Messages

121

[C4D] Daily Builds / Re: Support for Cinema's Node System

« on: 2022-06-24, 10:09:35 »

The Corona Node Editor still does things that the native one does not - the whole "same map can be plugged into multiple slots, and even into totally different shaders" is still something I can't imagine living without, but is still not the way the native editor works. That is very much a "drill down into a node material", as Redshift nodes always were, but that material is still in isolation, you can't have the same noise map or bitmap driving different effects in different places so you only need to change it once. As for whether our one gets improved, we shall have to see - but I'd still be using it over the native one even if it doesn't, it's more important to me to be able to have one place to change parameters that affects loads of different places at once rather than have to edit "Noise Scale" to match in 6 different places ;)

Thanks for the example Tom !

I could agree if the node editor wasn't so broken sometimes. An example is attached with the Walnut Semigloss material from the Corona Mtl Library, you can try it on your side to see the result.
I wouldn't mind if this happened only with materials from the Library, but it happens with scene materials too, in a random way. It happens often when copy-pasting materials between scenes or whem importing them from Asset Browser.

122

[C4D] Daily Builds / Re: Support for Cinema's Node System

« on: 2022-06-23, 01:27:17 »

Don't expect much in this regard, Node Editor was developped at a time when C4D's Node Editor didn't exist and the only alternative was XPresso nodes, which Redshift was using by default up until very recently. It's using the new editor in S26.
Since then (v3), no much progress on this side. I guess devs are busy following as closely as possible Corona for Max development and in this regard, it's a success since we almost get every new release at the same time as 3ds Max users. But between this and fixing specific C4D bugs, I suspect that very little time remains for a Node Editor overhaul, especially to get at the same level as the C4D one which is now quite mature and pleasant to use.

And porting Corona shaders and materials to Cinema Nodes ? V-Ray 5 was introduced in December 2020, they've just released UVW nodes few weeks ago, just saying.

I am not sure the native node editor could do that:

It's possible now, this argument is no longer relevant. If you have access to S26 you can try the latest version of the Material Node Editor with the CPU version of Redshift, which is native to Cinema 4D now ( and very very slow right now )
But even if it wasn't working it would'nt be a big deal, I would gladly exchange it for the current nodal editor to get some nice features : solo node, nice viewport preview, native shader linking which doesn't f*ck up your materials with "Shared shaders" and duplicates of each material sub-tree, access to mapping context, and the ability to build node groups / reusable node assets.

123

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: SSS (poor funcionality) and Volumetrics have confusing parameters

« on: 2022-05-30, 10:43:52 »

Which version are you using, I see no camera/lights in your file.

v8.
Because there are none, I was using a HDRI in an other scene, the file contains only the geo with materials.

124

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: SSS (poor funcionality) and Volumetrics have confusing parameters

« on: 2022-05-29, 14:34:05 »

SSS Works as expected here, you just have to fiddle a bit with several values to get the proper color but it's definitely possible and not rocket-science.

I just wish it was better sampled, currently it's very noisy against regular diffuse material, quite ugly.

125

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Corona + Scene Nodes

« on: 2022-05-18, 09:54:00 »

I'm out of context here so, if you care, a ready made scene should be of most help...
But fundamentally, what is your goal?

I don't have a specific goal except learning scene nodes and hopefully using it with Corona ;)

It's exactly like Houdini, where you can drive shading settings from scene attributes and data. But it requires some degree of integration on the renderer side to get those values.
In my example, the color of each instance is driven by it's index in the instances range ( = ratio ). Black at the start of the range, white at the end.

A bad hack, I assume.
I used the undocumented Data shader that came with V8 (late). But it works. In all situations? I doubt it.
But it works for the scene you were referring to ;)

Heads up!
Rendering scene node cloners obviously has a bug with Corona render.
The cloned object's original (the sphere in the centre) is still being rendered (should not).

Have fun playing with the scene.
Michael

PS
There might be a proper solution to this, but I have not found it yet.

Thank you Cinemike, except for the few quirks of the IR and the lack of viewport shading, it seems to work as expected, nice. What is this shader ? Some sort of debug tool ?

