Very very slow development of new version of Corona, why?

[xxxsalvo]

It will be my impression but I think that the development of Corona (cinema4d only or also max version?) has almost stopped for a few months now. I don't understand this stop, I follow and use corona development from alpha releases, it has never been as stopped as now.
In the Trello page I don't see any new exciting features only optimizations. Mh.
Sadness! :(

[TomG]

Nothing has stopped, the daily builds are coming out with the same frequency as they always have, for both Max and C4D. As for finding the features exciting, as a product matures the improvements become more incremental and less dramatic, this happens to all software - back in the early days there are so many major things missing, every release brings something "huge". Now, whether you find a feature exciting or not is less universal and more dependent on your specific workflow and needs :)

The lister rewrites, with the improved functionality and speed, are going to be very useful for many people in their daily tasks - is it "exciting"? Hard to say, but the amount of time saved and making someone's working day easier is still important.

Same with having multiple inputs and outputs in a map, so you no longer need to adjust two or three or more maps (or alternatively set up controller nodes) - again, it will make a difference to many daily tasks. As will the new possibilities with Decals, now that individual channels can be isolated.

In the end, if you feel the features are not exciting for your workflow, that's what the Feature Requests boards are for - tell us what feature you would like that would be exciting for you :)

[maru]

(Tom was faster than me, so best just check out his message :) )

We have been releasing more or less 2 major versions each year and we are keeping this pace. :)

Check out the version numbers and their release dates:
https://trello.com/b/EfPE4kPx/corona-tentative-road-map-3ds-max
https://trello.com/b/dgI8vjDb/corona-tentative-road-map-cinema-4d

Perhaps it feels like a long time, because we are close to the release date.

We do have some really cool features in V10. For example:
- decals affecting only specific material channels
- caustics improvements
- optimized DOF

[Ealexander]

I'll counter the OP and say Corona has always developed very nicely and consistently.  I appreciate you guys releasing solid, stable releases and letting users work with upcoming beta versions as well.  Everyone benefits.  The product should ship when the product is ready, not to meet some arbitrary calendar date.

[frv]

The OP I think is right. It does seem a little silent or slow as of lately.

If I look at Lumion , Twin Motion and Unreal things seem to be going fast forward there.

I would love to see where CR is going the next few years to compete with mainstream archviz going in the direction of realtime renders and sophisticated generated assets and content. I also see Vray and Enscape joining in a combined workflow. Anyhow, Coronarender feels like a great but an end of life product. Could also be the team is just small with little time or money for marketing.
I am on a Mac, a fast one with 20 cores and 128Gb ram. Coronarender is really the only option on a Mac. If Coronarender is indeed at the end of its life it's time for me to move on before I am forced to. I have seen many render apps fade in to oblivion over the past 30 years. Stratavision, Maxwell to name a few. I don't think the OP is wrong to sense something is off a little.

[aler]

Interesting observations. It is interesting to read and the comments made may not be without meaning... :)
By the way, a little information for a change and for thought (and that was 14 years ago):

[Stefan-L]

i had and used fryrender, and to be fair there should be some more info to this marketing video of fry:

1) this was a paid addon not part of the normal engine (i think200- 300 extra)
2) you needed to prerender a bigger number of passes, which was very time consuming.

so even if the video looks cool, this was never be usable in production due the huge prepare and setup time.

overall i think Corona does pretty well. if course i hope it get connected to the other chaos products better(like Vantage, chaos cloud, enscape conversions)

[davetwo]

I concur with Evan - the corona development is regular and reliable. Its easily the most pleasent and pleasing engine to work with IMHO.
If you would rather to use a game engine instead, there's nothing stopping you. Personally I dont think the user cases are the same - not for my work anyway

[TomG]

No "end of life" going on here :) Corona continues to develop at the same pace it always did, see previous comment on mature products just feeling like they develop more slowly due to things feeling less "groundbreaking/amazing" compared to the earlier days. And also see comment, if you see a feature in another engine (or even one you just think up), send it in as a feature request on the relevant board here in the forum. That's how you achieve "the changes you'd like to see"; rather than saying "Development feels faster on Software X" tell us what is being added to Software X that you feel you'd benefit from in Corona. Thanks!

[aler]

i had and used fryrender, and to be fair there should be some more info to this marketing video of fry...

Thanks for the extended information :)

[frv]

Good to read that Tom, thanks. I enjoy working with Corona for now. CGArchitect does a survey each year which gives an impression on where things are going. I just took the survey and looking forward to see if Unreal Engine is still at the forefront and Corona still as much used as before (2 behind Vray).

What I need is short times to first pixel. In other words, the quickest way to interact with color and light. I have never been able to see if GPU would help or even real time renderers like Unreal. The way I work now is still mostly in wireframe and in separate files for vegetation and the building itself. I feel like a dinosaur but maybe that's where things still stand in 2023.

