1.5 Daily builds changelog

[Ondra]

First 1.5 daily, here we go!

• CoronaBitmap open file dialog
  
  • Work even when rendering in Slate is turned off
  • Work when assigning a new bitmap to 3dsMax environment slot
  • Fixed: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1511
• Rayswitch mtl: displayed material in viewport changed by default to the directly visible slot, added option to change which one is displayed
• Unchecking casts shadows in object properties now have more consistent effect - same as putting the material in rayswitcher in all but GI slots
• Corona materials can now be displayed in viewport directly (max 2012+)
• Non-color mapped render elements (world position, normals, velocity, …) are now saved linearly in EXR. This due to 3dsmax limitation also means that for proper saving to LDR the gamma has to be overriden to 1.0 in the file save dialog.
• Embree memory usage is now printed into log
• Added option to save current render settings as defaults
• Better refraction lobe normalization: Making refraction glossy no longer darkens the material
• Fixed rare crashes/unexpected behavior in VFB render history
• Added filmic tone mapping and saturation controls
• Added Corona proxy function for converting to mesh: CProxy.ProxyFp.duplicateToMesh

[Ondra]

• Filmic mapping vs. contrast interaction is now the same as highlight compresison vs. contrast
• Render only elements button replaced with checkbox. There is a warning shown in the beauty channel when render only elements is active
• Fixed: slow scene parsing and too big memory usage in some scenes with many objects
• Fixed viewport display of CoronaMtl with opacity map in alpha mode https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1949
• Fixed Standard mtl rendering of opacity map in alpha mode: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1949

[Ondra]

• Resetting 3dsmax resets Corona render regions
• Added maxscript function isRendering() - returns true if corona is currently rendering
• Fixed: changing color mapping in VFB restarted interactive rendering: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1975
• Added warning for unsupported velocity channel in IR
• Fixed: cloning Corona scatter produces objects with the same name: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1960
• Fixed: animated morpher modifier freezing scene parsing: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1958
• Fixed: hide by category ignored: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1956
• Added option to display Light mtl as wireframe: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1945
• Fixed interactive rendering locking up when resetting Corona settings: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1893
• Set scatter point cloud displayed default to 1% https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1923
• Fixed black highlights on glossy objects behind hybrid glass
• Corona multimap is now shown nicer in mtl editor when showing the map alone

[Ondra]

Scatter

• Added temporal consistency option to Corona Scatter
• Fixed: slow scene playback when heavy Corona Scatter was present https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,11139.0.html
• FIxed: scatter rotation not stable when distribution object rotates https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,11558.0.html
• Speedup: parsing scenes with a LOT of scatter instances (about 50%)

Rest:

• Fixed max 2017 decimal comma vs. point issues
• Fixed: render only elements + render selected did not work together:  https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12248.0.html
• Added vignette postprocessing option

[Ondra]

• Fixed: atmospheric fog does not render in IR: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12431.0.html
• GGX glossiness mapping is now same as in other renderers. Reflection now allows to create much more diffuse materials. Old scenes are automatically remapped (except for textured glossiness).
• Fixed loading of Corona EXRs into Photoshop

[Ondra]

• Vignette now properly handles area to render: crop
• Vignette now supports max 2016+ physical camera settings
• Changing postprocessing parameters in Corona VFB is now much faster and smoother
• Fixed postprocess VFB tab UI
• Added Cube map camera, including VR support
• Added option to denoise individual render elements

[Ondra]

• Fixed crash when opening multiple 3ds Max instances at once
• Fixed crash when cancelling denoising of additional render elements
• Texmap render element can now be denoised
• History item names are now editable
• Added Corona version to the error messages popup

[Ondra]

• Added bloom and glare options - EXPERIMENTAL
  
• Fixed CScatter showing incorrect stats in “Full” viewport display mode https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1993
• Added warning + correction button when using cube map camera with incorrect aspect ratio
• All logs are now periodically clamped to stay under 1 MB
• Saving/resuming render from non-ASCII path EXR now works correctly
• Solves the reported problem of excessive noise in presence of large number of disc and spherical lights (https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2004).
• Fixed dropdown VFB button blinking

[Ondra]

