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The Rhino plugin works for the most part. A big thanks to the NL team for making it possible.

A few comments so far:

-1 Scale: I did not see a setting for scale. Should we assume that Rhinoll picks up the scale automatically from the rhino units ?

-2 Bug: If a view is saved under a different viewname (other than "Perspective") then the rendering is black.

-3 Bug: Physical sky appears to be oriented to world Y axis instead of world Z axis (as noted earlier by others).

-4 Bug: Low quality setting is very sticky. Once checked it is not possible to get out of low quality (eventually I did after trying frantically all shorts of things).

-5 Bug: Unloading Rhinoll while it is the current renderer causes Rhino to crash while mousing down the Render menu.

-6 Bug: When trying to use an older model for test I encountered problems assigning materials. There were errors such as (if I rememebr right) "dublicate material found" or "error assigning material" and so on. In the end I had to save as geometry only and start from a clean slate. Maybe Rhinoll gets interfearance by the settings stored by other render engines. (It would be nice if they could all play along).

-7 Bug: The "match" material button does not copy the material of another object to the current object.

-8 Workflow (Object properties): The material assigning process seems a little awkward . It requires to click "edit material" to assign... then the properties dialogue reverts to the basic render options (which are not used). To edit the material then it requires to reselect "assign by plugin" and then hit "edit" again. However, I understand the material interface is still in flux.
Can't wait for a material library to be implemented.

-9 Workflow: Is the "render" tab (in Rhino options) used for anything ? I understand all settings are concentrated under the "Maxwell" option page... The presence of the extra settings under the render tab can be a source of confusion.

-10 Skylight: If the intensity value is set higher than 100 it will issue a warning but the value will be accepted and the dialogue closes.

-11 Bug: Closing and reopening the model causes objects to forget their assigned plastic material (emitters, diffuse, and glass are ok so far).

- 12 When copying objects to the clipboard the command line says "Rhinoll data writed". It should read: "Rhinoll data written".

- 13 Bug: When copying an object from one rhino instance and pasting it to current model then all Maxwell options of the current file are lost (are reset to defaults).

- 14 Wish: A set of preset resolutions for the camera. Also a way to constrain proportions when changing the resolution values and a way to use viewport resolution for rendering.

- 15 Bug: Rhinoll does not work with block instancies. "Maxwell Error: Material already exists".

-11 Bug: Closing and reopening the model causes objects to forget their assigned plastic material (emitters, diffuse, and glass are ok so far).

Thomas An. wrote:-11 Bug: Closing and reopening the model causes objects to forget their assigned plastic material (emitters, diffuse, and glass are ok so far).

Looks like plastic got left off of a filter list somewhere.

Good catch on all of those points. Especially the viewport name thing. If there is a viewport named Perspective, it will render that one, even if it is not current.

Frances,

Yes, it is possible to save a custom view and name it "Perspective". It seems to be the only way right now to store camera settings.

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Yeah. My workaround is to save my views as Perspective1, Perspective2, etc. Then save the view I want to render as Perspective.

I'm pretty sure the Rhino SDK exposes all of the viewport properties. It's been awhile since I've used it though. I think using the viewport name to verify the viability of the viewport is rather simplistic.

hmm, I see what you mean. It looks like Maxwell will not render parallel views (thus staying true to realism)

Rhinoscript does has methods to detect "Perspectiveness" (as I have used them repeatedly in the past) so I am sure the SDK does also.

It seems the plugin development team is under a lot of pressure...

- 12. When copying objects to the clipboard the command line says "Rhinoll data writed". It should read: "Rhinoll data written"

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- 13 Bug: When copying an object from one rhino instance and pasting it to current model then all Maxwell options of the current file are lost (are reset to defaults).

Hi Thomas,

On item #7, match works if the material is set bylayer and Assign By is set to Plug-in.

It would be nice if, when Assign By is set to Plug-in, the Basic parameters could be replaced by the Maxwell parameters. I think that's a Rhino thing though. I've always thought the material editing interface was awkward if you were using other than the Basic material.

Also, having Assign By always reverting back to Basic is an annoying extra click. Again, it could be a limitation of the Rhino SDK or the basic Rhino interface. As it is, it's 3 clicks just to get to the Maxwell mat. editor from the Layers dialog.

If a Maxwell material is assigned to a layer, I'd like to be able to get to the properties with one click.

It would be nice if, when Assign By is set to Plug-in, the Basic parameters could be replaced by the Maxwell parameters. I think that's a Rhino thing though. I've always thought the material editing interface was awkward if you were using other than the Basic material.

Frances,

(not sure if I follow your thoughts 100% but) Flamingo and Rhinoman do not have their material parameters replacing the basic... instead they have their own new window that opens for material libraries and settings (but you knew this, so must be talking about something else). Also, Rhinoman and Flamingo insert new entries in the drop down list of the object properties dialogue (e.g. "Flamingo", "Decals", "Waves" ), but they are not for material editing.

One thing definately missing right now is that Rhinoll does not have its own menu (this would be an alternate way to access the material library).

On item #7, match works if the material is set bylayer and Assign By is set to Plug-in.

If the material is set by layer then any new created object on that layer should inherit the material automatically... no need to use "match" (and this aspect works fine with Rhinoll).

Also, having Assign By always reverting back to Basic is an annoying extra click. Again, it could be a limitation of the Rhino SDK or the basic Rhino interface. As it is, it's 3 clicks just to get to the Maxwell mat. editor from the Layers dialog.

Agreed.
On the other hand, this plugin is in a workable state but it is not a final version. I think Pablo left it like this so that we can get our fingernails dirty trying Maxwell.
Once all the missing components and options are in place (including the material library) the interface will most likely be wrapped up.

Another thing about the material library... I am curious.... Oscar mentioned sometime ago that that Maxwell will handle some materials through the upcoming standalone interface.
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... =interface
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... =interface
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... rface#6930

Is in our minds to do something like that. But a nodal based editor or some sort of WYSIWYG is very sophisticated for a first version. Our first interface and editor version will be modest, but we'll sophisticate it more as time goes on.

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... erface#224

So all this material setup in Rhinoll maybe enterely tentative.

Being able to match bylayer is better than nothing when you want to clone an object's material. I was just pointing that out as a workaround until it is available by object.

I don't have any recent experience with Rhinoman or Flamingo. Unless nothing has changed in 5 years. The frontend to the plug-in editors looks the same though, and is awkward. The maxwell parameters replacing the basic ones would be nice - and logical, but probably not possible.

Keeping plastic materials when I close a file and fixing the duplicate name bug are more important than the niceties of interface design at this point.

Pablo,

Thank you for keeping an eye on us.

There is one more wish:

- 14 Wish: A set of preset resolutions for the camera. Also a way to constrain proportions when changing the resolution values and a way (preset) to use "viewport" resolution for rendering.

- 15 Bug: Rhinoll does not work with block instancies. "Maxwell Error: Material already exists".