[TomG]

Just to confirm, "2 behind V-Ray" is in fact "2nd behind V-Ray" (that is, we're not third ;) https://www.cgarchitect.com/features/articles/712bd906-2021-architectural-visualization-rendering-engine-survey-results

I am looking forward to seeing the results this year, since there wasn't a survey last year - I mean, I always look forward to these results since it is our industry of focus :)

[frv]

I think we will see Twin Motion gaining marketshare along with Unreal. I predict Lumion has lost some to both mentioned.

Vray and Corona will will most likely still be first and second. High end rendering with real time render apps isn't just there yet especially considering the assets and resources.

I do see a trend among students in architecture and smaller younger studios to skip traditional platforms like Max and C4D for apps that require a less steep learning curve and less costs for assets.

[xxxsalvo]

No "end of life" going on here :) Corona continues to develop at the same pace it always did, see previous comment on mature products just feeling like they develop more slowly due to things feeling less "groundbreaking/amazing" compared to the earlier days. And also see comment, if you see a feature in another engine (or even one you just think up), send it in as a feature request on the relevant board here in the forum. That's how you achieve "the changes you'd like to see"; rather than saying "Development feels faster on Software X" tell us what is being added to Software X that you feel you'd benefit from in Corona. Thanks!

Nice to hear this. I have this impression and I share it with you, only this.
I'am sorry for a feature that was in the pool of ideas that would be a lot interesting, that is the possibility to have connection between corona 3ds and cinema 4d files (maybe in the next releases?).
A feature that will be a game charger for Corona / Mac users, can be a sort of Chaos Vantage modded version for Silicon Apple processors.
Thank you for the explanation.

[frv]

The new survey is out already for some time.
https://www.cgarchitect.com/features/articles/450b3b68-2022-architectural-visualization-rendering-engine-survey-results

Exactly as I predicted here a few posts before.
Vray is not growing really, Corona just a little. Both are still the top two render engines by far. I think because of all the available assets and resources.
Lumion is loosing a lot of customers to Twinmotion and Unreal. I think this is because of bad pricing policies.
Cycles/Blender is also slowly growing. But Blender is not really for Archviz at a professional level. Slightly larger models stall Blender rather quick. Don't see that changing anytime soon.

It's going to take at least several years if at all before Twinmotion/Unreal will get to the same user-percentages as Chaos. All depending on the market for resources.
Surprised to see Red Shift basically not part of the market. Maxon putting a lot marketing in to it.
Also surprising to see Enscape almost at the same level at Lumion. That was once 4.9% versus 28.8%.

[Juraj]

That kind of chart would be very interesting across industry specialization. Judging by ArtStation, for something like Concept Art, Octane would be super high.

I am suprised Vray kept such dominance, but this chart is not only within Archviz/AEC, but also within CGArchitect and its mainly US community. 976 responses also seems on rather low end of scale.

[frv]

I don't know of any other survey at this scale. It does say a lot.
I do feel it aligns with the situation in The Netherlands. Most studios that do Archviz still use traditional render engines like Vray. It's very hard to change to something else too. It's not just the engine but alle the assets and resources, plugins and platforms like Max that come in to play as well. Twinmotiom and Lumion are more or less in-house solutions.

[BigAl3D]

I chuckled when I saw this thread. In the past, I have complained that I thought Corona was upgrading full versions too fast. Ha. I think Tom makes a great point about a maturing application becoming a product with refinements, speed boosts and the occasional major feature. I mean, how many groundbreaking features does Microsoft add to Word these days?

In the old days, major versions of 3D apps always boasted about render speed increases. I don't see that much with Corona right now. Mainly relying on the number of cores on the system being used. If the features stayed the same, but render speed was increased by 50% or more, that is a game-changer for most. Corona is already great and artists are making amazing images now, but if they can do the same thing a lot faster? Boom.

[TomG]

Increasing speed follows the same curve as software maturing - big gains are possible early on, but this reduces over time. After all, you still have to calculate how light bounces around in a scene, which takes certain mathematical calculations, which take time.

You can liken it to top speed in cars, can't verify the accuracy of this graph but it'll do as example:
https://www.sharpsightlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/data-analysis-example_scatterplot_fastest-speed-by-year_ggplot2_600x350.png

Looking at the averaged curve not specific individual points, to go to 1.5 times speed from 100 to 150 took about 15 years, from 1955 to 1960. To go to 1.5 speed again (225), it took 40 years, from 1960 to 2000. To go to 1.5 again... well, we haven't got there yet, and may not, because there is friction and all sorts of physics and the car flipping over as it can't stay on the ground any more and all sorts of other constraints.

So while we are always looking for ways to improve speed, those are now smaller increments that are possible - because despite our slogan, rendering is not magic, but mathematics :) Just in case anyone starts impatiently waiting for 50% speed boosts!

[Cinemike]

So while we are always looking for ways to improve speed, those are now smaller increments that are possible - because despite our slogan, rendering is not magic, but mathematics :) Just in case anyone starts impatiently waiting for 50% speed boosts!

I wish you could link Corona's render speed to inflation ;)

[BigAl3D]

I have Matt Damon working on it now... using mathematics.