Messages

1

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Remote DR

« on: Yesterday at 17:24:40 »

Hi Jpjapers, similar topics were discussed on the forum many times. You can search for stuff like "DR backburner" and it will show you various posts and solutions.

Basically, the idea of DR is literally distributed rendering. So you distribute a single rendering between 2 or more machines.
In case of submitting a rendering from one machine (which is not rendering) for rendering on another single machine, distributed rendering is irrelevant. It requires at least 2 rendering computers.

What you can try instead is:
- Submitting the rendering to Backburner (you submit from computer A and the rendering takes place on computer B)
- Using Backburner with Corona DR (only in case of 1 computer you are submitting from and 2 or more rendering computers) - while this scenario is not officially supported (we can't guarantee it would work), some users were able to use it - https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=27657.msg162920#msg162920
- Using 3rd party apps to submit the rendering on computer A and execute on computer B - for example Pulze or Deadline. I *think* they have free licenses for rendering on 1-2 computers.

Backburner makes me shudder but for now its the best solution it seems! It would be nice to have this feature within DR even though by its very nature it isnt distributed. Just the ease of use of DR and how tightly integrated its settings are makes it incredibly appealing to me as a means to render on other machines.

2

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: romullus wips

« on: 2024-04-08, 16:25:27 »

Really nice! Is there something funky going on with the glass? The rear window looks unusual.

3

[Max] Feature Requests / Remote DR

« on: 2024-04-05, 17:52:55 »

It would be fantastic if we could offload rendering to another machine on my network through DR without having to render on the host PC itself too.
I work on my work-supplied laptop but also have a personal workstation that is much more powerful. I often use them in tandem to render but sometimes id much prefer if i could just submit to render on my main workstation without needing to manually transfer all of the textures, open it on my workstation, relink the files and then render.

Im sure there are other requests for similar features but just a checkbox for 'include this machine' on DR would be great. I don't even mind if the host machine still just assembles the sent passes in a vfb. I just dont want it rendering and locking up my machine when i could be working on other stuff during the render. Yes i could set up deadline or similar but it feels like a potential easy win for those only rendering on one or two machines.

4

[Max] I need help! / Re: script help and where to find documentation?

« on: 2024-04-05, 17:25:52 »

Nice! Amazing enough what you got from the bot.

Ive been using chatgpt to make some maxscripts recently and it takes some time but its generally pretty good. I used it today to write a little script that organises revit imports into layers by whatever BIM property the user selects from a dropdown and it works great. I find that if you manage to get it working you can then feed the script back into chatgpt and ask it to look at code practices, efficiencies and commenting and it tends to clean things up quite nicely. Sometimes you need to prompt it with pages from the maxscript help. It also doesnt get the 'If, Then Else' structure and keeps trying 'If, Do, Else'.

I also used it to write myself a custom map node that loads colour libraries from csv files and then used it to scrape various paint manufacturers sites for all of the paint hex codes, then parse the hex, name and rgb values into the format i need for the script. Works an absolute dream! I did however manage to break it and now cant figure out how to fix it. More chatGPT maybe!

5

[Max] Feature Requests / Better implementation of corona maps in Nitrous viewport

« on: 2024-04-05, 17:20:43 »

Often when people complain about the max viewport vs say the blender viewport capability its because most people arent using native renderers in max and therefore the viewport support isnt as complete as say the max physical material might be.
Id love to see greater compatibility between the max viewport and corona materials and maps. Probably not a priority item but it would benefit my workflow greatly being able to show more complex material graphs in viewport without needing to render or use IR for design reviews in real time.

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[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Corona compatibility with Chaos Cloud

« on: 2024-04-05, 17:17:41 »

There will be no support for Chaos Cloud Rendering (hence the archiving). There will be support for Chaos Cloud Collaboration, though - we have yet to see if that can be considered for 12 or not, depending on the progress of the work on the VFB.

That is very disappointing! Ive been waiting for the day i can have a reliable solution for render farming built directly into corona.
If anyone has any recommendations for alternative solutions id love to hear some that have transparent and easy to understand pricing structures.

7

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: USD Support from Chaos?

« on: 2024-01-19, 19:05:42 »

I appreciate your candour Tom thanks.

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[Max] Feature Requests / USD Support from Chaos?

« on: 2024-01-19, 16:20:26 »

Now Chaos has signed up to the OpenUSD Alliance will we be seeing integration from the corona side?
Im hoping that we can see some support from the corona side because currently we are in a walled garden.
Material X support as well as integration with USD would allow greater compatibility when working in multidisciplinary teams.


I note that Vray already has export compatiblity with these features;

• V-Ray shaders (materials and textures)
• Animation of shader parameters
• V-Ray lights
• Animation of VRayLight parameters
• V-Ray Displacement
• VRayInstancer
• VRayProxy
• V-Ray Physical Camera
• User-Defined object attributes with textures such as VRayUserScalar and VRayUserColor
• Native MaterialX materials through maxUSD

I understand that things are different than they used to be with regards to PR and what the team can say but the canned response of 'check the trello if its not there then keep your eyes peeled' really isnt helpful. It feels like with Vray the users wouldnt need to ask if the feature is coming because its an industry standard piece of software, of course its coming. With Corona though i feel i can never be sure if the software is going to keep up with the industry requirements of its user base.

