Messages

1

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Slicer Material playground!

« on: 2021-12-13, 22:17:40 »

Devs,

First- amazing!  This is a totally new way to approach imagery and very very excited about it!  One issue(and this was sort of mentioned regarding intersecting meshes) is to figure out how to handle situations like the attached.

Left bottle - no slicer
Second bottle - showing the effect on just the liquid - amazing, dream come true!!!
Third bottle - the 'error' when you introduce the glass bottle to the Slicer (this is because the liquid intersects with the walls of the glass for correct rendering)
Forth bottle - final (incorrect) result with the glass is ignored in the Slicer Material.  Since the cap is only taking place in the space between the glass walls.

Cheers!

2

[Max] General Discussion / Material Library / Management

« on: 2021-11-02, 22:22:45 »

Hello Forum!

Simple question-- what do you all recommend in terms of the best way to save out highly-tailored Corona Materials into a beautiful, easy-to-use library?  I don't need a crazy asset management system-- really just materials.

Ideally, it would be something that would automatically scoop the texture-maps and re-save them in a folder structure automatically.  I've used KStudio and design connector in the past a bit-- but wasn't sure what's good out there these days.  I NEED to stop re-creating the same materials over and over again and/or importing models just to grab textures.

Cheers!

3

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

« on: 2021-10-27, 23:26:36 »

Hello!  Three questions for the tech people here...

1. I may get a new 3990x system built by Puget Systems near Seattle, USA.  Anyone purchase from them, and if so, good experience?

2. RAM:  Certainly will get 128gb, but for the sake of future-proofing-- is 256gb overkill?

3. RTX 3090.  Aside from Corona, wanting to dabble in real-time more with UE and other applications.  Again, is this overkill?  Curious if anyone is like me in this forum and starting to play in that space, and if so- does a cheaper card get the job done just fine?

Thanks for the help!

4

[Max] I need help! / Layered Material / ID Masks

« on: 2021-10-20, 14:24:41 »

Hello!

Apologies if this is covered, but kind of dug around and didn't get a clear answer unfortunately.

Layered Materials / ID Masks
How can I create a render pass (like ID Masks) where I can mask each layer of a layered material via the masks within the material.  A prime example is intricate labels on high-end bottles where I have metallics, spot colors, varnishes..etc in each mask.  Simply looking how to have it broken up so I can tweak layers in PSD when clients get picky.

Cheers!

5

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / GPU New Caustics Solver / Keyshot 10.2

« on: 2021-06-07, 18:48:58 »

Devs,

First, thanks for adding caustics a bit back-- amazing.  I know there is a lot of noise right now on the daily builds about slow development... but I wanted to get your take on this to raise the bar...
https://blog.keyshot.com/rendering-keyshot-caustics-gpu

I've never been a huge fan of Keyshot workflow (for product visualization), but I just checked out the newest release and am absolutely blown away by the new caustics solver.  Is there something you guys can learn from this in future iterations?  I'm very tempted to give Keyshot a try for certain projects based on this alone.

Cheers!

6

[Max] I need help! / Re: Product Imagery / Transparent Backgrounds with Shadows

« on: 2021-02-21, 21:59:40 »

Thanks for the tip on this- certainly helped!  Here is what I ended up moving towards... admittedly a bit strange, but is working nicely...

1.  Set Shadowcatcher to 'Always Transparent' ... NOT compositing
2.  Use rayswitcher to have 'Direct Override' set to WHITE on Shadowcatcher
3.  Beauty and Alpha pass saved with NO alpha

Two layers in Photoshop
1. Mask Beauty Render with Alpha Render (seems to get no fringe and allows for transparency)
2. Have Beauty Render with no mask underneath the masked layer and set to multiply**

** This is why I am using Rayswitcher so that the beautiful shadows are captured on white so it can simply be set to Multiply blending so it can be placed on any surface at the client.  Since it is denoised and no relying on any alpha channels for the shadow, which doesn't get denoised-- I can get away with only a couple render passes.  When set to compositing, it takes longer and the results are not as good.

Anyways, thought I would share

7

[Max] I need help! / Product Imagery / Transparent Backgrounds with Shadows

« on: 2021-02-04, 17:57:56 »

Hello Forum!  Looking for some advice on how to streamline a specific type of consumer product shots (3dsmax).

Question:  How best to get higher-volume products shots on transparent background with shadows on their own layer (typically in a PSD or TIF file).  There are a couple of small things that come up that I would love to streamline if anyone has suggestions...

Here is my typical workflow...

