Vlado, please help: Rhino users need you

[Micha]

Dear Vlado,

I'm a Vray for Rhino user since more than 10 years and the Rhino community need your help. I'm a freelancer for 3D viz and use VfR many hours every day. My income based on them. Vray is the best render engine for professional use, there is no alternative at Rhino.

The old VfR2 plugin was rocksolid, the UI was quick accessible, good for professional use, user needs was implemented. Only the development was quite slow, no progress over years.

But since a few months we have a big problem - the suggestions of the beta users was nearly complete ignored. The development is horrible slow, bugs are not fixed and the first release of VfR3 was done with a very long bug list in the background. Please help, you are the boss. Your Rhino community is dying.

Rhino has a great potential, since it is working with NURBS data, needed by architects, designers and engineers. The price of Rhino is very attractive, the support is a dream. Believe me, a well developed render plugin for Rhino is a solid investment. There are no render plugin alternatives. Your power user community is falling in coma. Wake them up, talk with them, spend more development power and they will make the best advertisement for your product and it will grow again.

The last months your Rhino users was third class users. The plugin was developed for SketchUp first, the development team knows better what is needed than the users. Rhino users voices was not heard.

Please Vlado, your pro users of VfR need your help. VfR is important for our live. Please, let us come together, give us more development power.

Best regards,
Micha

PS: I tried to sent per PM, but Vlados PM account is full. Also sent per old email adress I found. Vlado, I hope you read the message.

[vlado]

Yes, I got your email; thanks for the feedback - I've passed it along.

Best regards,
Vlado

[matus.nedecky]

I would like to subscribe for this thread replies, as I am very curious about the progress of VfR. Unfortunately, we stick to Vray for Rhino 2.0, as 3.4 turned out to be not reliable and full of bugs. Please, keep us informed, your Rhino community is awaiting any information.
On behalf of 100 000+ FA members.
Yours sincerely

[Peter.Chaushev]

I would like to subscribe for this thread replies, as I am very curious about the progress of VfR. Unfortunately, we stick to Vray for Rhino 2.0, as 3.4 turned out to be not reliable and full of bugs. Please, keep us informed, your Rhino community is awaiting any information.
On behalf of 100 000+ FA members.
Yours sincerely

Hello, Matus,

Any feedback you can share with us would be appreciated!
What features of V-Ray 3.4 for Rhino you are dissatisfied with? What bugs you encounter or what is impeding your workflow altogether?
And of course, what features which didn't make it in the official release build you would like to see implemented?

Kind regards,
Peter

[mgibeault]

Hi Peter,

Your presence here is very valuable but you should pay a visit to this web page at least once a day: https://discourse.mcneel.com/c/rendering/v-ray

You'll find there a lot of your users and most of your potential future customers.
Answering a few posts there would go a long way towards getting a better feeling from the community.

Also, an official statement about the scheduling of the V-Ray for Rhino future releases (the next release is eagerly needed as it seems to fix about 200 bugs by last coun...) and what is going on with the Baltimore office (that is in charge of V-Ray for Rhino, Sketchup, Revit...?) and the people that used to help us here (Fernando, Matt...)

Thanks
Marc

[toniboni]

Just passing by to sign this! Please listen to the comments of Matus and Micha.

[aaouviz]

Interesting discussion and one I'm passionate about.... as a fellow power Rhino + Vray user (all day, everyday!) I too feel many frustrations with the program and - more importantly - the development.

However, I do not agree that it is unusable. I've now used vray 3 all year in professional jobs. Big ones too. I love it and my work is looking great. I've come close many times this year to jumping ship from Rhino to 3DSmax but mostly glad I haven't.

Since the latest release its very stable. There still are many issues that cause headaches (the window parenting/resizing and not letting me type commands is the biggest concern!... please hotfix this asap!) but these don't outweigh the positives.

I've had to learn to live with the UI. I still think its crazy and unfriendly (the material library... a pop-out side menu that automatically disappears EVERY time you navigate away from it... ffs!!) but I've come to terms that it won't be changed. It's still a million times better to work in Vray for Rhino 3.4 than it is in 3DSmax.

All this being said, yes the development has sucked. Users have not been taken note of. Problems have persisted and updates have been generally slow. This seemed to have improved...At least it did a few months ago. Things have gone quiet again. Why?

Looking forward to more updates soon (auto focus based on rhino camera, and a stable lens bloom/glare, perhaps?).

[mgibeault]

...This seemed to have improved...At least it did a few months ago. Things have gone quiet again. Why?...

