Messages

1

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2021-09-11, 05:48:41 »

Hello people,
I was wondering is there AMD CPU available that can turn Corona Interactive into "real-time renderer"  (whenever I change something in the scene, Interactive Render turns into blocky mess for second or two before image is cleared) . How close are Threadripper 3990X and similar powerhouses to this?

It depends on your scene. But for simple scenes. Pretty close.

2

General CG Discussion / Re: Object library ?

« on: 2021-08-21, 19:41:14 »

Thanks for the links, I didn't knew about some of these :) 

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[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 8 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2021-08-04, 00:05:13 »

wait, what about decals? Was this added already, how did I miss that?

There might or might not be something done, but sadly because some of the users cannot understand that a feature might get postponed when unexpected complications occur, we will generally announce only features that are fully done ;)

Yeah, I feared that would happen damn.

If you ever open an "insider" program with a 0 tolerance for bitching and tantrums, count me in.

4

General CG Discussion / Object library ?

« on: 2021-08-03, 04:39:19 »

I'm looking for a large high-quality 3d asset library.

We already use Megascans, Poliigon and Dimensiva (plus random assets from turbosquid etc).

I'm more interested in the type of 3d assets that Megascans has. Is there another large library of 3d assets like that?

Thanks.

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[Max] General Discussion / How Can I Help ???

« on: 2021-06-11, 22:07:27 »

Corona Renderer is a cornerstone of my work. Although I don't work in a render-heavy industry like ArchViZ or Animation, Corona allowed me and my team to do things we couldn't do before. I cannot share the exact work we do, but suffice is to say that Corona has provided the greatest ROI of any tool I can think of. By several orders of magnitude.

When I started my company 5 years ago, I was able to start selling my work before it existed because the images looked like actual photos. I didn't have the money to build the actual products, so this changed the course of my life dramatically.

It's not like I started from scratch, I had been using Maxwell renderer and Vray for years. But Corona resonated with my brain and I suddenly was able to do much more.

Anyway, my work involves a lot of product development and I go through releases 4 - 8 times a year. I've seen the Corona team go through a lot of what I go through and sometimes I feel their frustration as if it was my own. The recent discussion about V7 and V8 has made me realize how much Corona has done for me and I just want to give back a little bit.

Other than the standard ways in which us users can help (testing builds, helping new users etc...) I would like to know if there is anything else I (we) can do to help! I bet there is a lot of other people here that would like to help in some ways too.  I post this publicly in case other people want to offer their help too, but the best ways to help are probably private. And in any case, thanks for building Corona!

6

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Discussions about people's expectations, Corona developement, life and other things

« on: 2021-06-11, 19:59:41 »

That comment above about the house and the city is so flawed.
If you gonna start building a city you better hire a construction company, not rely on the same three people that did your house...
Because news flash those three people will do a terrible job and it will involve a lot of problems and a lot of setbacks, also they will promise you deadlines they can not keep. Sound familiar?

I struggle to understand how someone could be so out of touch with reality that they will tell the people actually DOING the thing "what you say is flawed"  How would you know more than them? Can you imagine I come to your work and after looking around for 10 minutes I start telling you that what you are doing is wrong? After you've spent years doing that?

The problem with analogies is that they only work on people who already agree with the premise in the first place but criticizing the analogy is absurd... Yes software is also not made of bricks... yes, software doesn't need streetlights.  Obviously, corona 1 is not EXACTLY like a house and corona 7 is not EXACTLY like a city.  But as Tom said, Corona 1 had to worry about much less things than Corona 7.

I hate forum arguments, I know they don't convince anyone, I know I look as much as a fool as the people who disagree with me. I know I look like a mindless fanboy.

I'm not doing this to convince anyone.

I know exactly what it takes to build products, I know how hard it is and discouraging it is to read comments like the ones we've seen in the forum lately. I'm also very familiar with the frustration of working your ass off for a year and not being able to say exactly what you think because as creators, you need to keep composture.

Reading some of Ondra, Maru and Tom comments, it's clear that the negativity is getting to them, enough for them to break character and express their disappointment.

My only goal is to offset the negativity and make the dev team feel a little less crappy.

Corona is a fucking brilliant piece of software. I see and appreciate the little details that go into that.  A product is much more about what It DOESN'T have than what it DOES HAVE. Corona is brilliant at not adding stuff, I know this will only be understood by a handful of people and will be seen as crazy talk by the rest. Hopefully, the dev team will smile knowing that every time I use Corona, I appreciate all the things it doesn't have. I even appreciate that it doesn't have Tonemapping YET, because doing great things take time. 

Many people say they decided to move to Corona because of the features mentioned in the roadmap, not only do I highly doubt that, but also it's a terrible decision. Personally, I didn't choose Corona because of the current or future features, but the ideology and principles behind it.  These principles guide all future decisions. The same people that decided to do all the things you love about Corona, decided to move tonemapping to V8, it is reasonable to expect that you will end up loving that decision too. Just be patient.

Thanks again for the decisions you make, I hope you have the resources you need to fulfill your vision and that you don't get discouraged. Thanks for making hard decisions, this shows real love for the product, and when a product is made with love, it makes a difference.

Looking forward to v8!

7

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Discussions about people's expectations, Corona developement, life and other things

« on: 2021-06-08, 02:13:45 »

I think there is a discussion to be had about whether the new Physical Material was worth the dev team required to implement. I know that sounds harsh, but I have not yet found that it significantly improves my shading workflow - I feel like I am deciphering it more than I am wielding it.

Unless you are willing to spend the time they spent discussing the pros and cons, willing to study and understand the industry as well as they do, and most importantly... unless you are willing to suffer the consequences of the decision... NO, you have absolutely no place in that discussion.

If this was a bad decision, they will suffer the consequence. People will stop using their product. You are not even willing to spend the time to understand how to use it, while they spend MONTHS working on it because they think its important, based on information you and I don't have. 

8

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Discussions about people's expectations, Corona developement, life and other things

« on: 2021-06-08, 01:27:15 »

The message explaining the situation is perfect. Completely understandable. It looks like the team is doing the important and not glamorous work that makes Corona great. Sure it takes 15 minuts for the Fstorm guy to implement new flashy features.... how long has it taken him to make a robust production-ready renderer? right... hasn't happened yet.

It takes courage and conviction from the dev team to work on something "no one was asking for" knowing it will make the product much better in the long term.

Again, I think the only mistake was not explaining this before editing the Trello. After reading about how quality and doing the hard work, even knowing people will be mad temporarily, is the most important thing, I feel even more confident that the new tone mapping will be great and I want to spend a little time sending my support and encouragement to compensate some of the comments from people who don't understand the process.

Anyone comparing Corona to buying a product and not getting what you paid for are just trolls. You should pay for software based on the current stable version. If you are paying for a software based on features that are written on a Trello called TENTATIVE ROADMAP, it's completely your fault.   

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[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Discussions about people's expectations, Corona developement, life and other things

« on: 2021-06-05, 22:59:30 »

I bet there is no one more motivated than the corona team to get tone mapping out. It really looks like they are taking it seriously and trying to do something exceptional, witch often means things taking much longer than expected.

I’m personally disappointed as a user. I would love the software to get better, specially in ways that we don’t need to guess weather they are better or not, as other renderers have implemented them and people love them. 

People arguing that tone mapping is not needed or important are missing the point, people are upset because the corona team has promised that feature for a long time, just a few days ago, someone asked if tonemapping was still in the works for v7 and they said it was actively being worked on.

Unless something unexpected and huge happened in the past 2 days, the corona team probably knew it would not make it to v7 for a reasonably long time, and knowing it is something people really want, it was a shitty move to just move it to v8 in trello and say nothing about it.

I bet the reason for moving it is good, I bet it’s going to be worth it, just treat your fans with respect and love and spend a little time communicating this to them. Maybe post a quick video explaining the thought process... and do it in a timely manner, if you pull the feature out so late into the release cycle, it is reasonable to expect people getting angry, as everything made it seem like the feature was going to be included in v7 and it was going to be great.

I hope this helps you guys, looking forward to v8 :)

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[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 7 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2021-04-11, 17:32:36 »

I believe “noise level” is not a fundamentally objective measurable thing. Every time there is a significant change in the engine, they need to re-define how noise level is estimated and reported. If you run the same render for the same amount of time does it look cleaner in Corona 7? The changes they make are most of the time designed to speed up the render, so that should be the case.

11

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 7 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2021-04-11, 00:20:00 »

Default setting is IR using all but one of your cores. Depending on your processor that can make a noticeable difference. That can be changed but not recommended as it makes max unusable while IR

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[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 7 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2021-02-23, 19:28:46 »

Not sure if this is related to V7, but I've never seen this before.

Imported a STEP mesh from Solidworks, Used planar UVW map to project a wood texture.

Displacement is messed up in the round corners.




Normal Bump works as expected, so this is clearly a Displacement issue.



Any known workarounds?  Thanks!

13

[Max] I need help! / Volume Material with reflective caustics.

« on: 2021-02-09, 20:59:03 »

I'm trying to visualize the path that light takes after hitting a reflective surface.

I'm trying to use a volume material to see how light travels through space.

Volume material seems to work with refractive caustics, but not reflective.

Caustics is enabled, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks.

ps. Alternatively, If someone knows a good workflow for visualizing light paths... The work I'm doing is similar to what a car light designer would do, so there must be a good solution for it, preferably inside MAX.

14

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Tonemapping - Plz Halp

« on: 2021-01-23, 00:05:49 »

Of course, Andrey has no incentive to make Corona look as good as possible. And in all fairness, Fstorm default looks more realistic than Corona default. No discussion about that.

However, improving corona in this particular scenario only takes a few seconds.

setting the saturation to -0.03 as discussed in this thread, gives a very natural and comparable result.

Let's hope the new tonemapping makes this even easier so we don't have to set even 1 parameter.

15

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2021-01-13, 21:38:50 »

@Juraj

Got my Ice Giant yesterday. I didn't have time to run a lot of comparison tests but did ran a couple before switching.

These results are with the 3990x

First I configured the fans at a constant speed to what I considered acceptable, not completely silent but something I can live with, I ran all other tests trying to match DB to that initial configuration.

Noctua with 2 fans: 68 degrees after 10 minute render.
Noctua with 1 fan: 69 degrees after 10 minute render.
Ice Giant with 4 fans ( At same DB levels as the other tests above) 59 degrees after 10 minute render.

In my previous configuration, running PBO profile, the processor reached 92-95 degrees which is the thermal throtlling limit.
Using the Ice Giant, I get stable 85 degrees using PBO profile.

Of course there are many variables and I didn't spend enough time controlling for other factors and repeating results for this to be reliable. But at least it looks like it does work better than the noctua for my case/airflow etc.

One HUGE advantage is that removing the top graphics card was a pain in the ass with the Noctua, in the Zenith Extreme II, the unlock latch was almost impossible to reach and I have to use a plastic ruler to unlock it.

With the Ice Giant, you have full access to the latch with your hand :)

But now my RAM is under the cooler... hehe, but somehow I switch my Graphics card more often than my RAM.

Anyway, I hope someone does proper testing to get a definitive answer, but I think I will leave the Ice Giant for now and see how it behaves long term.