• Fixed crash in denoising
• Fixed crash in bloom/glare
• FIxed: CoronaScatter updated automatically even when using manual updates: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1952
• Vignette now has always the same strength (EXR vs JPG)
• Made vignette profile much smoother
• Fixed some issues with VFB button highlighting
• Added bloom/glare threshold

[Ondra]

Next hourly experimental build:

• Old glossiness values are no longer remapped, there is a checkbox in advanced mtl properties instead. Both 1.4 and daily build scenes should load fine
• New temporary checkbox PBR mode: applies different fresnel factor and enables full glossiness range in CoronaMtl. Ony by default, old materials have it turned off for compatibility reasons - test if materials with the PBR mode on behave correctly, please
  
• Up to 33% speedup of bloom/glare effect
• Made vignette non-circular, now it fits into the image aspect ratio
• Changed vignette falloff default to 0.1

[Ondra]

• Lowered memory footprint when using >255 lights
• Fixed dark edges around sun with bloom+glare effect https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2013
• Fixed large saturation postprocessing values producing color noise on gray objects https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2015
• Changed bloom/glare output to match arionFX more
• Added physical mtl partial support (unsupported: clear coat, metalness, SSS)
• Fixed bug in cscatter mapped density https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1924
• CScatter in density mode is now always limited by the total count to prevent accidentally creating huge scatters: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1948

[Ondra]

• Installer build (includes all 3dsmax versions)
• Out-of-memory error is now more informative
• ART physical material parsing now supports clearcoat and SSS (A bit)

[Ondra]

• Displacement parsing is now 5-20 times faster
• Corrected english in tooltips
• Fixed crash when using 3dsmax native lights + global volume mtl https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2046

[Ondra]

• Error messages now disappear from log when clicking on the action button fixed the issue
• Removed support for Max 2011
• Corona now properly logs render step and scene stats with 3ds Max
• Fixed corona VFB drawing when using bright 3ds Max UI
• Fixed: A/B comparison not reset when IR starts https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1899
• Fixed: slow MultiMapTex UI in max 2017 SP2 https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12702
• Fixed: spherical/cylindrical camera + crop = incorrect texmap filtering: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2060
• Improved copy to clipboard performance

Bloom & glare

• Added option to have separate beauty pass with/without bloom&glare
• Added separate bloom&glare render element
• Fixed: render slowdown when using bloom&glare with huge resolutions
• Fixed: bloom&glare sometimes not applied

[Ondra]

3 new big features

• Added light select passes (“multilight”). Interactive version coming soon.
• Added distance texture
• Added localized tooltips to render settings and Corona objects/materials/maps. Translations text still needs a revision.

• Fixed crashes when opening scene with Corona Sky
• Added tooltips to render history with whole image description
• Camera mod, proxy, light UI split into separate rollouts
• Fixed crash in displacement (for example when  using Corona proxy)
• Fixed legacy proxy formats loading in max 2017
• Bloom & Glare strength rescaled 10 times for the same input values
• Fixed bloom & glare lagging in interactive mode

[Ondra]

A hotfix release:

• Distance texture now works with displace modifier
• Fixed vignette falloff parameter at 0.3 and hidden it from UI, so vignette has only one control
• Fixed crash in error window

[Ondra]

• Changed vignette falloff default to 0
• Displaying any submap inside LayeredMtl/RaySwitchMtl  in viewport now works
• Fixed grazing angle reflection artifacts https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,10338.0.html
• Added warning when render stops because a bitmap was modified on HDD
• 3ds max no longer crashes when a bitmap is changed on HDD (hopefully)

[Ondra]

• MixTex does its advanced modes in sRGB space to get 1:1 results with Photoshop
• Added Linear Light mode to MixTex
• Added brightness, contrast, saturation into CoronaOutput texmap
• Fixed: CoronaFp.stopRender() only restarted interactive rendering instead of stopping it https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12072.0.html
• Fixed: crop/blowup vs. screen-mapped bitmaps on geometry:  https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=12546
• Fixed: crash when using custom mtl editor preview with deleted scene: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=12287
• Optimized mtl editor refreshing when material preview parameters are changed
• Fixed: Disable mtl editor in interactive not working
• Fixed: mtl editor not refreshed after interactive render with mtl editor off https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12163.0.html
• Fixed: crash when using UHD cache saving/Loading + multilight. New cache dumps will not be backwards compatible with older Corona builds, but old dumps can be still loaded into newer builds: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12869.0.html

