nXt

Here is a new build of Flamingo nXT.. 

Once you download it you need to:

1. Run the MSI file that you download. 
2. Go to the Render pulldown > Current Renderer and select Flamingo nXT
3. From the Flamingo nXt pulldown select Control Panel.

If you would like to learn the basic steps for using nXT, please go to Basic Tutorial for nXT.

WIP 13 December 2009

• Found a memory management problem that will help random stability.  Areas effected are material editing, rendering and animations.  This is a big improvement in stability.
• Changed the Sharpness slider in materials to better negotiate the highlight and specular effects.  This allows for faster convergence of reflective effects in some instances.  It makes the Glossy and the Monte Carlo checkboxes less important.  You may want to try reflection without the Glossy checkbox on.
• Changed the main panel interface to tabs instead of rollup panel.
• Added a right-click option for material swatches that will select all objects in the scene with that material currently assigned to them.
• Added X, Y and Z scale to bump patterns.
• Changed the Bump patterns interface in the material editor.  Hopefully it will make working with bump patterns easier.
• Changed the material preview to continue through 64 passes.  The previous 16 pass limit did not show all rendering affects well.
• Fixed drag and drop materials over spotlights.
• Fixed the Light Tab crash when called from the Advanced tab interface.
• Fixed the conversion of inches to mm in resolution settings.
• Fixed the drag cursor to be color in all cases.
• Fixed interface layout problems with large and medium Windows font settings.
• Fixed decal placement crashes.

WIP 12 November 2009

• Added a new indirect light option called Gather. It is set under the Lighting Panel > Advanced Tab > Indirect Dropdown. This new method of indirect light works well for exterior renderings and product shots bringing out more definition in the shadow areas.  In initial passes it will cause noise in the shadow areas, this noise will process out over a few passes. This also will help in very small models that seem to have little color bleeding between surfaces.

• We added a Monte Carlo reflection calculation.  It can be accessed under the Lighting Panel > Advanced Tab > Monte Carlo Reflection checkbox. This can be used in certain situations that the highlight of lights on an object are taking many passes to resolve.  I see it best used when a material has a low sharpness under reflection and the light sources are large.

• Continued to fix crash problems. Seems there were repeatable problems with closing Rhino and selecting bitmap images.  We know there are still some around; we continue to work on them.

• Made the renderer more tolerant when Rhino through a *rhino mesh error*. There is now a filter for meshes with no faces.

• Updated the builds for the current Rhino v5.

• Using the Tab key will logically rotate through the dialog controls.

• The indirect lighting calculation has been refined and is now faster.

WIP 11 October 2009

• Decal placement crash has been fixed
• Drag and drop interface improved
• Drag and dropping material in the background does not report a tree error
• Materials update immediately on drag and drop
• DOF slider adjusted to allow more control
• Once a rendering is finished. Only one click needed to save a rendering..
• Internal and external material management has been improved.
• Editing a material in the model (top list).  If the name is changed and there is another model material with that name you are prompted to overwrite the existing model material.
• Editing a material file (bottom list).  If the name is changed and there is a file with the same name then you are promted to overwirte the existing file.  The materail is saved using the new name and the original file is deleted.  Essentially this is a file rename.
• The Sun tab stays active through saves.
• The box material preview object now has the origin at the corner and the radius is the length.
• Right clicking on a material in the control panel, there is a Select Objects command there. The result is all the objects with that material assigned byObject would be selected.
• Limited search directory search depth to 5 directories deep. This should help with the speed of searching across large networks.
• Added to the material browser a right-click rename option.
• In the external material browser panel added a delete and a rename command.
• The proccedural bump maps keep the name highlighted when you check on the checkbox.
• When selecting the lights in the Control panel old lights are always deselected
• FlamingoNXT planar mapping now promts for origin first.
• The texture set editor as improved
• Fixed many bugs that caused crash dumps.

• Updated materials to allow bitmaps to have embedded or linked textures.
• Continued to fix found bugs.
• Published sample material libraries
• Released 64-bit build for Rhino V5 beta 

WIP 9 July 2009

• You can navigate to different material directories.  The material library browser can be used to drag materials onto objects, layers or into the internal materials in the drawing.  Once assigned to an object, there is an internal definition of the material in the drawing. All editing should be done on the internal material.
• Improved the convertion of legacy materials. If there is one material assigned in many places, we do not make duplicates of that material. 
• FlamingoNXtRenderConstraints command now controls all rendering. If I set the Number of Passes or the Time and Enable the rendering the limits works in all cases.
• The tree editor now works without crashing
• Material drag and drop icons now are working.
• The basic rhino material bump property translates
• If I set the Flamingo NXT object properties of Alpha, Caustics etc now stick.
• XML errors have been fixed.
• Drag and drop refined.

WIP 8 June 2009:

• We have added  on the blog pages a new Basic Tutorial for nXT that covers the basic steps for rendering with Nxt.
• Images can now be saved with or without alpha channel.  At the time you save the image you can choose if the alpha channel is saved in the final image.  Alpha is automatically on for all background pixels.  The groundplane can be set as alpha, and you may select any object to resutl in alpha.
• Both HDRI and EXR high-dynamic range images can be saved out of nXT.  These are the raw rendered image before the tone operator adjusts the image to get it exposed to the screen.  This allows you to save off a high dynamic range image that you can edit in other software edit the HDRI images.  Two programs we have used are: . Photomatix Pro and Artizen HDR.
• Displacement mapping and normal mapping have been added.  You can change the bitmap mapping types in the advanced material editor within the properties of each texture.  Normal maps can create a lot of effects of such as roughness, without impacting render speed.  Displacement will truly displace the render mesh at runtime, creating a true physical texture over the shape.  The drawback with displacement is that rendering currently can be quite a bit slower with displacement.  We are using the products Crazybump or PixPlant

• You can now set the number of passes or limit the time of rendering before you start any renderings.  To do this, type in the command: FlamingoNXtRenderConstraints
• We now support Rhino basic materials including better tiling. This allows you to render models that contain their own render information.  For instance here is a Sketchup file read directly into Rhino and without editing just rendered.  All the materials work. 

We have reconfigured how Lights  are ON/Off  or Visible/Invisible. The property Off/On nows controls if the light projects light.  The property of Invisible/Visible will control whether the light object can be seen. 
A Refraction option is now available with a Sky option.

WIP 7 May 2009: