Messages

1

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona 10/11 - Corona Render Assets loading very slow

« on: Yesterday at 14:53:19 »

working on NDA project, so can't share scene. But just wanted to chime in, that scene loading has increased dramatically since corona 11. Maybe it's also related to max 2024 as I didn't update until a couple of months ago?
I'm using max 2024.2 with corona11HF2.

Also had instant crashes with just trying to rename corona materials. Might have been a one off event though. Just trying to mention things in case you can make a connection with other reports. Opening up the material editor in the scene would usually cause max to freeze and no longer respond. Having to force shut down.

Just tried opening the file with 10HF3 and it was a bit faster, but not much. There's a chaos scatter item in this specific scene.

Now I tried the latest daily from may 10th and here the scene opens up much much faster. Such a big improvement. I'd say we are back to "normal" loading times for a scene like this. The material editor gave me a bit of a scare again, but actually opened soon after.
I'm a bit hesitant to update the render farm, but the latest daily seems to have fixed a lot of things!

2

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Gamepad mapped camera control - is it possible?

« on: Yesterday at 14:30:46 »

I can recommend a spacemouse from 3dconnexion. Takes a bit of time getting used to, but I find navigation in the viewport and setting up compositions soooo much better with it. I only wish you could track the camera movement with it for animations, but doesn't quite work.

3

[Max] I need help! / Re: animating mat ID on path deform?

« on: Yesterday at 13:49:52 »

ha! didn't even think to look at the path deform modifier's roll outs. This was in there :)

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[Max] I need help! / animating mat ID on path deform?

« on: Yesterday at 12:55:44 »

so, I've got a spline on to which I've put a box with path deform. So the spline is kind of drawn/animated as the animation plays.
What I want to do is have the spline change material on different sections of the spline. i.e. from a full stroke line to a dashed line and then back to full stroke again etc. Normally with a sweep modifier it's easy with just changing mat ID on sections of the spline, but this doesn't work with path deform object. And due to reasons, I have to stick with the path deform.

So is there a way to control mat ID timing on the path deform object on specific parts of the spline?

I tried keyframing a corona select mat, but the issue with that is, it will change the "already drawn" part of the spline/path deform object for the remainder of the animation.

5

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

« on: 2024-04-04, 14:22:51 »

thank you guys!!

Since im pretty much clueless in this regard I managed to feed Frood's response to it and it actually (with some iterations) managed to get the script working. Came back here to post the working script, but Avi just beat me to it :)

Still, where can I find more info to how/what to call and name certain functions in maxscript that I can feed to chatgpt if it makes a mistake like this?

It's super powerful for a non-code type of guy like me to be able to make scripts via just my "normal" description of a function I want. If an error happens, I can feed that back to chatgpt and usually it corrects it. Was just this case it couldn't crack what was wrong with the corona bitmap naming.

Yes I know, it would probably be best if I got a basic understanding of this myself, but so far it's been working for 10 years without it ;)

6

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

« on: 2024-04-04, 11:12:39 »

Hi, i just installed max 2024 and some scripts aren't working anymore. I wanted to try and use chatgpt to help me create scripts, but it struggles with the coronabitmap and physmaterial. Has something changed in regards to maxscript in corona v11 and where can I find documentation for what the different things are called in maxscript?

I have tried enabling macro recorder and running stuff in max that should do things with coronabitmaps (like the converter), but sadly it doesn't show anything. Also tried google and chaos doc here, but it's not as complete as I had hoped: https://docs.chaos.com/display/CRMAX/MAXScript

Wanted a script like the image plane maker / plane plus scripts, but with some tweaks and having it work in 2024 (none of them does for me, but worked fine in 2023). So I tried this, but it gives errors regarding the coronabitmap and coronaphys material:

-- Function to create a plane from a bitmap's dimensions
fn createPlaneFromBitmap bitmap_file =
(
    -- Load the bitmap to get its dimensions
    local theBitmap = openBitmap bitmap_file

    -- Create a new plane with exact dimensions as the bitmap
    local newPlane = Plane width:theBitmap.width length:theBitmap.height name:(getFilenameFile bitmap_file) position:[0,0,0] isSelected:true

    -- Segmentation of the plane - You may comment out or delete these lines if you don't need segments
    newPlane.widthsegs = 1  -- No segmentation based on your requirement
    newPlane.lengthsegs = 1

    -- Setup Corona Physical Material with the bitmap as a diffuse map
    local coronaPhysicalMtl = CoronaPhysicalMtl()
    local correBitmap = CoronaBitmap texmap:theBitmap.filename realWorldMapSize:true
    coronaPhysicalMtl.diffusemap = correBitmap

    -- Close the bitmap as we no longer need it open
    close theBitmap

    -- Assign material to the plane
    newPlane.material = coronaPhysicalMtl

    -- Select only the newly created plane
    select newPlane

    -- Zoom Extents Selected in active viewport
    actionMan.executeAction 0 "40021"

    newPlane -- return the plane object
)

-- Function to prompt the user to select a bitmap file and create a plane
fn loadBitmapAndCreatePlane =
(
    local bitmapFilePath = getOpenFileName caption:"Load Bitmap File" types:"Image Files|*.bmp;*.jpg;*.jpeg;*.png;*.tif;*.tiff;*.gif|All Files|*.*||"

    if bitmapFilePath != undefined do
    (
        createPlaneFromBitmap bitmapFilePath
    )
)

-- Run the function to load bitmap and create plane
loadBitmapAndCreatePlane()

7

[Max] Bug Reporting / object replacer bug

« on: 2024-04-03, 16:18:29 »

Hi

I just noticed a "bug" with the object replacer function that came in corona 11. I'm using max 2024.1 on win10.

Basically it will not replace the selected objects if you have the selected objects isolated (without also having the replacer objects included in the viewport when going in to isolate). It will instead replace all selected items with blank objects.

8

Hardware / Re: New PC Build AMD Ryzen 7950X VS 7960X

« on: 2024-03-20, 16:37:02 »

bit late to the party, but i'd go for the setup with the 24gb 4090gpu. Ai is getting better and better, to the point where I in some projects have been able to render out the image in only 2k res and at a certain detail level- Then add details if needed in stablediffusion (mostly vegetation and people) elsse just a straight upscale to 4k px in either topaz/gigapixel or also in stabledif. For the more "advanced and detailed images", we still have to detail in 3D and then render out in 4k as the Ai is still very hard to control in terms of keeping the correct dimensions/details in architecture (even through use of controlnet etc).

9

[Max] Feature Requests / tile map on decals?

« on: 2024-03-20, 16:24:57 »

Hi

Would love a feature on a decal equal to when I apply a UVW Xform modifier to an object. Or just a simple "tile" button.

Now I have to do it per map in the material editor and it doesn't always behave nicely + is cumbersome :)

10

[Max] I need help! / Re: BUG? reflection gone on certain objects in X amount of frames?

« on: 2023-11-28, 15:40:04 »

My idea is a bit random, but could you try backing up your scene (to keep the original version) then running the following two scripts:
1 - https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=41371.msg218935#msg218935
2 - https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=41371.msg219089#msg219089

This should disable all volumetric effects in your scene in Corona Physical, Corona Legacy, and Autodesk Physical materials. Perhaps the camera is moving into a "zone" in which it is affected by a non-closed object with volumetrics enabled.

interesting, yes I will give this a try tomorrow. For now I will render out the 4 troublesome frames with phys material I have tried to match the old legacy ones. Then it will probably only be a tiny flicker only I will see ;)

11

[Max] I need help! / Re: BUG? reflection gone on certain objects in X amount of frames?

« on: 2023-11-28, 15:12:51 »

IIRC there was a thread/post here recently reporting something similar, only with mask visibility through refraction, where it would be missing for a couple of frames but ONLY on legacy materials, Corona Physical would render fine. Maybe a thing to look out for... sorry if this is misleading, just thought it might be related.

thank you! It's definately something with legacy materials acting up. I've just tried to replace a few of them and then they get their reflection back in the "bad frames". It's just a bit annoying if I have to redo materials now and it will probably require a complete rerender of enitre sequence (2200 frames) for it to be good.