[Ondra]

• Added: both normals option to the AO texture https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,7625.0.html
• Removed separate vignette category fro VFB UI
• Added: opacity cutout checkbox for Corona MTL: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,8821.0.html
• Added reparseInteractive function publishing command
• Added small menu to the docked interactive VFB with stop, restart, copy functionality
• Added same material include/exclude option for RoundedEdges texmap

[Ondra]

• disabled autosave during rendering on DR slaves, when rendering from commadline, or when having 3dsmax locked during render
• Possibly fixed the slow mtl editor bug - if anyone still has the problem, can you try this build and report results?

                           

[Ondra]

• Fixed freeze when using nested forest pack objects with specific viewport display configuration
• Generally speeding up UI when loading scenes and having mtl editor/VFB/render settings open
• Corona VFB render elements combobox now handles home/end keys
• Added dome (half-spherical) mapping mode to Corona bitmap
• Added interactive Light Mixer - give it a try!

[Ondra]

• Fixed assigning to .nodes property of the distance texture
• Added tint to postprocessing tab in VFB
• Fixed color picker not going to 255
• Fixed even numbers input in LightMixer tab
• Fixed crash in texture baking with extremely thin polygons
• Fixed rare NaNs in render elements when using volumetric effects
• Renamed LightMixer to LightMix
• Beauty, alpha, and LightMix elements are now shown in bold italic in elements dropdown
• Added color temperature slider to Corona color pickers
• Added button in system rollout that automatically sets up LightMix with 1 element per 1 light

[Ondra]

• LightMix setup script now groups lights by 3dsmax light groups
• LightMix setup script now warns of there are >25 elements to be made
• LightMix setup script/LightSelect + button now does not pick up lightmtl with emit light off
• Fixed: bloom&glare being sometimes applied to masking/geometry render elements

[Ondra]

• Fixed spinners mouse drag wrapping around when using 2 monitors with different resolution
• Improved denoising for raw and texmap passes - fixed artifacts where diffuse texture would show up as a pattern in the result https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2084
• Users now can add their own LightMix element(s) (and save its results)
• Added Reset to zero button to lightmix tab
• Fixed refraction + blend/layered mtl https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=1239
• Fixed issues where lightmix might give incorrect results when using unassigned lights and changing number of lightselect passes
• Improved resume from VFB history tab: loads previous render statistics (# of passes, ...), does not clear VFB when pressing the button during rendering (when resuming is not allowed)
• May have fixed the slow material editor issue if it was not already fixed before - could anyone still experiencing the issue try it?
• All “+” pick object buttons switched to new improved behavior - combining “add selected” and “pick from scene” modes
• Fixed file selection dialogs not being modal (which could result in crashes)
• Temperature slider in corona color picker remapped to be more perceptually uniform
• Temperature slider in corona color now uses pure white (255 255 255) for 6500K temperature

[Ondra]

• Improved behavior of the new “+” picker when dependency loops are created
• Stats tab now displays DR passes separately https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,13111
• Added string option for render stamp size: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2121
• Modal file save dialogs are now truly modal (fixed potential crashes)
• Fixed layered mtl with refraction still behaving incorrectly sometimes https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2119
• Setup lightmix button no longer creates duplicate LightMix elements
• Pick (“+”) buttons now correctly handle picking groups
• Fixed sun include/exclude lists in interactive https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12983.0.html
• added warning when using DR + duplicate camera names
• Added drag&drop support to Corona Color picker
• Improved drawing of frozen Corona Color Picker

[Ondra]

Big update, although experimental - I would not use it for production :D

• Solved glossy BRDF edge darkening
• Corona color picker in 3dsmax now working (experimental) - you can set it in 3dsmax preferences
  
• Added LUT to postprocessing (experimental)
• Duplicate light select warnings now only shown when light mix element is present
• Fixed artifacts in dome CoronaBitmap mapping
• Fixed tab cycling through UI elements in Corona VFB

[Ondra]

