Cheetah3D 7.0 - Early Adopters Beta Test

Render Settings and 'Help'

Dearest Forum

Cheers for the advice!

However the first time I ran 7.0b22 I got a really rich help file about rendering - split into Falcon and Cheetah.

Now I get an older file that is not quite so interesting.

Here's my application folder:

Any ideas?

Regards


Andy
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2017-03-26 at 19.50.46.png
    Screen Shot 2017-03-26 at 19.50.46.png
    97.3 KB · Views: 587
Resolution dimensions

V7 b22: The renderer resolution default is 640 X 480, either Cheetah or Falcon. I can’t figure out why the resolution adjustments can’t be “rolled” up and down to change the width or height. If I type one in, usually the other one will change automatically to keep the proportion the same, but not always. I am missing something basic; what?
 

Attachments

  • res.png
    res.png
    15.5 KB · Views: 550
The arrows-adjustment feature has gone. (Yes I miss it badly, because I often need to have sizes beyond video resolution standards, but ones that fit background images for example.)
Click the "Lock"-icon to toggle proportions on/off:

Cheers
Frank
 

Attachments

  • ToggleProportional.jpg
    ToggleProportional.jpg
    15.3 KB · Views: 548
Resolution setting controls

First, thanks as always to Frank.

Resolution is one of the most basic functions of a rendering program, and the controls should not be baffling to a new user, much less an experienced one.

If Martin reads this, here is some beta feedback.

Having used C3D versions 4, 5, and 6 over the past 10 years I was used to "dialing in" the resolution width and height individually in the camera settings. Version 7 moved them to the renderer settings. I'm OK with that, but the control paradigm changed so that it is no longer possible to change the width or height by "dialing in" — the numbers have to be typed in. If you expect, as I did, to click the little control icons and use the mouse zoom wheel to adjust the numbers it just doesn't work. The hovering info box says "Proportional" whether it is or not, and if you click the arrow cursor on the control icon the change from proportional to non-proportional is so subtle, I for one did not notice it and I was looking right at it. Granted, most users have better vision than I do, and I have my monitor brightness at about 50% to avoid eye strain, so the contrast is reduced. But the only feedback is a change of 12 pixels, from light gray to dark gray.

In the attached screen shot, in the top two examples I carefully moved the arrow to the side to reveal the changing pixels, but if I clicked in the center of the icon, those pixels would have been even more obscured. The bottom one is actually not set for "Proportional" despite the misleading info box.

By comparison, the Photoshop Selection Tool options are clear and easy to set.

I hope this can be re-designed to at least make the function obvious. Personally, I would still prefer the previous adjustable width and height controls with a separate option for a Fixed Aspect Ratio rather than the vague and confusing "Proportional."
 

Attachments

  • render_set.jpg
    render_set.jpg
    24 KB · Views: 521
  • ps_select.jpg
    ps_select.jpg
    4.4 KB · Views: 517
Last edited:
Joel said:
First, thanks as always to Frank.

Resolution is one of the most basic functions of a rendering program, and the controls should not be baffling to a new user, much less an experienced one.

If Martin reads this, here is some beta feedback.

Having used C3D versions 4, 5, and 6 over the past 10 years I was used to "dialing in" the resolution width and height individually in the camera settings. Version 7 moved them to the renderer settings. I'm OK with that, but the control paradigm changed so that it is no longer possible to change the width or height by "dialing in" — the numbers have to be typed in. If you expect, as I did, to click the little control icons and use the mouse zoom wheel to adjust the numbers it just doesn't work. The hovering info box says "Proportional" whether it is or not, and if you click the arrow cursor on the control icon the change from proportional to non-proportional is so subtle, I for one did not notice it and I was looking right at it. Granted, most users have better vision than I do, and I have my monitor brightness at about 50% to avoid eye strain, so the contrast is reduced. But the only feedback is a change of 12 pixels, from light gray to dark gray.

In the attached screen shot, in the top two examples I carefully moved the arrow to the side to reveal the changing pixels, but if I clicked in the center of the icon, those pixels would have been even more obscured. The bottom one is actually not set for "Proportional" despite the misleading info box.

By comparison, the Photoshop Selection Tool options are clear and easy to set.

I hope this can be re-designed to at least make the function obvious. Personally, I would still prefer the previous adjustable width and height controls with a separate option for a Fixed Aspect Ratio rather than the vague and confusing "Proportional."
Click to expand...

I didn't even notice that this proportional lock had been added. Pretty cool. I agree though that it would be nice to be able to lock the parameters and still use the arrows.
 
Joel said:
First, thanks as always to Frank.

Resolution is one of the most basic functions of a rendering program, and the controls should not be baffling to a new user, much less an experienced one.

If Martin reads this, here is some beta feedback.

Having used C3D versions 4, 5, and 6 over the past 10 years I was used to "dialing in" the resolution width and height individually in the camera settings. Version 7 moved them to the renderer settings. I'm OK with that, but the control paradigm changed so that it is no longer possible to change the width or height by "dialing in" — the numbers have to be typed in. If you expect, as I did, to click the little control icons and use the mouse zoom wheel to adjust the numbers it just doesn't work. The hovering info box says "Proportional" whether it is or not, and if you click the arrow cursor on the control icon the change from proportional to non-proportional is so subtle, I for one did not notice it and I was looking right at it. Granted, most users have better vision than I do, and I have my monitor brightness at about 50% to avoid eye strain, so the contrast is reduced. But the only feedback is a change of 12 pixels, from light gray to dark gray.

In the attached screen shot, in the top two examples I carefully moved the arrow to the side to reveal the changing pixels, but if I clicked in the center of the icon, those pixels would have been even more obscured. The bottom one is actually not set for "Proportional" despite the misleading info box.