126

[C4D] I need help! / Corona + Scene Nodes

« on: 2022-05-17, 23:00:04 »

Hello,

I'm currently approaching Scene Nodes and in the tutorial there is an example where a material and some shader settings are driven by Scene Nodes, with what seems to be a specific shader on the renderer side ( Redshift in this case ).

I failed to find a similar shader in Corona. Did I miss something ? Is it doable in Corona v8 ?

Here is the example (@6:15) :

127

[C4D] Resolved Bugs / Re: IR rescaling

« on: 2022-04-28, 11:59:23 »

Yep it's a very old issue, maybe as old as Corona for C4D itself. I forgot it since like Tom suggested, I use the Max Resolution setting to ensure that IR is always responsive.

@TomG

It would be nice to see the devs taking advantage of the v9 development to adress all these long standing issues ( nodal editor quirks, instances and motion blur, instances and IR etc. )

128

[C4D] Bug Reporting / Re: Multi Pass Psd is not saved after render completion

« on: 2022-04-13, 12:11:33 »

The problem may have to do something with a template file - if I open a new file with the template loaded and render any project, the Multi-Pass file is empty (except for a Beautypass-Layer).
However, if I open the Multi-Pass window in C4D and merely disable and then enable the configured Multi-Passes, it renders and saves properly.

Can any of you reproduce this with the files I attached?

Thank you for the solution, I've just had the issue ( Corona 7h2) and fixed it by re-enabling the multi-pass setup in the MP window. It seems that Corona doesn't like multi-pass enabled by default in a template scene.

129

[C4D] Bug Reporting / v8 RC4 - Override UVW

« on: 2022-04-07, 09:46:53 »

Hi,

Thank you for the UVW channel selection support in the Corona Bitmap, I'm glad the feature finally made it in C4D.

One thing though, it doesn't seems to work :/

The Override UVW bool works, as when it's true it breaks the UV Tag assigned by the position of the Material Tag. But the UVW channel selection doesn't work and whatever channel is selected, it gets back to the first one. Even when I've renamed the channel 0 and 1. By the way, wouldn't a slot to drag and drop UVW Tag be more a C4D-ish workflow ? Like the ones used in Material Tag for material linking and Selection Tag use.

I hope it can be fixed for the release, which is impressive feature wise, good job !

Attached is my test scene ( C4D R25.117 / Corona 8 RC4 )

130

[C4D] Bug Reporting / Re: v6.1 invisible reference objects for render instance still render in IR

« on: 2022-03-28, 08:49:36 »

+1

I saw the issue again last week on a project with v7H2, it is unfortunate to see that it is still not fixed on the next-release.

131

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Why is Corona not compatible with the most important additions that the designer

« on: 2022-03-24, 11:09:15 »

Hi maru,
reminding us here that 3ds has better corona support than c4d hurts more than it does good… ;-)
I’m with BigAl3D, that many other important things need fixing “first”. Vertex motion blur comes to mind.
“fixing remaining motion bur issues” is dying a slow death on the trello board.

Anyways, I’m more interested to get some clarification on your metric for feature interest or bug fixing urgency.
“please keep posting, let us know that this is really wanted”.
What’s a general guideline of time between reposting on feature request or bug reports, without being considered spam and banned from the forum? There have been maaaany postings, over a loooong time about particle support in c4d. It didn't help....

Some bug reports get a ID assigned but never fixed. Post at every daily or give you guys some room to breathe?
if I don’t constantly repost this doesn’t mean I lost interest in the feature or don’t care about the bug fix anymore… you get the point.
Is “+1"ing every feature request necessary to be considered “a really wanted feature”?
Any advice?
How about a "feature" or "bug fix" poll from your end to see where user interest is?

+1

jojorender has a point here. Althought Corona is nicely integrated into C4D and delivers nice result, I have the feeling that it could greatly benefit from some LONG overdue bugs fixes.
Motion blur is one of them, with a fix planned on the Trello board for more than 2 years. That's (almost) FOUR Corona versions where a fix could have happened.