• Fixed slow rendering/poor CPU utilization when using adaptivity + small render region
• Added inside color to distance texture
• Fixed loading of old scenes after the ggx edge behavior fix
• Corona Color picker in 3ds max now remembers last open position
• Fixed render elements saving black when using DR https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=13129.new#new
• Corona bitmap uvwAngle renamed to wAngle and changed to float type in maxscript
• Made vignette circular
• Corona render elements are now created with unique names, hopefully minimizing overwrites by error
• Removed support for correct rendering of Alpha v7 materials
• Added support for corona scatter, proxy for distance tex
• New contrast algorithm - works very closely to photoshop, does not make the image brighter or darker in general
• The setup lightmix button now creates element sorted alphabetically
• Mix Tex now has checkbox to do advanced blending operations in sRGB/linear space

LUT:

• better UI,
• Now gives correct result because it is applied after exposure
• Support for 3dl format

Misc UI tweaks

• Distance tex UI: add, remove renamed to +, - to be consistent with rest
• Right-clicking “+” button offers clear list option
• CoronaMtl: cutout checkbox renamed to clip
• Fixed: VFB autosave: open button not freezing when autosave is disabled
• Scatter “Count” parameter changes text to “max count” when density checkbox is on
• Moved vignette into the basic tone mapping group
• Added warning to output texmap that it cannot unmap non-monotonic operators
• Fixed freezing of + button in mtl override when override is disabled
• + button now enters pick mode, if currently selected node cannot be added
• LightMix: Reset to 1.0/0.0 renamed to Reset to Beauty/black

[Ondra]

• Fixed rare crashes when displacement was used
• Fixed bug in distance tex with black textures and inside option https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,11965.msg85311.html#msg85311
• Added bloom/glare on/off checkbox
• Color picker now includes pixel picker from any screen pixel
• Added 8 new modes to Corona Mix Tex
• Added save/load functionality to the lightmix tab
  
• LUTs
  • “Affected by color mapping” in output tex now tries to consider also LUTs (although it is not possible for all LUTs)
  • LUTs are now applied in sRGB color space, giving results compatible with other renderers
  • Fixed loading LUTs made in photoshop
• Smaller UI tweaks
  • UHD cache, autosave  file open dlg remembers last selected file when open again
  • Fixed spinner accepting invalid input: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2129
  • UI tooltips are refreshed when different language is selected
  • LightMix tab now has scroll bar

[Ondra]

• Fixed contrast behaving incorrectly in Corona Output texture
• Added save/load buttons into post process tab
• Improved saving defaults behavior - now all parameters are saved
• "+" button now does not highlight nodes already picked into the list
• Node list boxes now allow selecting more than one item at a time, “-” button then can delete all of them at once
• Improved distance tex behavior when near distance is larger than far distance and inside color is on: https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2148

New Corona installer

• Faster typical installation
• Installs required MSVC redistributables and specific windows updates automatically
• Can be uninstalled from program files
• Uninstaller more reliably cleans up all files, directories, and registry entries
• New pictures

Small UI tweaks

• Lightmix scrollbar shown only when needed
• Improved drawing of Scatter spinners for density and frequency
• Fixed cycling through spinners in corona VFB via tab key
• Setup lightmix button moved to general settings
• Scatter convert to geometry warning is now shown only when converting > 250 instances scatter

[Ondra]

• It is now possible to edit the unassigned lights in lightmix
• LUT is now applied as almost last operator, with white balance being the last one
• Fixed results of Mix Texmap operations to more closely match photoshop
• Contrast can now have negative values
• DOF is now disabled for free views
• Added 4th tab in settings
• Corona Output tex now has LUTs
• Scatter defaults changed: 1000 instances, 5% displayed

[Ondra]

This is practially an RC build, but we are not branding it RC yet, as there are still some changes we want to do internally:

• Fixed Glass objects with glossiness 0.99 looking noticeably different from 1.00 glossiness when using hybrid (Default) glass
• Updated proxy exporter to v0.06
• Installer mtl converter to 1.29
• Added the scatter lister into the installer
• Changed default Corona LUT folder to C:/Program Files/Corona/LUT
• Updated eula (just 3rd party acknowledgements)
• Fixed scatter rotation sometimes abruptly changing during animation
• Output tex brightness is now in -1 to 1 range and more closely looks like photoshop brightness
• Improved LUT mapping accuracy
• Temperature shortened to Temp in Color picker
• Tweaked positioning of all dialogs
• fixed tab order in all dialogs
• Added option to just gather denoising data without actually doing denoising (for denoising later in standalone app we will release)
• Reworked some settings - moved settings that make no sense to be saved into the .max files to be saved per-computer - such as number of threads, autosave options, material editor quality, … All these options are now accessible in a single modal dialog

[Ondra]

ok, so lets do an official RC1 build!

