Messages

1

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Slow Preparing Geometry

« on: 2024-07-21, 00:34:54 »

Turned of most displacement in the materials and changed the Displacement setting to World --- No difference at all.

Switched to Path Tracing. Lighting is Physical Sky and Sun object --- Cut the render time in half.  ***Edit*** I also turned OFF motion blur. I think that's the culprit. I think the default settings of 4 and 1 segments. Sigh.

2

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Slow Preparing Geometry

« on: 2024-07-20, 00:37:12 »

Just collected the project and checked out all the texture file. I did find one large file, almost 300 MB, that did not need to be that size. I resized and Photoshop and replaced. Still taking 9 mi. to prepare geometry. I'm sure there are many displacement maps on these cars. Is there a way to remove displace at render time or any other way?

3

[C4D] I need help! / Slow Preparing Geometry

« on: 2024-07-19, 23:50:02 »

I'm curious if there is a typical reason why a scene can spend a lot of time Preparing Geometry before actual rendering begins? The image below is my scene. A grid of cars in a Mograph Cloner set to Render Instances. These cars are relatively hi-res models.

Size of texture files?
Calculating displacement?

I'm at a loss to narrow it down. This is one frame of an animation where the vehicles flip up out of the floor. It will sit there for 8 minutes at Preparing Geometry and then as little as 4 min. to actually render.

Mac OS 13.6.7 Ventura
Corona 12 Build timestamp • Jul  1 2024 11:08:36

4

[C4D] I need help! / Re: c4d Importing the OBJ file with MTL file does not work

« on: 2024-07-18, 19:53:34 »

I found this answer on Core4d.com (formerly C4Dcafe.com).

"I believe this function has been broken since R25. Mtl files load fine in R19-R23. You may have to load each texture into the color channel manually."

I always keep older versions of C4D for the occasional issue like purchased models being too old to open in current version, etc. If your file isn't too large and you don't have an older C4D, I'd be happy to test it out for you.

5

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Camera Lens Distortion in Corona?

« on: 2024-07-06, 00:49:44 »

I believe this is a C4D thing. The Corona Camera tag is mostly exposure settings. In the Render Menu at the bottom, you can find Lens Distortion that you can upload an image to set the distortion. I would also look up the Camera Calibrator tool. I believe there are some distortion settings there too. Not sure how robust these tools are, but as far as I'm aware, Corona doesn't directly handle Lens Distortion. ???

Good luck.

6

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Stuck on Calculating Displacement

« on: 2024-06-28, 22:46:25 »

There is that one large EXR texture file, but if you have the RAM still shouldn't be a problem. In your first image, it is calculating displacement? I don't see it shown.

I think my issue was I used a purchased model and I modified it. Deleting some parts, but there was one vertex point sitting by itself VERY far from the model. This made the scene too large and either stopped rendering or caused the long calculation times. Don't know what your Object Manager looks like or how it's organized, but if you have a parent with a munch of mesh objects,

7

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Stuck on Calculating Displacement

« on: 2024-06-28, 20:41:32 »

Read my last post above. Did you check that you don't have any objects or axis point very far from your scene center? Is there a specific error? Hard to tell without see the scene. If you can share privately, I'd be willing to take a look if no one else has any ideas. You would have to collect with assets of course.

8

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Layers compositing problem

« on: 2024-06-26, 21:53:18 »

From Davetwo:  "1. Don't export direct to PNG. Make your comp in PS and export the PNGs from there...'"

I don't think you understood what he suggested. Export using Multi-Pass to PSD layers. In Photoshop, turn on one layer at a time and export to PNG with transparency.


The only times I've ever had a halo issue, was when using a Sky Object. I had to tick Not Seen By Camera for the sky. This way you get the lighting only. Don't know if you have a Sky or not.

9

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Chaos Corona 12 RC1 - Can I open an animation made by C4D on Vantage?

« on: 2024-06-21, 16:42:41 »

So is the rendering inside Vantage production quality, or just for pre-vis to good-vis? I did watch a video about it, but left with the impression that it isn't for the final rendering. Maybe I didn't have my coffee yet.

10

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Problem with rendering difference between manual and python

« on: 2024-06-21, 16:39:50 »

Why are you rendering with a Python script? Just curious.

11

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Should I use Team Render... or not?