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: Price Increase

« on: 2024-01-19, 16:01:25 »

Insightful read.
A suggestion, if I may: Arnold. You are already getting it with 3dsMax subscription. CPU focused like Corona. Similar speed. Much more features. Just give it a try, dip a toe.

Ive been doing this recently but i really really miss lightmix.

10

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Price Increase

« on: 2024-01-18, 13:25:10 »

Yikes, that was Corona 8, must admit, considering the next release is scheduled for May/June this year, it doesn't look very exciting at all as far as the roadmap is concerned ... New VFB skin and Cosmos/Mat Library updates.  For me the last really beneficial update was Corona 9.  With Clouds, Out of Core Textures and Pattern, but again nothing groundbreaking.  I'd call them improvements more than anything.  Clouds and Pattern already existed in VRay by that point.

Most of my work is interiors so clouds didnt make much difference for me personally so its sort of the push and pull of releases benefitting some more than others and i get that completely. But i remember when lightmix came to be and it was just an instant gamechanger for everybody.

11

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Price Increase

« on: 2024-01-17, 00:24:05 »

I agree with the sentiments here. The prices go up and yet there seems to be very little focus on major new features and more focus on giving up asset 'freebies' or software we MIGHT have a use for. The last big update that made any kind of difference to my productivity was whenever decals came to be. Aside from that it feels very much like small incremental changes or changes to potentially unnecessary things that are clearly meant to add additional value to corona such as scatter and cosmos.

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: Price Increase

« on: 2024-01-11, 14:42:39 »

The more the price increases the more incentive i have to learn a realtime engine. So unless they can sort out good, seamless vantage integration soon to save me the hassle, i cant see there being a need for me to remain using an offline renderer for the majority of my work.

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: Can't cancel auto renewal? Now have to pay for another year?

« on: 2023-11-28, 18:49:56 »

It's a Chaos thing, not a Corona thing I feel.  When it comes to the business side of things, Corona and Chaos still feel like completely separate companies.  This whole price increase/annual subscriptions etc has been an abomination in terms of communication from the start.  Both external communication to customers and internal communication inside Chaos.  We've got the devs on here telling us one thing, Chaos support telling us another and then Chaos billing doing something completely different again.

Communication seems to relatively poor behind the scenes.  There's another live thread on here at the minute about Phoenix Memory leaks where the devs have said one thing, and support have said another.

I do feel sorry for the devs on here though because they're the ones who get it in the neck from us lot, and they're genereally excellent, but we have nowhere else to vent.  On the other hand, I guess they have to take the rough with the smooth, when you sell to the suits, you have to be prepared to take the inevitable backlash that comes with it.  Bigger leagues, bigger problems and all that.

Absolutely agree. The team here are always fantastic and have been since the start. Its only since the chaos takeover that things have started to go a bit sour.

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: Can't cancel auto renewal? Now have to pay for another year?

« on: 2023-11-27, 23:18:26 »

The renewal charge also didnt match the charge listed on the email i recieved last year telling me what my next renewal price would be.
Support are telling me there was a price increase. I cant find a single email mentioning it.

Same here, getting in touch is currently on my todo list, but as it's been mentioned I'll chime in.  My renewal quote was £358.80, I have it written in black and white next to 'Next Billing Amount (vat/taxes included)" - yet I was charged £430.56.  Where do we get our refunds from for the difference?

And I also haven't received any 'price increase' notifications.  The price increase was when you forced us all onto annual.  And that was a significant one.  Are support suggesting there has been another significant increase less than 12 months after that?

You can't explicitly state that you're going to charge someone X amount and then bill them a completely different amount when the time comes?  At least not without their approval.

Interestingly, £358.8 + VAT/taxes = £430.56.  It's clear on the quote though that the £358.80 already includes VAT/taxes, so I'm sure it's a simple mistake that will be rectified.  It seems it's happened to most people though as I've just spoken to someone else who's reached out to support today about it.  The worrying thing is, a lot of people won't even notice.

Yup identical situation. Its ridiculous because i spoke to Tom on the fb group and he mentioned there hasnt been a price increase so something somewhere has gone wrong. I also really dislike how renewals cannot benefit from the black friday discount. Absolutely no benefit to being loyal anymore. After a solid decade of being a corona user and hyping it up to everyone i know im starting to get a bitter taste in my mouth in regards to the direction the company is going on the business side. I dont like being held at ransom for the software i use and this is giving me the push i need to start looking into Unreal as a visualisation tool. Charging double for monthly payments was bad enough. Im giving the benefit of the doubt this time until a resolution is negotiated.

15

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Can't cancel auto renewal? Now have to pay for another year?

« on: 2023-11-27, 17:58:24 »

I also just discovered that autorenew was a thing having been planning on downgrading since ive not used phoenix or scans in the last year.
The renewal charge also didnt match the charge listed on the email i recieved last year telling me what my next renewal price would be.
Support are telling me there was a price increase. I cant find a single email mentioning it.