Our first corona test, pretty impressed so far

[Muse]

Hello to everyone.

After seeing all the amazing renders in the gallery, and feeling that there is something really
special going on with corona, as far as lighting goes, I decided to give it a try.
Since I had only a day free from work, I just rendered a single forestpack scene, lit with corona physical sun and sky.
What I can say, is that corona surprised me with its quality, the sunlight feeling it achieves, in my
experience is unmatched from all these render engines I have tried and worked with
mental ray, vray, cinema 4d, modo, octane, and Arnold.
Also I was very satisfied by the ease of use, the usability of an alpha product, and its speed, especially with
refractions.

Considering some logical and expected advances in speed(pretty fast as it is), noise, animation settings, and of
course features, I really believe that we have here a game changer for the whole industry.

I can't wait to start implementing corona in our daily pipeline.


Edit: I removed the first images, and left the third as it was correctly stated that it was just a lot better.

[Muse]

Hello again.
Found the time to give it another shot.
I think corona delivered the goodies.
Render time, 4:16, Full Hd, pts 128, msi 400, bucket mode, pt/Hd cache and AA settings 5/2 , noise threshold 0.01.
Of course post included.

Now I'm on to rendering an old final render scene with corona, and see how it goes.
I've also rendered a short animation with a phone to test the noise, and when I find time I will upload it.

[maru]

This image looks much better than the previous ones. Just remove that pointless gradient frame and it will be ok. :)

About your settings:
You don't need HD cache here, use pt+pt. HD cache is generally useful in indoor scenes. I'd suggest lowering MSI unless you really need this 400. PTS 128 is also an overkill. 64 would be enough or you could even set it lower to have everything anti-aliased smoothly. I also don't think you get much profit from using bucket mode here. I'd stick to progressive and use default values. :)

[Ludvik Koutny]

I think it could use a bit more contrast :)

[Muse]

@maru

i rendered both with pt and hdcache and the results were identical. with 96 pts there was some noise with the shadows and 128 did the trick. when i try a new renderer i do extensive region tests and compare noise between shots to determine the best acceptable quality in the least amount of time possible. the msi samples i left at 400 due to previous suggestions from members here as to giving the closest to unbiased dynamic range, of course i did not mind the time penalty.
i am used to bucket mode from arnold.
thank you for your comment, your right the first images were not properly set up due to very limited time.


@Rawalanche

i did not like the result with more contrast at least at my not very expensive but still callibrated monitor.
would you like me to send you the render image and if you have time to do your own post?
that would be really interesting for me.

ps. sorry for the capital letters, i'm typing at a half working keyboard right now.

[Juraj]

I've also rendered a short animation with a phone

And how did it compare to i7 :- ) ? Ok, jk.

I think the contrast is more regarded to light than tonality in post. I do no like the post either, your second image is much more natural.

[Muse]

Yes I know, I should have not uploaded them at all, so I removed them and left the third.


For me, sunlight+vegetation == very challenging.
Generally speaking that mediterranean sun is very difficult to achieve.
And it's almost the same even high up, that's why it took so many years And Pixar to
achieve that sunny look with the new renderman in monster's university.

Here's the render picture, for anyone willing to try his own post.

[Ondra]

I would just decrease the saturation for a more realistic look.

And maybe turn on slight DOF to get rid of the sharp leaf boundaries

[Muse]

@Keymaster

If I find the time I will try to render with less saturation at materials, because at post as I am no expert, I could not get something better.

As I said, I'm on to rendering nicer stuff of my own, and I 'm really looking forward to rendering a nature scene, as I mainly create my own plants and grasses,
and would like to see them with some corona beauty on top:)

[Ludvik Koutny]

my attempt

[rafpug]

Good morning

Congratulations to Rawalanche,
you see that you are a great observer.

Regards
Raf

[Muse]

Thanks Rawalanche,

I really appreciate it that you took the time to do your own post, and I really like it.

I found some time and tried what Keymaster suggested(i.e. slight dof, less saturation at render) and mainly tried
more at post to add a more natural feel and a little more contrast as you previously suggested.

Here is the result, in my monitor at least seems more natural.

ps. the render image apart from slight desat at leaves and grass, is almost identical to the one I poster earlier.
Dof was done at ps via zdepth.

[maru]

This kind of DOF makes my eyes explode. :O

[Ludvik Koutny]

You just made your whole picture blurry. There is no point of introducing such obvious DoF effect in scenes of large scale, such as this park scene.

[Muse]

@maru & Rawalanche

I corrected it, and I uploaded one last with less obvious blur.
The fact is I've been looking at it for the last hours and you know from some point on you become
desensitized and you cannot discern what's right and what's not.

I think I'm done with it, I will also change the first image on the top.
Perhaps it looks easy, but trust me it ain't:)
Thaks to everybody for the critique and comments.

Let's try now something new..