Messages

16

[Max] General Discussion / Re: corona proxy full mesh viewport display not working

« on: 2022-02-02, 12:40:22 »

Does this happen with all viewport display modes or just a certain one(s)?

17

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 8 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2022-02-01, 21:13:18 »

Hi lupaz,

thanks for your example. The thing is that in our Scatter we are using (or at least trying to use) uniform random distribution during instance generation. :-) In your example you have 8 cube types and 195 instances of them. If I have computed the math correctly for your case (using Markov chains) there is only about 6% probability that there will be NO triplet of same cube types in a row. In other words there is about 94% probability that 3 or more same cube types in a row will appear. Obviously, more instances you create, the latter probability gets increased (195 is already two-degrees larger than 3 and 8).

So from this point of view it is rather Forest Pack that does not behave 'randomly'. It clearly uses some non-uniform distribution. Or you were extremely lucky and hit those 6%, hehe. :-) Anyway, ATM it does not seem to me that our Scatter behaves differently than designed = uniformly. But I get your point and maybe we could offer some other distribution type(s) that might serve certain user scenarios better. I am taking a note for the future. ;-) Thanks.

This reminds of the story about music streaming apps and shuffle playback. Truly random shuffling would mean that you could hear the same song twice in a row, or multiple songs even, which is not what people *expect* from random behavior - similarly, if for example someone was told to put flowers in a garden randomly, he would probably avoid putting the same type of plant next to each other because it wouldn't be random... while in fact it would.
Same here, whenever some random function comes up with the same thing too close to each other I change the seed. Not random enough :D

18

[Max] I need help! / Re: Abstract gradient displaced material

« on: 2022-01-27, 13:18:16 »

If you want to keep things procedural, you can use gradient ramp for such type of displacement. I'm attaching the file to play with, just be aware that you'll need Jan-26 Corona build, since i used new curvature map for colour.

Sorry for off-topic: I guess this the first time curvature can be seen out in the wild. Memorable moment :D

19

[Max] I need help! / Re: Corona Image Editor 7 - Slow responsiveness

« on: 2022-01-26, 16:54:39 »

Hello,
Is this fixed in Corona 7? Is there a hotfix?

EDIT: Could you give more details on how to use the old CIE please?

For using the old CIE - as said above, fire up the installer and choose unpack to a location of your choice. Look for Corona Image Editor in that folder and use that one instead of the installed (v7) one.

20

[Max] I need help! / Re: Abstract gradient displaced material

« on: 2022-01-26, 16:51:34 »

You could probably simply stretch a bitmap - set one axis coordinate tiling to 0.001 or so, this will stretch it across the whole 0-1 UV tile. But you need UVs that follow the geometry so for a similar geometry best would be to use a cylinder, assign UVWs in cylindrical mapping mode and bend and twist the geometry, this way the UVs will follow the geometry.

21

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 8 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2022-01-25, 19:20:40 »

ACES might not give you a fundamentally different look in the end, that's why some say its urgency is blown out of proportion wrt Corona. Film industry is a bit different: with all the different image sources - different cameras for filming & CGI shots from 20 different VFX houses and different software used - they need some kind of a ground truth and consistency.

Also you need to ensure that all texture/color input is converted in to ACES... so implementing it needs you to lift a heavier weight than 'just' taking care of the final color transform.

OCIO... well Autodesk is trying to get this in, and it's better that way since any renderer could access it then, data would be easier exchangeable between renderers etc. As for progress, not sure where they are but the more people ask for it the more it will be seen as a priority. But people should really ask there, not here, otherwise nothing will change. Their roadmap was showing a few items that were removed recently... it's a mystery to me why people don't ask them why that happened and decide to complain about Max on their renderer's forum instead...

22

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: The most wanted feature?

« on: 2022-01-22, 22:17:24 »

Removed curvature map, as it is about ready to go public

So excited - finally, thank you!

23

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Reducing RAM usage

« on: 2022-01-17, 12:35:55 »

As already mentioned, textures have the biggest impact in my case, too.
Other thing that can help if you're rendering bigger resolutions is to render as few additional channels as you can get away with, e.g. rendering using lightmix will use up more RAM due to the additional separate channels needed versus a single beauty render etc.

24

General CG Discussion / Re: Strange behavior 3dsmax 2022 and dr

« on: 2022-01-11, 14:27:34 »

It might be that you need to install the PUs, 2022 would not work in headless/server mode without license prior to the hotfix (included in later product updates):

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2022/ENU/3dsMax-ReleaseNotes/files/3dsMax-ReleaseNotes-3dsmax-2022-0-1-releasenotes-html-html.html

25

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Strange scene behavior when material appeared in ME

« on: 2022-01-11, 13:56:36 »

The perpetual ENU folder mystery...
FWIW, you could try to reset the UI and see if it helps, or just reset the ribbon UI - this one helps with some quirks with the UI too.

From what I understand, even people at Autodesk don't really know why the ENU folder gets mangled sometimes. Most of the people who worked on the UI and older components are either long gone or work in other teams now so they probably would need time to understand what the code does before they can attempt to fix it. Resources are scarce at Autodesk and UI problems in particular don't get enough attention as long as the 'magic potion' of deleting the ENU folder works.

26

[Max] I need help! / Re: Shadow Catcher Material - Emitting Light

« on: 2022-01-04, 22:03:39 »

The Shadowcatcher material produces GI according to its color/texture map - which is logical, you want the shadow and surrounding objects to be affected by its GI, otherwise it wouldn't look natural.
You could probably use the Rayswitcher material with the Shadowcatcher nested in its Direct/Visibility slot and a black material in the GI and Reflection slots as a workaround.

27

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: Max 2019 Fluids - add rendering mode like Arnold Surface

« on: 2021-12-15, 19:15:28 »

Unfortunately, max fluids have no API for 3rd parties and so far they've only exposed it to Arnold, which they do to support their product.
Motion blur with changing topology is a different thing, I'd love to see it in Corona but it's not much needed in archviz so who knows if it'll be implemented anyway.

28

[C4D] Feature Requests / Re: Excluding Corona Scene Environment/Background image from DOF

« on: 2021-11-25, 21:16:31 »

This has been request a long time ago multiple times. So far no luck, but it definitely would be useful in some cases.

29

[Max] I need help! / Re: Scene crashing immediately upon open

« on: 2021-11-15, 13:05:22 »

If you happen to use Multitexture map plugin - this one will crash in some situations with Max 2019 and newer. I don't get crashes on newly created maps but older projects will crash when opening the scene or merging objects using that map.

30

[Max] I need help! / Re: trying to make (partially molten) Stracciatella Ice cream

« on: 2021-11-05, 12:41:44 »

Agreed, pretty much perfect, George! Love it.

As an advertiser, I would choose this anytime over the industrialized version, after all it's what advertising is for ;)