So even though I'm glad that the plugin is developed in parallel of the original 3ds max version, and that we don't have to wait 6 months to get the latest features like the big brother V-Ray, I would glady exchange a month or two of delay to see these long standing bugs fixed. Cause no one can do it for you, and using Corona sometimes eight hours a day, it's f****** annoying to encounter these bugs again and again, resorting on crappy workaround to get the job done ( maxing out the RAM with real instances to get MB to work anyone ? ).
Hell, I already have often difficult clients to handles which are enough to made my days painful, I don't want to fight with my tools on top of that.

I can't speak on the original subject of plugins support, I avoid relying on external plugins as much as possible precisely for this reason, even if I would like to be proven wrong. But I'm surprised that X-Particles isn't supported as it's the best selling plugin on Cinema.

I know that software development is hard and many variables comes into play ( no pun intended ), but providing a bug-free experience on core features should be one of the top priority IMHO.

Few more bugs :

- slow IR against 3ds Max version ( as in not as smooth / fluid, haven't compared the sampling speed )
- even slower IR in viewport mode ( lag even more )
- incomplete support for Layer Shader ( bump channel )
- incomplete support for Projector Shader ( annoying since it's the only way to alter mapping per bitmap)
- UVW randomizer stochastic tiling not working with Corona Bitmap
- duplicated children node tree when importing some materials in the Nodal Editor ( materials from library or from another scene )
- Textured Area Lights ( more a feature request but it already exists in the 3ds max version)

Cheers,

132

[C4D] Feature Requests / Re: Interactive Viewport fixed settings

« on: 2019-09-26, 14:36:04 »

Thanks for your suggestion burnin :)

But I'm already using custom startup file in conjunction with some Render Presets and it doesn't work. I doublechecked by redoing the new.c4d file, and it seems that this particular setting isn't tied to any scene specific render settings or Corona general settings. It just comes back every time at the default 50% detail value.

EDIT : just to be clear, I'm talking about these settings

133

[C4D] Feature Requests / Interactive Viewport fixed settings

« on: 2019-09-26, 11:38:05 »

Hello,

Would it be possible to have the Interactive Viewport settings in the general C4D Preferences / Corona part, so it can be set once and for all ?

Eventually with a checkbox to switch between two possibilities : a Preferences saving mode and the current "session" mode if the actual behavior is suitable for certain users.

134

[C4D] I need help! / Re: C4D Colorpicker : values and colorspace

« on: 2019-06-27, 23:59:52 »

Thank you Maru, it helped a bit, but the gamma thing is somewhat hard to catch depending on the explanations. The tricky part ( at least for me ) is that gamma influences both numbers and color appearance, but both are sometimes mixed in softwares ( 2.2 numbers, 1.0 color, or the inverse ).

I did a cheat sheet to never be bothered again with this subject.

Some links :

- sRGB/XYZ/L*a*b*/CIELAB/ICCLAB/ITULAB
Color Space Conversion

- Gamma Encoding – Under the Hood

TL;DR: RGB/HSL color picker is in sRGB colorspace ( gamma space ), Corona level is in linear space.

135

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: Juraj's WIPS/Theory/Questions //Update with few PDFs from my recent presentation

« on: 2019-06-21, 20:55:42 »

Hey Juraj, thank you for these pretty detailed explanations, much appreciated.

The glass trick is smart, I will try that, at least to discover and use the rayswitch material once.

I'm a big fan of anisotropy for some effect ( wood grain, stains ), but it's tricky to define the correct balance with the glossiness, correctly mixing the two factor is hard. I've found the results interesting for velvet fabric, but improvable. For sure VRscans are way more precise but you can't compare to this, it's unfair :).

About this dark albedo thing,  I've downloaded few dark Megascans materials and checked RGB values,just after posting my questions. I shouldn't have done that, it raised up more new questions than answers ಠ_ಠ .The values are so low that I've doubt of my understand of sRGB / linear values.

I will not pollute your topic, so I've opened a new one in the right section.