MAX:
1.  Place product on shadow-catcher and set to compositing mode.
2.  I typically have a set of lights used just for the shadow I'm looking to achieve
3.  Render just the product (typically use render-selected option).  Save as PNG w/ Alpha
4.  Change the product property to setting to 'not visible to camera'
5.  Render shadow catcher and save as PNG w/ Alpha

PHOTOSHOP.
6.  Drop in shadow layer.
7.  Apply a slight blur to the layer to get ride of noise **this is because the de-noiser does not clean up the alpha channel**
8.  Drop in product
9.  Apply a de-fringe to layer **the products always seem to come in with a small black fringe from Corona**
10. Name things and save to TIF or PSD.

Sometimes I simply use the MaskID pass to separate out the product vs. shadow so I don't have to render twice, but the problem I face is I apply a blur to the shadow layer to get rid of noise which then muddies against the product since it doesn't go underneath it (hence, why I render twice and set the product to not be visible to camera so I can get the shadow underneath it).

Seems like a couple unnecessary steps for higher-volume product shots so any thoughts, advice would be appreciated!  Cheers

8

General CG Discussion / Re: Ultra High Resolution Wood Scans

« on: 2021-01-30, 04:19:42 »

Hi- was going to post a similar question but stumbled on this tread... did you find anything you were happy with?  I'm in need to closeup shots of products on wood so in the market for very-high resolution wood textures.

9

Hardware / Second Workstation vs. Home RenderFarm vs. Online?

« on: 2020-10-28, 03:01:24 »

Hello!

Question for you advanced users... what's best for a $6-$10k USD investment in hardware here in 2020 for an individual freelancer to supplement an already decent system?

Situation:
After years in the agency world, I've been freelancing from home for a year now and ready to up my hardware.  I'm currently on a 2990x / 64gb / Max setup which has been, for the most part, been great.

Problem:
I am constantly trying to find ways to get work done faster - either by offloading renders to an online farm (but prefer to have the control of it while rendering and always run into problems with cloud rendering), or reducing the cores while rendering and attempt to work on two projects at once (which of course is always a challenge).

Do I....

Get a new blazing fast 3990x / 128gb setup and have two workstations that I can switch between to easily work on multiple projects at once so I can easily check on renderings while they are going (and use distributed rendering whenever possible)?

Do I...

Find a dedicated online workstations that actually work - is that a thing yet?  Feels like in 2020 I shouldn't be buying more hardware, but haven't found any other solution yet.

Do I...

Get more sophisticated and start to build a renderfarm via deadline/backburner?

In other words- what would you do?  Thanks in advance for your advice!

10

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: Help / Exclude from Depth of Field?

« on: 2020-06-05, 15:03:59 »

Thanks Maru, my bad

11

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: Help / Exclude from Depth of Field?

« on: 2020-06-04, 19:27:05 »

Visual example attached, thanks everyone!

12

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Help / Exclude from Depth of Field?

« on: 2020-06-04, 19:18:46 »

Help!

I tried searching around and think this was discussed at some point- but looking for some help on a simple workflow.

I often am dropping products into photography (think putting a beverage can into a table-top photo).  Simple enough.. a couple of shadow catchers and mimic the lighting- done.  However, many of the photos I'm asked to work with have a lot of depth of field going on, and I often scatter products withing the photo and use the depth of field on the camera to get the right effect on the products.

Problem- when I do that it obviously puts the depth effect on the photo as well which I don't want.

Now this isn't too big of a problem as super easy to fix in post w/ a separate shot of the backplate... but when I'm doing a whole bunch of these and clients are looking for iterative imagery to test out concepts... it adds time.

Is there a solution I'm missing here where I can get my desired results right out of the VFB.  Is it possible to exclude the backplate/shadow catcher from the depth of field from the camera?

Thanks!

13

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2020-05-19, 14:21:24 »

Layered Material Bug!

Nice work guys on Corona 6!  Found a problem- in layered materials, using a bitmap in the opacity slot on the base material... renders as black, not transparent (think complicated product labels).

14

[Max] I need help! / Re: Bitmap Displacement Issue

« on: 2020-04-10, 18:12:27 »

Thank you!!  Explains why I only get this once in awhile- thanks for the help

15

[Max] I need help! / Bitmap Displacement Issue

« on: 2020-04-10, 17:22:41 »

Hello!

I'm sure there's an easy explanation, but what causes this unwanted effect when using bitmaps for displacements (quick example attached)-- only get it when using bitmaps vs. procedural inputs.

Cheers!