Well i had to do it didn't I ? ....

My first impressions - Rhino is a dedicated OSX app with no wrapper, yet it's still significantly slower than MoI, but Rhino also has a huge floating menu to contend with, and from what I have seen so far, has no option to be docked out of the way, I did not get to test R5 on windows so I don't know if that's the same menu across the two platforms but to me it's messy, clumsy and cumbersome when compared to the streamlined GUI of MoI. There is no doubt that R5 has many features that MoI does not, but this just serves to make MoI all the more attractive to modellers\designers that just want to get on, even if you get lost in MoI's interface, you are still going to be galaxies ahead of R5 in finding that all illusive icon of the tool that has slipped your mind.

A big bonus for R5 though is the onboard render engine Toucan, but having said that, the materials are primitive and offers no serious competition to the likes of V-Ray or Brazil or C4D, and to be honest, even Cheetah 3D's render engine is better. But in reality Toucan is really just to offer you some instant feedback in your view ports and as such does not need the wallop that a true render studio offers.

At present, MoI v2 & v3 can open R5 files, so cross application editing should be fine but i have not tested that yet, and to be honest, I don't know if i will, R5's interface is just way too complex for my tired old eyes. There's just one thing i like in my quick first testing with Rhino, and one I hope we might get to see in MoI, the right click throws up a history of the commands used recently so you can select the one you need from the list, a nice touch that speeds up the modelling nicely without having to beat your way through that awful floating menu!

If I can get more free time to play, I will take a deeper plunge into R5.... Or will I ? :P


Martin Spencer-Ford