All the support people from Baltimore on the Rhino, Sketchup and Revit forums ceased posting on July 22nd.

[Peter.Chaushev]

Hi Peter,
Your presence here is very valuable but you should pay a visit to this web page at least once a day: https://discourse.mcneel.com/c/rendering/v-ray
You'll find there a lot of your users and most of your potential future customers.
Answering a few posts there would go a long way towards getting a better feeling from the community.

Good advice, I and my colleagues will keep an eye on the McNeel V-Ray subforum.

Also, an official statement about the scheduling of the V-Ray for Rhino future releases (the next release is eagerly needed as it seems to fix about 200 bugs by last count...)

All this being said, yes the development has sucked. Users have not been taken note of. Problems have persisted and updates have been generally slow. This seemed to have improved...At least it did a few months ago. Things have gone quiet again. Why?

Our official policy is to have V-Ray for SketchUp and V-Ray for Rhino on the same page at all times. V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp is scheduled for release at some point in October, definitely before the end of that month. V-Ray 3.6 for Rhino will follow shortly after.
The delay since the last update is due to the decision to skip a v3.5 release and aim straight for v3.6.
I am certain you will appreciate the extra time put into developing the next release. It will be packed with new features, bring better performance and have most of the current issues plaguing v3.4 resolved.
I would like to assure you that all feedback (bug reports, support tickets and feature requests) is taken into consideration, discussed and has direct impact on the product development.

(...)and what is going on with the Baltimore office (that is in charge of V-Ray for Rhino, Sketchup, Revit...?) and the people that used to help us here (Fernando, Matt...)

All the support people from Baltimore on the Rhino, Sketchup and Revit forums ceased posting on July 22nd.

I know some of my colleagues have been a constant presence on the forums for a very long time which is now being missed, and I want to let you know that we?ve decided to close our Baltimore office. This is part of an effort to consolidate our product teams and resources in our headquarters in Sofia as well as our LA office.
This change occurred approximately a month ago.

There still are many issues that cause headaches (the window parenting/resizing and not letting me type commands is the biggest concern!... please hotfix this asap!)
I've had to learn to live with the UI. I still think its crazy and unfriendly (the material library... a pop-out side menu that automatically disappears EVERY time you navigate away from it... ffs!!) but I've come to terms that it won't be changed.

(....)Looking forward to more updates soon (auto focus based on rhino camera, and a stable lens bloom/glare, perhaps?).

V-Ray UI and VFB window parenting will be drastically improved in the next build. Additionally, the UI is being redefined constantly - most changes are currently aimed at saving the users time, making the layouts more logical and memorable, and enhancing the capabilities of the texture and material controls.
Could you please elaborate more on the "not letting me type commands" issue? We are currently in the middle of fixing some inconsistencies among vis commands.

Kind regards,
Peter

[aaouviz]

Appreciate the reply as always, Peter.

V-Ray UI and VFB window parenting will be drastically improved in the next build. Additionally, the UI is being redefined constantly - most changes are currently aimed at saving the users time, making the layouts more logical and memorable, and enhancing the capabilities of the texture and material controls.
Could you please elaborate more on the "not letting me type commands" issue? We are currently in the middle of fixing some inconsistencies among vis commands.

I'm sure this has been discussed previously. It's very difficult to describe succinctly, so apologies in advance for the coming convoluted description;

The problem I'm referring to is that I have difficulties trying to type in the command prompt. My 'cursor'* isn't ready inside the rhino command prompt as it should be. Therefore I can't type a command. I click into rhino viewport (or toolbar most commonly so I don't select an object) and I see the cursor appear in the command line. However, generally the cursor disappears again after a millisecond and I have to click again. I go thru this procedure 3-4 times almost every time I need to type a command. Whats happening is that the rhino window is becoming inactive, and a background window (see; vray vfb, material editor) is active. Thus I can't type in the command prompt.

I'm 99% sure it's a vray caused problem as it only happens once I load one of the vray dialogues and this problem started approx. 4 months ago after a vray update and has persisted ever since.

* cursor in this case is the blinking straight line.

Sorry; this should have been posted in another thread! Anyone else experience this problem?

[mgibeault]

Thanks a lot Peter for taking the time to bringing us up to speed, knowing an approximate timeframe helps a lot. It's not only for people asking in this forum; I manage a team of 15 users and have to plan for deployment, suppert and training, etc.

I have the same problems as aaouviz regarding the window parenting problems. V-Ray steals the focus and we can't type inside Rhino. If we're typing, Rhino should always get the string except when the cursor is explicitely placed inside a text box in V-Ray's UI.

