Improvements and wishes

[roygilsing]

Hi all,

I am a frequent user of Keyshot. I run Keyshot 4 on Windows 7 - 64bit

Over time, I have encountered several bugs or undesirable features. I would like to share these with you, Keyshot developers, for your consideration.

I apologize if some of my remarks are already solved or that I am unaware of a existing solution.

- A material with 2 maps (texture and bump), which are NOT synced and one is repeated (bump) and one is not (texture). If I change a setting, for example the roughness, both maps are set to sync and repeat undesirably and unexpectedly.

- When importing a new part, for example from Solidworks, and I don't want the camera view to change, the checkbox for not changing camera view point, doesn't work properly (the view point DOES change on import). It sometimes unexpectedly changes to a saved viewpoint. Also, the checkbox setting is NOT remembered which is annoying and I need to uncheck the box each time (I prefer the camera view point NOT to change unexpectedly!)

- as a European product designer, my objects are most often modeled in millimeter. Even though the use of Keyshot in metrics has been improved, some sliders, are still not working properly and are not scaled to the scene. For example environment size have a maximum of 100, but they are often exceeded working in mm. Why not have the unit setting automatically adjust the slider settings?

- the same counts for the material translucency setting, the f-stop setting for DOF, ground size, and probably more.

- when saving a camera view set, there are some settings which are NOT saved, like environment height and environment brightness/contrast. All in all, when changing environment settings from shot to shot, it is still difficult and tedious to recreate a previous shot. And I prefer not to create a separate .bip for each viewpoint!

- the list of saved camera views and view sets in camera options is reordered and messy (not chronologic) after re-opening the file.

- the initial free camera and camera 1 under the camera options are peculiar

- it is strange that the management of the saved camera views has to happen in another tab (scene tab) then the camera tab.

- live linking (with Solidworks) is having difficulties with additional solid bodies. Parts are doubled and is not similar to the Solidworks part anymore.

- when importing from a Rhino file, the objects are all connected unless each parts color has been redefined in Rhino. This is a bit annoying.

- I wish I had an options to easily rearrange the model parts in the scene tab and create layers, etc.

- When a texture map is deselected by unchecking the tick-box, the image map is deleted from the image slot ("no texture loaded") even if I wish to reapply it later.

- sometimes when you hit the renderings tab (or other tabs) by accident in the library map, it takes forever to load the images without the option to cancel.

- I wish there was an option for texture map (or label) transparency (rather than brightness/contrast option)

- I wish there was a label roughness setting

- I wish there were more easy ground options (like roughness, refraction) instead of importing a plane with ground material

- I miss a displacement texture mapping option!

Thank you.

[maymay]

Wow, that's quite a list! But I agree with most of them. The saved cameras needs some work. The camera always moves when importing. To add to the list, why does the rendering restart when a camera is added? The renderings tab is another big one, can freeze the program for minutes.

[Despot]

Hello Roy

I can help you on a couple of thoses issues I think... Hope I'm not stepping on the toes of KS mods and staff here, if so I'm sorry 

A material with 2 maps (texture and bump), which are NOT synced and one is repeated (bump) and one is not (texture). If I change a setting, for example the roughness, both maps are set to sync and repeat undesirably and unexpectedly

The 'sync' issue with textures has been fixed in the Beta 4.1 that I have at the moment, so I assume it will be in the actual release.

I wish there was a label roughness setting

As you rightly say, there is no label 'roughness' slider, but the roughness of the reflectivity of the label can be changed by altering the specular colour chip, black is no reflectivity at all (lambertian I suppose) and white is full reflectivity- choosing a shade of grey in between will roughen the reflections accordingly.

I wish there were more easy ground options (like roughness, refraction) instead of importing a plane with ground material

In KS4 you can add a ground plane (Edit>>Add Ground Plane) which then seamlessly integrates with the backdrop or HDRI, a corresponding ground material is also added and applied to the plane.

Now I can't check to be certain at the moment because I'm in the middle of an important render, but from memory, both roughness of the reflection and the IOR can both be changed in the ground material settings.

First of all, 'activate' the reflection by changing the specular colour chip  from black to white, then use the roughness slider to change reflection roughness. Changing the IOR parameter will make the reflection more or less visible depending on your camera viewing angle.

Hope this helps, and lets hope I'm not giving you duff info 

Cheers

J

[Despot]

I've just looked and the  IOR setting for the ground plane material is accessible via the Advanced roll-out...

J

[roygilsing]

Hello M-M, thanks for your answers.
The label roughness option is a wish; I'd prefer it with a roughness slider, also in order to have it similar to the material settings.
I know about the ground plane import and material settings, but it seems to me an unnecessary extra step. It would have been nice if the IOR and roughness of the ground plane were directly accessible in the ground section of the environments tab.

cheers,
Roy

[guest84672]

Several of the issues you reported have been addressed or are in the process of being addressed (slider adjustment, remembering import settings, sync settings for textures et al.)

Can you be more explicit with regards to what is not working when it comes to live linking? An example would be best.

And last, please give me a good example on when you need displacement mapping.


Thanks, Thomas

[roygilsing]

Hi Thomas,

Here's a example of how live linking is confused.
I created a box and created the Keyshot scene from within SW with Live linking active.
I then created another box on top as separate solid body and updated. In this moment the Keyshot scene was already different: the two bodies were not separated, but one part. I changed the color of the top-box to red and updated again, but it wouldn't let me (nothing happened). I then created a hole in the top box and updated. Now is was fine in KS. I removed the color and the hole and updated. Now KS created double copies. Then I saved the SW file and updated and by now KS is completely confused with multiple copies. This is the copy I saved.
This SW workflow is nothing strange: I work with solid bodies a lot and I save the file sometimes halfway the work.

You asked me a good example of when I need displacement mapping.
Well, often, for a design proposal, a realistic bumped texture can be a lot faster then modeling a texture of course. I attached an example of a rendering of a modeled textured (biscuit box), which I would have preferred using a displacement map. A bump texture, without reflections and shadows, can look very flat and unrealistic (see other attached detail image).

cheers,
Roy

[guest84672]

We will look into the SW workflow you reported.

Did you try a a normal map instead of a regular image by any chance?

[roygilsing]

I always use normal maps.
Please keep me updated on the SW workflow issue!