« on: 2024-06-10, 20:09:36 »

Nejc makes great points. I remember coming to this conclusion before my Corona days. I had 15+ iMacs with Team Render. Aside from people quitting the client because they didn't know what it was, it saved me tons of time. When the animations became a little bit more intense, those older Macs would end up holding up the rendering since they would be assigned a frame and will keep at it until it is done. Team Render only gives whole frames to clients. You could have your fast machines done, but the last 5 frames are slowly being rendered on the slowest machines.

One good thing about TR is when the fast machines finish their queue, C4D will grab un-rendered frames and reassign them, but the slow ones will keep what they started. It doesn't sound worth it to add a that older PC when the new one can render 16 frames in that time. Maybe a long animation I would say, eh, even if I only get a few frames out of the slow ones, it's better than nothing. A shorter animation I'd say stick with new baby. Good luck.

12

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Corona Shadow Catcher for interior

« on: 2024-05-21, 18:42:32 »

Another tip is to use a disc object centered under the chair, but large enough to cover any shadows. Apply the Shadow Catcher material to that abject. In this way, it avoid adding any extra shadows around the room as using the entire floor would do. I have also added an Opacity Map to the SC to further limit and soften the shadows should they creep too far from the disc object.

You can also render so that your chair is output with the shadow all in one file (See attachment. You'll have to download it to see). If you have several shots set up in that same angle, you can just drop that file onto the other images and it will be ready to go. You can slide the chair a bit along the wall after the render. Same process could be added to the wall near the chair so there is a shadow behind the chair. Yes, I realize this isn't a super flexible solution, but easier to deal with one piece.

One limitation is that the shadows that are captured do not show any geometry bumps that may be present in the floor, just smooth shadow which may or may not be a problem.

13

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Copying and Pasting Objects messes up the materials. Help!

« on: 2024-04-23, 18:55:41 »

I always assumed Corona would merge materials base on name alone as each material can have drastically different contents. I haven't run into this situation, but if it's true then Corona needs to do a scan of each to determine that they are indeed exact duplicates. In addition to that, a warning box should pop up informing you that the materials with the same name are are actually different and then ask if you want to merge or keep both. Something like that.

14

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Instances with Decals. Problem

« on: 2024-04-23, 18:09:44 »

I had reported this same issue a long way back, and Benjamin showed me one step I was missing. I can't remember it now of course (the image was of Stonehenge made out of giant Christmas tree lights). I had some grunge decals that were not rendering on the instances. Benjamin showed one simple thing to make it work. Same as this, but now that I set up a test scene, it seems to work. I used the same C4D r20 as before.

Wait, I just remembered the solution. Wardy, make your Decal a Child of the mesh. That should do the trick. I just tested this and it still works for me even when not a child. Let us know either way.

MacOS 12.5.1, C4D r20, Corona Version 12 (Daily Build Mar 11 2024)

15

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Scene Converter Details

« on: 2024-03-19, 23:03:38 »

Well, I managed to find an expired demo of V-ray. I was able to open this scene, took forever though. At first, when this conversion window came up, I chose to update the Vray stuff. The materials just never finished updating as they just appeared transparent (checkerboard, but if I clicked on one the beach ball would come up so it was doing something. The ones that did finish, remained as checkerboards and took a very long time. I closed it out and reopened, but this time, I chose to hit cancel on that Vray screen which seemed to work. I could see the textures in the preview spheres Immediately. Hit convert scene and overall a good job getting me close to where I need to be. This scene is a city street and a handful of items did not convert completely. Anything with the tag below was left untouched. The street material was a complex material and I was only able to get it "in the ballpark", but usable. There were a couple of cars in this scene and none of the glass materials came through correctly. Transparent yes, but like air. Tomorrow, I may go through and see any other specific Vray shaders that didn't convert in case the devs don't have them all on their to-do list.

There are light poles in this scene too and they had fake light glows created with planes, a light glint/haze and a luma matte in the Opacity node. The opacity just didn't work right, even though it seemed to be set up correctly. I played with the exposure of the matte to no avail. Seems like the leaf materials for some trees had similar issues.

LegacyVrayShader did not convert at all. You can't even see what textures were used in them either.

Would be nice if the converter had some sort of progress bar, just for sanity's sake.

P.S. I did not explore the Corona Legacy material vs. converting to Physical if that makes any difference.