What exactly is happening in that animation? Is it only camera movement, or something more?
Also, if you open that scene locally and go to those frames, do they render correctly or with those black reflections?

I have attached a gif. It's camera movement up some animated escalators. and refl pass of frame 181 (good) and 182 (bad). It renders the same at garagefarm.net cloud as it does locally on my computer.
I tried to apply high IOR (legacy) material to the objects bugging out and then it shows up fine in refl pass. Gave them back org (legacy) materials and it was also FINE! But then on next render they were bad again in that frame range (182-185)

12

[Max] I need help! / Re: BUG? reflection gone on certain objects in X amount of frames?

« on: 2023-11-28, 14:11:38 »

small discovery: it seems like in those 4 frames, all materials with a normal/non metallic fresnel IOR won't have reflections / appear in reflections pass.

13

[Max] I need help! / BUG? reflection gone on certain objects in X amount of frames?

« on: 2023-11-28, 14:05:49 »

Hi

I'm having an issue where the reflection suddenly is completely black on certain objects in an animation i'm doing. Corona 10 hotfix2, 3ds max 2023. This is the first time I see it happen and it's been around 5000 frames rendered so far. I've checked if the object, object materials or lights had any accidental animated settings in them for this frame number, but all looks good.

Restarted the PC. Tried rendering in perspective mode instead of camera. Nothing changes the fact that for exactly these 4 frames, reflection is missing on certain objects!

Have tried deleting corona lights and making new ones. Still bug in these 4 frames no matter where in the scene I click "render". Be it with the corona camera or just in perspective

Ran sini forensic and deleted anim layers. No effect.

Am I missing something?

14

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Chaos Corona 11 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2023-11-14, 16:07:46 »

Hi Dev Team. Thanks for the new cool features like addition tools, I love them in added new tollbar but could you please remove them from quad menu.
If I remove it on quad, it always appears again and again
Thanks

+1

BTW, speaking of Corona power tools, they are quite nice to have, but i would like to see some tools that are actually related to Corona, like tool that would insert mapping randomizer or triplanar nodes to selected material. Lately i'm adding mapping randomizer to most of my materials and it start to feel quite tedious task after some time, especially since introduction of multiple inputs.

+1 & +1 :) don't need more quad menu clutter and having a function in "corona converter" to add UVrandom with some predefined basic param like UV -100 +100 and randomize tile would be so nice! I hate having to connect all nodes constantly ;)

15

General CG Discussion / Re: AI what are peoples thoughts ? I think we are in for big change.

« on: 2023-06-21, 13:09:35 »

I'm currently using it as a tool for archviz in a couple of scenarios:

1. place 3D people in the final render and then using stable diff plugin in photoshop to generate "real" people in place of the 3D ones. Works very well and is wonderful in cases where client has very specific demands i.e. dockside workers in various genders, ethnicities wearing life vests and workwear (good luck finding cutouts or even enough images like that where posture, light etc is suited to then start cutting out). Also fine for just replacing with "normal" people in renders to avoid the 3D people look.

2. txt2image or img2img to produce references to discuss material/architecture on objects that are still just volumes/white boxes). Way faster than having to model and texture until client actually knows what they want.

3. for projects/proposals where the brief is more open the above combined with the inpaint function of SD is great to generate variations to the environment (in this example it was a big office complex and a new park was to be put in front, but the park hadn't been designed yet. I did a rough landscape and placed some trees/elements and light for a nice composition and could then generate more lush/detailed variations of the environment via inpaint to discuss which way we should go design wise before I start modelling the "real thing". If I had more ram on my GPU to make it higher res, I could have just used the generated results from SD (even taking some variations and photobash the best elements into each other). Now I might try to upscale and then rework the image by 512x512px frames and see if it can add more details.

TLDR: it is and will be an amazing tool for us as archviz artist. It might someday be the new "enscape" where clients themselves can get pretty good images with a couple of clicks/prompts, but in the meantime I still think there's a place for even higher end or more creative images from us :)