By comparison, the Photoshop Selection Tool options are clear and easy to set.

I hope this can be re-designed to at least make the function obvious. Personally, I would still prefer the previous adjustable width and height controls with a separate option for a Fixed Aspect Ratio rather than the vague and confusing "Proportional."
Click to expand...

Hi Joel,
the icon on the right should display a link. Some apps also use a small lock to symbolize that the width and height are connected. But doing it that way is very common on the Mac. Adding a special pull down menu is overkill in my eyes and wastes precious screen space. Please don't forget that Cheetah3D should also work on MacBook Airs with a tiny 11" screens.

I personally never used the steppers for dialing in a resolution. I usually just enter the resolution directly. So I saw now problem to remove them to make space for the link icon.

The small label which shows up when you move the mouse over the link is called a tooltip. It's purpose is to give the user a hint was this control does. It doesn't display the current state of the control.

The scroll wheel is used for scrolling the whole properties editor. I therefore can't use it for dialing in values within the properties editor. That would cause tons of unintended edits.

But it's possible that the functionality of the steppers come back later. Maybe in form of text fields with integrated steppers. But not in v7.0 anymore. Sorry.

Bye
Martin
 
Joel,

You can also use my camera script if you want preset resolutions. You could bind them to a key shortcut. Not exactly what was being asked for, but it may help. Especially if you want to keep a specific aspect ratio, but you want to scale it up or down. You can always go into the script and modify whatever resolutions you want, or add more to the list.

There's an older version for v6 and a newer one for v7. Martin a few other people helped me sort out this script to get it working correctly.

http://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10025
 
AndyThirtover said:
Dearest Forum

Cheers for the advice!

However the first time I ran 7.0b22 I got a really rich help file about rendering - split into Falcon and Cheetah.

Now I get an older file that is not quite so interesting.

Here's my application folder:

Any ideas?

Regards
Andy
Click to expand...

Hi,
that's a long standing bug in macOS. It's not guaranteed that the macOS Help viewer displayed the documentation of the currently running version of an app. It might also display the documentation of an older version of the app.

I'm sorry but I don't know a work around for that bug at the moment. It's very annoying.

Bye
Martin
 
Martin said:
Hi,
that's a long standing bug in macOS. It's not guaranteed that the macOS Help viewer displayed the documentation of the currently running version of an app. It might also display the documentation of an older version of the app.

I'm sorry but I don't know a work around for that bug at the moment. It's very annoying.

Bye
Martin
Click to expand...

Hi Martin, has anything in the help manual been updated from b20 to b22? I made a pdf for the b20, but I can create one for b22 if it's been updated since. Not the cleanest solution, but since it's Apple's problem with the help viewer, it could be used instead in this case. If nothing has been updated, I can point Andy to the v7b20 help pdf. :)
 
How can I get 16:9 resolutions in this script I can't write scripts and understand nothing about them, but I could probably mess it up pretty good.
Thanks
 
Swizl said:
Hi Martin, has anything in the help manual been updated from b20 to b22? I made a pdf for the b20, but I can create one for b22 if it's been updated since. Not the cleanest solution, but since it's Apple's problem with the help viewer, it could be used instead in this case. If nothing has been updated, I can point Andy to the v7b20 help pdf. :)
Click to expand...

No, I made no changes to the documentation in the last beta.

Bye
Martin
 
uncle808us said:
How can I get 16:9 resolutions in this script I can't write scripts and understand nothing about them, but I could probably mess it up pretty good.
Thanks
Click to expand...

If you open the script the part at the vary top that says

"var selectorArrayRender ..."

has a list of sizes. Those sizes are what show up in the pull down list when you are picking the resolution you want. So enter a list of sizes in the same format as I have. You can add as many or as little as you want. The array will grow or shrink to the sizes you have listed. Then you need to match in order that you have them listed in the entries under the

"function setRenderSize(tool) ..."

part of the script. Note that this script only focuses on the active render engine. So if you have it to the original C3d renderer it will set it there, but won't set it in the Falcon renderer. You must switch to the Falcon renderer and then apply the resolution again.

You can pull a list of standard 16:9 ratios from Wikipedia, or you can use whatever custom ones you want. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9

If you're still stuck, please let me know.
 
Wow, amazing how fast that year passed.

And thank you very much for all the bug reports I've received during the last year. My change log lists over 200 entries. Many of them were bugs reported by beta testers.:smile: :redface:

Bye
Martin
 
Hopefully you can release version 7 soon. The betas have been incredibly stable. Just grabbing beta 23 now. :)

Is there a way to control the amount of motion blur when using the Falcon renderer? The only way I can think of is to bump the frame rate to 4× or similar and blend the resulting frames.
 
Last edited:
jdmac said:
Try changing the shutter speed on the camera.
Click to expand...
Thanks!

—————————

I haven’t figured out the exact steps to reproduce, but I think undoing keyframe changes (deleting points) might not be working properly in 7.0b23. If I work it out, I’ll post more info.
 
STL Export

I probably used this software differently than most of the other user. I don't have a need for rendering - I use Cheetah 3D for creating items that I print on my 3D printers. The latest beta has made some great improvements in booleans, which I use extensively. The problem at this point is outputting the object made with those booleans.

If I create a simple cube and the subtract a cylinder using a boolean it looks great on the screen but when I export it to STL I get a solid cube with a solid cylinder sticking out of it. In order to export it I have to make it editable and then export it. Then I can undo the make editable and make any required changes. Not a terrible problem as long as I always remember to undo the make editable before making any significant changes.

It would be nice if exporting to STL would treat everything as if it had be made editable so the resulting file would be correct without all the futzing about.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top