• Fixed mtl editor in IR being off by default
• Fixed deleting daily builds in the installer
• There are 28 free LUTs now bundled with the installer
• Fixed scatter objects popping when distribution geometry is animated
• Fixed crash in loading one LUT
• FIxed crash when using scatter “+” button before the scatter is created
• Fixed handling of some systemwide parameters

[Ondra]

RC2:

• Fixed LUTs unnecessarily reloading in interactive rendering, slowing it down
• Setup lightmix button now enables render elements if previously disabled
• There are now 3 reset buttons in lightmix: colors to default, intensities to default, and intensities to black (so you can quickly view just single light)
• Added 2 new LUTs by NOIR, used in the award winning short movie OFF
• Added 47 more LUTs by Adan Martin
• Fixed error in LUT opacity tooltips
• Fixed CVrWarp tooltips
• Added tooltip to PBR mode checkbox
• Added .cjpg extension to the corona jpeg format (for VR warps and rendering via deadline/render farms)

[Ondra]

RC3

• Fixed bug in un-mapping of LUTs with negative values
• Made the UI more lean&clean: removed some borders around single checkboxes
• Improved tooltips: progressive rendering limits, render only elements checkbox, bloom&glare, environment distance, AO “calculate from” dropdown, distance texmap, ...
• Fixed completely black image due to 3dsmax error when using incorrectly set up atmospherics and bloom+glare
• System settings dialog now opens just under the “System settings” button by default and remembers its last position (just for the current Max session)
• French, German, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian tooltips replaced with revised versions.
• Bundled LUTs are now compressed, resulting in ~50 MB smaller installer.
• Fixed color picker dialog not working with numerical keyboard.
• Color picker dialog now has customizable spinner ranges (0-255, 0-1 and 0-100%)
• Bloom&Glare color shift parameter is now frozen when Color intensity is 0 as it has no effect in that case
• Fixed DR bug when slaves precompute UHD cache faster than master: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=12807
• Distance tex “scale” submap made more predictable: white in the submap means no scaling, while other values scale both near and far distances
• Fixed bug: autosave with % placeholders in filename did not overwrite older files correctly

[Ondra]

RC4 - this is the final RC I intend to make unless some serious bug appears

color-picker

• Added checkbox to color picker for selection between linear RGB and sRGB input
• The color picker eye dropper button pick mode can now be cancelled by escape key or by clicking right mouse button
• Added hex color input to the color picker dialog

• Fixed some minor UI dialog spacing issues
• Updated some tooltips
• Added freezing of unused controls to Corona Light, CoronaSun

[Ondra]

Building the final thing:

• Fixed crash when saving image after interactive rendering
• Fixed bug where image was not refreshed after exposure type (simple, photo) was changed
• Fixed bug where bloom and glare was not refreshed in the docked interactive VFB
• Fixed LUT uninstalling
• Fixed scene look changes when loading output map from daily builds (we had to reset the brightness parameter value)

[Ondra]

1.5 hotfix 1

Backward compatiblity

• Reverted white balance tone mapping to 1.4 behavior. 1.4 scenes will render same as in 1.4 and 1.5 scenes will render same as 1.5 (which is different from 1.4) with a warning adivising user to go back to 1.4 behavior (possible with one click)
• 1.4 mix maps now load without appearance change (which means the sRGB mixing is disabled for them upon loading)

UI fixes

• Fixed tab order in Corona bitmap
• When a sticky rollout in render settings is collapsed (it should not be possible to do, but there is bug in max 2017 ;)), it will be now expanded again when the dialog is closed and opened again
• Fixed “+” button for render selected incorrectly freezing: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=13494
• Fixed some missing localized tooltips
• Fixed Ukrainian tooltips

Misc

• Fixed crash on closing 3dsmax 2012
• Fixed interactive not working with “Rendered frame window” off
• Changed minimum tone mapping kelvin temperature to 2000K