[aaouviz]

I have the same problems as aaouviz regarding the window parenting problems. V-Ray steals the focus and we can't type inside Rhino. If we're typing, Rhino should always get the string except when the cursor is explicitely placed inside a text box in V-Ray's UI.

For me... THIS IS THE problem needing the most attention. It slows down productivity terribly.

[Micha]

In the last months it seems to be that the plugin was developed for Revit first, followed by SU and last ported to Rhino. During the main developing at Revit there was no time for nightly builds for Rhino, so the Rhino user was sitting on the last row. Is there a chance to change the order for a while?

Why I think there is no enough developing power? For example the camera. In basic mode the user can keep the exposure, no problem to change the f-number for adjusting the DOF, the exposure is kept. In advanced mode this automatic is not implemented. So, if the advanced camera user want to change the DOF, he need to switch to basic mode, change the DOF and jump back to the advanced mode. That's no good workflow. We talked about this issue and finally there was no fix implemented.

There was some more issues with the camera:
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...arameter-chaos

At the user side I got the impression the developing has not enough resources to finalize features, it seems to follow the 80/20 rule - 80% of the work is be done in 20% of the time. For the rest of 20% work to much time is needed, so it's skipped. But it's no good to use a 80% plugin. I know, it sounds hard, but it like working with an unsharp wood tool.

(For me one of the biggest issues of VfR3 is that each Rhino task get three entries at the Windows taskbar. Since I'm working on several projects at the same time often I wasn't able to quick switch between the tasks. This bug is alive since a very long time.)

[matus.nedecky]

In the last months it seems to be that the plugin was developed for Revit first, followed by SU and last ported to Rhino. During the main developing at Revit there was no time for nightly builds for Rhino, so the Rhino user was sitting on the last row. Is there a chance to change the order for a while?

Why I think there is no enough developing power? For example the camera. In basic mode the user can keep the exposure, no problem to change the f-number for adjusting the DOF, the exposure is kept. In advanced mode this automatic is not implemented. So, if the advanced camera user want to change the DOF, he need to switch to basic mode, change the DOF and jump back to the advanced mode. That's no good workflow. We talked about this issue and finally there was no fix implemented.

There was some more issues with the camera:
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...arameter-chaos

At the user side I got the impression the developing has not enough resources to finalize features, it seems to follow the 80/20 rule - 80% of the work is be done in 20% of the time. For the rest of 20% work to much time is needed, so it's skipped. But it's no good to use a 80% plugin. I know, it sounds hard, but it like working with an unsharp wood tool.

(For me one of the biggest issues of VfR3 is that each Rhino task get three entries at the Windows taskbar. Since I'm working on several projects at the same time often I wasn't able to quick switch between the tasks. This bug is alive since a very long time.)

Absolutely agree with Micha. Also, what I really hated about latest V-Ray 3 versions, were constant problems with licencing. Due to the licence issue, we even lost a client as shortly before deadline, it stopped working and I was not able to receive any support.
But definitely the worst thing for me, after which I decided to uninstall it completely, was this one: We used to use Color mapping > Burn value - we always set this one to 0.1 at the beginning of the job and it stayed at this value for the whole time. This allowed us to use HDRI in Dome Lights without getting washed out, bright areas. In V-Ray 3 it was completely removed, but you introduced some kind of Brightness value slider within the VfB. It was working in a different way giving different results, but we were actually forced to use this one instead of Burn Value in Vray 2. But this value was shared in between all scenes and was not scene-related! That means, if I set it to 0.1 in a interior file, then opened another Rhino file and set it to 0.6 and then reopened the interior scene, it remained 0.6. Always dependent on the latest value you set in VfB in any scene. This is unthinkable when you are working on many scenes for many different jobs. This way I lost the settings of a few scenes, so I was never able to replicate the same result as I had for a previous stage of the project. And that's an issue, if you already have some postproduction applied in PS and you just need to switch renderchannels.

[matus.nedecky]

I only mentioned the downside... Sorry for that, I am just very frustrated. For the positives I have to mention: I love the UI, it's clean, nice, simple and people will love it. Also, the speed is just amazing, much better than Vray 2. We usually work with Rhino files with the filesize of about 3 up to 5 GB, for very extensive exteriors, masterplans, etc... Loading such scenes is just a breeze in Vray 3, so good job guys. I just hope the development will proceed even faster from now on
PS I have many more suggestions for improvements, will list them later.