Wish: Add transparency to Capture View component

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chris Mackey on April 11, 2016 at 12:24pm

Tim,

This has also been a hassle in my workflows.  It I had to deal with PowerPoint's artifact-ridden "set transparent color" method again, I was going to flip.  Thankfully, it was easy to implement on the component:

Enjoy!

-Chris

Attachments:

• TransparentBackground.gh, 357 KB

Permalink Reply by Tim on April 11, 2016 at 10:55pm

Hi Chris,

I love you man. I was hoping to see at least a couple of people backing me up on this, but unfortunately nobody did and I felt that what I was asking for is something superfluous.

You understand me, thank you so much for this tiny feature, my life is complete for now.

I just updated LB's user objects and checked the new sweet feature but it didn't work. Is there something I forgot to check? I didn't touch HB and I didn't forget to update all the LB components on the canvas as well as change the old component with a new one. I also tried to play with the inputs to no avail. I tried to download your file and see if it works, but it was the same.

I usually use Wireframe top view with white background if this can help. As I get it you let rhino change background color to transparency?

Capture view components is awesome, I always use it to capture stuff in rhino. I'll wait for your reply to see if I can help to solve this issue.

Permalink Reply by Abraham Yezioro on April 11, 2016 at 11:29pm

Tim,

This works fine at my end. Check the date of both LB_LB and LB_CaptureView. They both need to be Apr_11.

Chris: Thanks. The truth is that didn't use this feature ... until now. Extremely useful.

-A.

Permalink Reply by Tim on April 12, 2016 at 3:15am

Hi Abraham,

looked them up, they are same. Could you, maybe, share definition where it works? There must me something else on my side.

Permalink Reply by Abraham Yezioro on April 12, 2016 at 6:35am

Tim,

I can send something that works for me, but this will be the same file as Chris uploaded. I tried different scenarios and all of them work fine.

So wait for his opinion.

-A.

Permalink Reply by Chris Mackey on April 12, 2016 at 10:52am

Tim and Abraham,

Glad that you find the feature useful. I didn't realize how necessary it was until I started making all of my presentations at my office with this component a few months ago.

Tim,
There's a chance that you may have found the first bug. I was able to make the transparency work for most typical solid-color backgrounds but I might have missed some important ones. Also, the current implementation won't work if you have a gradient background. If you can upload your Rhino file with the view (and display mode) that you are trying to capture, I should hopefully be able to re-create the error on my end and fix it.

Also, I should mention that all of your feature suggestions on this forum have been great and please keep posting them. If we are silent, it is only because we know some features might take a while to implement and many of us have our hands full with bug fixes and revisions of the code for the LB+HB API. We will hopefully get around to your suggestions eventually. This said, if you are ever motivated to implement some of these features that you have mentioned (like HUDs, etc.), I would be happy to point you towards the Python resources from which I learned to code a couple years ago. If you get through that, I'm also happy to give a crash course in GHPython via Skype.

Stay awesome,
-Chris

Permalink Reply by Tim on April 12, 2016 at 9:29pm

Hey Chris,

Yeah, I was expecting it to work just fine since I set my background color to a nice clean white. Strange stuff. I'll upload my LB definition as well as my viewport settings (make sure to back yours up first if you want to see the again XD). I didn't have any geometry at that point, just a new rhino document and wireframe top view with LB's diagram.

Oh, really?  Thanks, that's nice to hear because I felt like I was one of those typical apple users complain about some aesthetic feature being not "cool" enough or something. Up to a point I wish I could just quickly code something myself and see if it looks as good as I thought it would, so yeah, it would be a pleasure for me to help you guys even a little bit. 

I am currently learning Java's Processing (because it is said to be great for beginners and fun to learn and indeed it is). Before that I only learnt Visual Basic in chinese XD as one of compulsory courses after which I had enough XD. So right now despite my growing love for coding I had to slow down because of my graduation project. So yeah, let me jump right in Python after I graduate and find a job otherwise I'm afraid I'll spread too thin and won't accomplish anything. 

Anyway, I'm really looking forward helping your team and learning something new and awesome, let's come back to this topic after I deal with uni and job if that's ok?

Attachments:

• Wireframe.ini, 10 KB
• Rendered.ini, 11 KB
• 01_Wind.gh, 443 KB

Permalink Reply by Tim on April 14, 2016 at 4:36am

Hey Chris,

Just noticed a strange behaviour and thought to tell you here, didn't want to create a discussion for it. Capture view doesn't work with a timer on, is it something common? I'd add a workaround if I could, just in case. It works fine when I disable the timer, a possible problem for any animation enthusiast.

P.S. I didn't figure out the transparency ((

Permalink Reply by Chris Mackey on April 14, 2016 at 9:28pm

Hey Tim,

I imported your .ini files and I was able to replicate the error.  I have not re-written the capture view component to deal with your case yet but I know what is causing the error.  You should be able to get the transparency to work on your machine by going to Options>View>Display Modes and, for each display mode, set the Background under Viewport settings to "Use Application Settings."  For the Rendered mode, you should change this Background to "Use Render Settings."  Right now, you have all of these set to "Solid Color", which does not currently work.

I'll try to rewrite the component code to sense this in the future and I will post back here once I do so.

I don't know how you are trying to use the component with the timer.  If you post an example GH file showing the issue, that might make it easier to understand.

The plan for getting involved in coding sounds great.  Let me know when you get some time to delve into python and I'll send you a list of resources.  Good luck with finishing up uni and the job search!

-Chris

Permalink Reply by Tim on April 14, 2016 at 9:43pm

Hi Chris,

I did like you said and made a quick screenshot, transparency is back, wohoo. Thanks for the help, I can work with that much faster.

I attached the file were I had timer problem.

Thanks Chris, let's talk again at a better time.

Have a nice day.

Attachments:

• 01_Wind.gh, 453 KB

Permalink Reply by Chris Mackey on April 29, 2016 at 11:36am

Tim,

Sorry for the late reply.  I can't seem to recreate your timer error from your file.  Are you getting an error message from the timer?  If so, could you post that error message here?

-Chris