also use your Keyshot there.

Another big advantage of Keyshot is SceneSets, ViewSets and animation (animation in full version only). You can see them explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsbAnGhwSBg and deeply explained here: https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=14100.0

Vray for Rhino doesn’t have any scene/variation manager, but it might not heed thsi if a new prototype tool in Rhino V6 called snapshots turns out well: Snapshots plugin prototype in the latest WIP (but there’s a lot of work to do there still, I’m mostly hopeful but not counting on it being done and working well, sorry for my skepticism, but I’ve been around too long to ever count on anything not fully finished)

But if you have simple setups, and have a very static use of materials Octane can be very good too once you get your template scene the way you like it.

I also use a lot straight screenshots from the Rhino viewport so that’s why the ‘slightly better than viewport’ or sometimes even worse by some of the other McNeel products discuss here make absolutely no sense to me. I think the OpenGl quality and different viewmodes are making realtime capture way more useful and frequent than ever before.

I hope this helps,

G

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Built-in Rhino renderer quality is good enough. I do not need transparency and reflections. These animations are for engineers only so that they understand how my inventions work.

I use Rhino 5.0 commercial version (2016-9-13, 64-bit), Bongo 2.0 (2017-3-31), Flamingo nXt 5 (2017-2-26), PowerDirector 12 Ultra, Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) operating system, ThinkPad W530 laptop computer with Intel Core i7 3920XM processor, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Quadro K2000M graphics card, (NVIDIA driver 2017-1-10) 15,6 inch LCD (1920x1080).

12 posts were split to a new topic: Development of Rendering solutions in Rhino

This is a very important aspect. I hope Nathan/McNeel can look behind your frustration, because you have a lot of valid points/information here.

Philip

PS. I can’t watch your videoclips - nothing happens, when I click the ‘play’ arrow…

GPU renderers: Vray, Octane, Arion, Furryball, Redshift, Moskito, Cycles (Blender), Indigo, Thea, Optix, and Lightworks. sources: http://www.nvidia.com/object/gpu-ray-tracing.html and http://www.gpurendering.com/gpuSoftware/theBestGpuRender.html

Interesting comparison.

My impression is, the feature list of the render engines is the half truth only, the other big question for a daily pro use is: how good is the integration to Rhino, is the development team listen to the users and is there a continuous progress to solve problems? For me it’s a problem to keep workarounds for half implemented features and bugs in mind. (I’m using different engines for different tasks.)

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Andrew,

That comparison you provided the link for is three years old now. I find that Octane for Rhino is good for me and I rarely use the Octane Standalone anymore. I have Thea now but haven't devoted the time to it but like some of its features. Micha makes a good point about integration especially regarding Rhino.

Thanks Jose , I m presently looking at Octane …

Anthony

Thanks Gusto….
I didn’t think I would start a fight among the geeks in this world ……lol…
What’s the difference between Iray and Vray…
I thought that rendering thru the graphics card was the way to go …

Thanks for being frank. I need to render fast , because like you I have deadlines to work with
Anthony

Tested Iray for an interior scene - slow, noisy, basic implantation only yet. VfR3 is a powerful tool, or better sayed, will be the powerfullst render tool at Rhino if all bugs are fixed and features refined. If the team is focusing the work than it could be ready soon.

Hey Gusto,
I have installed a trial version of Keyshot .
I like it so far , but I installed also the plugin , but I don’t see it in the Rhino menu.
We should be able to render then modify with updates no ?

Thanks for your help
Anthony

I recently tried it and after updating geometry you just use KeyShot6Export again…

A minor comment:
I think it’s often the case that if you’re rendering continually you might want to have a couple of render plugins. It’s important to keep in mind that different rendering engines will give you different results - the ‘look’ is different.

I have V-Ray and Thea. Generally, for any projects that have glass and need subtle reflections I use Thea because it gives me the effect I want with little or no need to adjust settings. V-Ray not so much in that case. I have to fuss with V-Ray too much when it comes to glass. Currently I’m getting a lot of window display projects and display cases (glass, glass and more glass) so Thea is in use every day. I like the look it gives me and it’s fast.

But if my work became more about interior shots I would be turning back to V-Ray.

Obviously there’s a cost factor here but getting a render out fast the first time around is a time and money saver so having a couple of tools at hand can be the right choice.

Aye, having several tools available makes sense. There may be one render engine that is the main tool for rendering purposes, but it is good to have different engine available for different situations as you @arail said.

Yes, or even “tuning” of Cycles if workable, aimed at somewhat similar ideas in a very different way.

Not certain if the following makes sense to others but here goes: By “tuning” I mean presets which ‘tune’ Cycles towards specific disciplines/needs, all geared towards providing the fastest performance where useful/appropriate, or tuned different toward production of slower render features, where necessary, without too much user intervention, manual settings switching and geek knowledge. Again, basically presets with a usability purpose.

For example - needs of the product guys, say typical Keyshot users, focused on killer studio object shots using a single HDRI environment to light, but wanting to rotate their models incessantly (speed); vs architecture visualization types where the view might be more static, though potentially with deeper render effects, etc.

In other words - since Rhino is tool with a diverse audience, is it possible to massage the Cycles/Rhino implementation more towards same?

I don’t rule out presets, but that is something for the future (:

Hi guys, some bugs: (this has to do with Rendered mode)

Now compare it to Raytraced:

In the first one Metal with a bit of blur (gold) turns black.
And glass has almost no reflection.

We need different coating settings
We also need a good fresnell option for reflection.

Notice how little reflection there is in the glass covering the hole (the one to the left):

Again compared to Raytraced:

Also another thing.
When I add a new environment and set the new one to active I still have to turn off the custom values for the original environment, that does not feel intuitive. Having the original environment as a custom reflection environment is a cool feature, but should not be the default. IMO.

Yep, this gets me every time.

https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-39038

-Pascal

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