I know it’s rather blunt. It’s currently built in a way that seems rather like an afterthought.
I was asked to do 2D drawings of several models (yes, I’m aware this is just one case, but bare with me). They then said…“Oh, and can you also render objects in there, and also give a nice shadow underneath.”
Ok, so now I have to do the Make2D so I can output illustrator lines, eliminate some of them because, well you never want All of them, and if you remove tangents then you always want a few more right? Then I need to render the Same camera so that it lines up. I will be doing that in keyshot, but could do it in blender or even Rhino, if I had the time to learn how to make Rhino renders fast enough and figure out how to get what I needed out of it (but I’m pretty sure it’s lacking things that I need). But I’ll have to get my Make2D lines, and then render out the same camera in another software. But I have multiple files. And so I need that camera Also in those other files. Oh, and then they tell me, “No, I need these 8 different views” So now I need to do this 8 times. You can only copy and paste the cameras one at a time. If I set up all the cameras at once in one file, I should be able to import the named views from that file into the others. But being, not an object, if I need to manipulate the camera numerically, I have to do that from the viewport. You can’t do that from another view. My objects are all different sizes, and I want to use the same angle, so I’ll keep the target at zero, X and Y, and only manipulate Z. But I want the same angle, so I need to just move the whole thing up.
It’s not that it doesn’t Work. It’s not impossible. But it’s Definitely Not ideal. The same sort of tasks are more difficult to accomplish with the way it is built.
Other software, like Blender and Keyshot, import the saved views from Rhino as cameras. In fact, they import ALL of the views, even Front, Right, Top, and Perspective.
In most software, a saved camera is a physical object that you can select, move, and manipulate. You can place them on layers, and even group them along with objects.
The named views just haven’t changed, in my opinion, in all too long. I asked some of the dedicated Rhino users here how often they use them. Everyone’s response was, “Nah, I don’t really use them. It’s too much of a pain.”
Named views really aren’t much different than having an actual camera. Rhino would probably want to add a few features to help people out, like giving a preview of the field of view through the viewport so the user understands what will actually render. Blender does this well. Keyshot just truncates everything outside of the field of view, which is acceptable also.
I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings being blunt about it. But one of the great things about Rhino is that it is used across a wide range of industries. Architecture, entertainment, jewelry, industrial design, furniture, boats, planes (yeah, I know those are ID too, but usually rather more specific).
If you can create cameras more easily in Rhino, people are more likely to create them in Rhino. It would be quite nice if say, the creator of the file set up a few ideal camera shots in their file. Then it wouldn’t matter if it were headed toward keyshot, blender, maya, etc. It’s been communicated in Rhino.
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