wow glad to see someone say ‘hatches are obsolete just use image textures’ so many of my peers are stuck in age old conventions of tracing/make2d a 3d model we spend months on…
i have some questions. Why set the print disply thickness to 100?
How does the print width work on a Technical/pen mode drawing, the advantage of those drawings is that you can still export vector… which i guess theres no need for anymore but still would like the option,
Last but not least you have some display modes that look like a pen or technical display but its actually a shaded or arctic mode, can you talk about that… great stuff
I have most of your viewports, X9. shaded 5, badass 1 and Crackdown (also one of my favorite games). My thing is that some of these envrionment maps are a gradient strip while some look like a spherical image inside of a square box, whats the difference, i see rhino default uses the gradient strip so i can mess with the colors or maybe even textures/ images. but whats the difference? again i may be redundant here or slow. but also just excited to up my game from viewport masters
The gradient strip takes less memory as it’s much higher than wider, hence you can display more vertical pixels with nearly zero file size for the image. You can actually use 1 pixel wide environment map if you only need a vertical gradient.
On the other hand, the square image lets you add more graphics details horizontally, such like the environment map of “Bobi X9” which uses a circular gradient.
PrintDisplayMode Scale
Print display scale can just help with the conversion from model space to actual png output. I think it depends on the resolution of your screen even and certainly the resolution of your output scale / DPI. just play around with it until you have it looking how you want it to.
Regarding Shaded Technical Drawings:
From my experience, technical display mode templates have the most customizability. everything else appears to be a slightly redacted version, oddly enough (although, comes at the benefit of faster rendering speeds). In the technical template, you can specify to shade objects and even have global shading applied to your scene. Theoretically, you can also apply “render mode” to a technical drawing, although I haven’t tried this.
My Overall Thoughts on Rhino’s Display Modes and Rendering Capabilities
I do find that Rhino has obscure limits and inconsistencies that encourage people to think about computer graphics in a far more traditional sense. It still feels like its oriented towards plotting, despite that “printing” or “exporting” is such a more abstract concept than it was even 6 years ago (export to web? export to paper?). I love Rhino. Its my favorite program ever. I dream of it in my sleep. I even had visions of the curve boolean outline growing while I was skiing today and nearly crashed. I have 3 licenses somehow by mistake and I paid for all of them. But I do think its too hard for the basic user to get a decent output, despite there being great potential.
You still need to be some sort of experienced user to get to the point where you can get the image you want, and schools still rely on external programs like illustrator to ultimately reach the graphic clarity and quality that is sought after to communicate an idea. From an architects perspective, I would suggest that McNeel would need to revamp the following for basic users to use Rhino as their one and only drawing tool:
Suggestions for Robert
Far Fetched: Export 3D objects to 2D vector SVG / PDF. I know this is a pain but this would be the biggest baller improvement. At least the ability to composite SVG’s for lines in paper space with PNGs of 3D objects in model space in a layout window.
PrintDisplay on by default. Make it conceptually easier to use and understand, akin to illustrator. Literally no one knows about this.
Maybe a toolbar for all the display things. Like setObjectDisplayMode. Again, it blows everyone’s mind when you can set a display mode for one object and a different one for another.
Transparent output from layouts. Not sure why this only exists in viewCapturetoFile. Please.
UV editor revamp. Basic users have no idea this even exists, or box mapping for that matter. Literacy is missing from the user to get the most out of this tool. Also, we need a UV project from view, similar to Blender.
Bonus: Clipping objects (not just clipping plane, but clipping sphere, box, polygon etc. I wrote about this elsewhere.
Don’t do whatever Revit does because there are 36 reasons why something might not be visible in a particular view and that is just so painful and makes me sad.
These at least would be useful for architects and really support the architectural workflow.
McNeel let me know when you need a product manager I have have worked as a software developer and product manager for 4 years and also worked as an architect in a previous life. xoxo
Hi @nikolas.mcglashan, I agree with all your considerations, and appreciate your work (I link your YouTube videos to my students as a workflow reference).
I just wanted to make you aware of a few things:
I made a macro for the Clipping Box you show in one of your videos, in case it might turn useful: Clipping Box Macro
I also made a custom command to set an object display mode in a view-independent way (same display mode in all views, present and future, model or layout). It is in the PackageManager, named SetViewIndepODM
unfortunately, Technical mode has some known shortcomings (that I wish will be addressed soon), especially with wireframe mode assigned to objects: BUG - Wireframe in Technical Display Mode
Nice video!
Very clear and informative.
I’m sure you and @ale2x72 know that in V8 display modes become object properties so you can assign them directly to any object in a more fast and direct way without passing through the command line.
Hi @skysurfer, yes, I am aware of that (and it’s a nice feature), but it only applies to the view that is active when you set that property. This is why I created that custom command.
I prefer to use commands over UI when possible (makes me work faster). Another advantage of a command is that you can use it in macro and custom scripts.
I’m not saying “commands are generally better than UI features”, I just think each has its pros and cons depending on the user and the situation.
Maybe the blue is a bit glowy… not sure yet, will probably tweak again with time… for now, I like the slightly softer elliptic light more than the sharp, rectangular one.
(Note that matcap display modes benefit from very dense custom meshes on objects.)
It will be nice if you upload an alternative version of your red image which has the blue bottom replaced with black or dark grey, in order to eliminate the blue “glow” at the bottom of the 3d geometry and give it a more realistic appearance, as if it has a shadow.
