Rhino4 beta

[roshent]

Hi crew,

Figured better not delute the other Rhino topic with this but start a new one.

Just played with the beta 666 for a minute or two, and found that Rhino4 does know quad polygons now.
Just did a simple structure, three curves and a 2 rail sweep. When you select the resulting surface and hit F3 or select properties you have an option to turn it into a mesh. When you do that, it creates mostly quads and not tri's as before. However if the surface has a stronger curvature it sometimes does create quads with tri's. Probably something to do with the curvature degree your working in. Anyway, just two screenshots of it, one the Rhino4 beta666 with the polygoncounter on 576, saved it as an 3ds file, and opened it in Max8 showing the exact same polygon count.
There is hope here....

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[mrys]

Very good news! Even PowerNurbs produced only tripolys.

[kevjon]

Looks good roshent and very good news indeed. I assume the new density control can make your quad mesh a lot tighter and denser so it renders smoother at closer viewing distances.

When you have time could you create a wing with seperate sweep for wingtip area. I would be most interested to see the mesh that is generated on that. Version 3 creates ugly mesh around leading edges, joints in nurbs surfaces (between wing & wing tip) and the trailing edge of wing and would be most interested to see what 4 can do.

mrys, here is a funny reason why powernurbs converts to triangles instead of quads. Made me laugh !http://npowersoftware.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79&highlight=quads

[mrys]

Wow....

" We took it out because we didn't think anyone would use it."

I'am not laughing... I'am crying... But maybe they only design software - not using it. Even have not any idea how to use it...

Please, tell me that it is only joke!!!!

[roshent]

@kevjon, there is not much use of doing that, since you have already many controls to your disposal to create the mesh, and after you did you indeed have new mesh tools, although some are what 'cluttered' in the UI. (It's a beta after all)
I found the option 'cage' in the transform tools and that one works on both NURBS surfaces as well as a meshsurface. It creates a control cage around your object and you can set the way you want your cage to be in many different options. After which you can manipulate the cage points and manipulate your object. Don't think that one is in 3...not sure, but when it was it certainly didn't work on mesh surfaces.

Best tool in the mesh creating biz is in my view the little option on the polygon mesh dialog box. It is listed as Minium initial grid quads and you can enter a number yourself. I made a screenshot below, I've got the option on 256 polygons.
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EDIT: forgot the pic of the cage
468

[kevjon]

Ok, thanks roshent.

I'll wait for Rhino4 to be released and try it out. Looking at the Rhino forums it seems the beta's have so many bugs in it that it is hard to believe they will ever iron them all out. Oh well.....back to polygons for now....still have many half finished planes to complete & texture.

[giant551]

Ok, thanks roshent.

I'll wait for Rhino4 to be released and try it out. Looking at the Rhino forums it seems the beta's have so many bugs in it that it is hard to believe they will ever iron them all out. Oh well.....back to polygons for now....still have many half finished planes to complete & texture.

They wouldn't dare release V4 when its not ready they did that when V3 was released at first, the dam thing was mostly unusable !!! And it cost rhino dearly with a lot of users switching to other packages. When i went to the UK rhino users conference last Christmas they where showing some of the nice new toys for rhino 4 and i got to say it looked pretty impressive. You will be able to modify your meshes the same as your nurbs surfaces with things like the split tool and also proper UV mapping is coming at long last.

The only thing which is very disapointing is rhino will still ship with the default rhino renderer which is next to useless, so to get any benefit out of rhino you will have to buy one of the renderer plug ins which are coming but they also come with a wopping price tag. So with the pricing of Rhino 4 plus an extra £500 for brazil or v-ray....... is it worth it ??? Not sure to be honest as there a lot of very capable software for around the same price namely XSI, Modo and C4D.

But i suppose only time will tell:D

[kevjon]

Thanks for the additional info Giant....very intersting. It sounds very much like it will be very expensive to create some final aviation renders when you model with Rhino. For me its just and wait and see and try out the demo.

At this stage it is slated to be released in Nov 06 but I suspect it will drag on a bit. There have been a lot of bugs reported with the Beta's.