Print VersionRendering - New in Rhino 5

Overview (Most of these new feature and enhancements are Windows only.)

High-quality presentation is critical to most design projects. Rhino 5 has greatly enhanced the rendering tools in both the basic Rhino Renderer and support of plug‑in renderers. Including major enhancements to:

  • Rhino Renderer
  • Materials, textures, and environments
  • Texture mapping in Rhino for Windows (Watch the video...)
  • Views (cameras)
  • Lighting
  • Mesh modifiers
  • Post-rendering effects
  • Animation

Rhino Renderer

New features

  • Automatic image save - The last rendering is automatically saved in a .rimage file,  Rhino's proprietary lossless image file format.
  • Clipping planes are now supported.
  • Environment - The current environment is reflected in reflective objects, provides the skylight colors and intensities, and can be displayed as the scene background.
  • Safe Frame - A visual guide in the active viewport that shows the area that will be rendered.
  • Skylight - The skylight color and intensity is provided by the current environment or a custom environment.

Enhancements

  • Background - The background can be a solid color, a gradient color, the wallpaper, an environment, or transparent.
  • Custom Preset Sizes - Favorite image sizes can be saved.
  • Render window:
    • Clone
    • Save as HDRi (.hdr, hdri), OpenEXR (.exr), and Rhino Rendering (.rimage)
    • Show RGB, Red, Green, Blue, Alpha, Depth, Open Effects, and Normal X, Y, or Z channels
    • Open recent images that were automatically saved in Rhino Rendering format
    • Post-rendering image processing
  • Materials support more complex attributes. Details below...

Materials, Textures, and Environments

New features

  • ApplyCustomMapping - Generates custom texture mapping by projecting one object's texture coordinates to another.
  • Bake - Gathers an object's textures and decals into a bitmap file and assigns that bitmap as object's texture.
  • Basic Materials now support:
    • Reflectivity
    • IOR
    • Procedural textures
    • High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) images
    • Blend material
    • Composite material
    • Emission color
    • Ambient color
    • Diffuse lighting
  • ComputeVertexColors - Evaluates material texture color for each mesh vertex and sets a vertex color with the corresponding color.
  • ContentFilter - Allows control over which types of content display in the material, environment, and texture editors.
  • Decal - Applies an image over a selected portion of an object.
  • EnvironmentEditor - Adds and edits rendering environments.
  • Find missing textures - When the rendering starts, if textures referred to in the model are not where the renderer can find them, a dialog box provides a list of the missing textures with some options for browsing.
  • GroundPlane - Opens the Ground Plane panel to set ground plane options.
  • Libraries - Opens the Libraries panel where materials, textures, and environments can be stored.
  • MatchMapping - Matches the texture mapping properties of a selected object to another specified object. A Match button also appears in the Texture Mapping dialog box.
  • MaterialEditor - Opens the Material Editor panel.
  • RPC - Support for RPC objects added. Rich Photorealistic Content (RPC) describes the software and content associated with ArchVision's image-based rendering (IBR) technology, that incorporates photo image data into 3‑D computer graphics environments.
  • RPCSetAnimationFrame - Sets the animation frame number for an RPC object so that walking/moving people animations work.
  • Saving textures in Rhino files is now an option.
  • SynchronizeRenderColors - Updates object material colors so they match with their current display colors.
  • Unwrap - Defines how an object's render mesh will be split and laid out in UV space.
  • UVEditor - Edits the layout of a render mesh in UV texture space. In UV space, the render meshes can be joined and split, and their control points edited.

Enhancements

  • ApplyBoxMapping - New Capping option.
  • A BoundingBox option has been added for all mapping types.
  • MappingWidget
    • Name changed from MappingOn.
    • Gumball interface improved for mapping widgets.
    • Mapping widgets now display u‑ and v-directions.
    • PointsOn: Now turns on mapping widget grips.
    • Textures now update in real time when widgets are moved or values in the mapping dialog are changed.
  • MappingWidgetOff - Name changed from MappingOff.

Views (Cameras)

  • The Named Views, often called cameras, have a new Widget interface. This visual representation of a named view can be used to place or edit the camera and target location and to set the field of view.
  • Two-Point Perspective is now supported in viewports and rendering.

Lighting

Sun and Skylight are now supported in the basic Rhino Renderer and also in the Rendered viewport mode.

New commands:

  • Lights - Opens the Lights panel.
  • Sun - Opens the Sun panel.

Enhancements:

  • EditLightByHighlight - Now prompts for a new light.
  • New Target and Dolly grip points have been added to the light object to assist in placing and moving light objects.
  • Lights have an intensity setting separate from their color.

Mesh Modifiers

Render-time mesh modifiers add small details without substantially increasing the Rhino file size.

New commands

  • ApplyCurvePiping - Adds a render mesh around a curve.
  • ExtractPipedCurve - Extracts the mesh created by the ApplyCurvePiping command.
  • ApplyDisplacement - Adds displacement to a render mesh based on a bitmap or procedural texture.
  • ShowRenderMesh - Temporarily displays the render mesh for selected objects.
  • ApplyEdgeSoftening -  Adds edge-softening on the render mesh.
  • ApplyShutLining - Uses a curve to add a groove to a render mesh to show mold lines or shut lines.

Post-rendering tools

New Render window has post-rendering image processing tools:

  • Save and open Rhino Image Files (.rimage). This proprietary lossless image file format stores all the data rendered by the render engine, including color, alpha, depth, normal channels. The high-dynamic-range data can be post-processed and saved to other formats including .HDR and .EXR.
  • New commands include:
    • RenderOpenLastRendering - Opens the last automatically saved rendered image in the Render window.
    • RenderOpenRenderImage - Opens a previously saved .rimage file in the Render window.
  • Image post-processing tools:
    • Exposure (gamma correction and tone mapping)
    • Fog
    • Glow
    • Glare
    • Depth of field
    • Points, curves, isocurves, and annotation
    • Hue
    • Saturation
    • Focal blur
    • Gaussian blur
    • Noise

Animation (Windows only)

The basic Rhino animation tools have these Rhino 5 enhancements:

  • RecordAnimation - A new SetTargetFolder option uses a previously used target folder or allows it to be changed. Scripting support for target folder has been added.
  • Setup Animation - A dialog box for settings up animations has been added.