Price Increase

[Basshunter]

I have to agree on almost everything ONO says.

V-Ray has added all Corona features and it's development is wayyyy faster. Every small new feature comes to V-Ray first. Even Scatter has been developed faster for V-Ray! Corona can't add even a single "edge trimming" button while V-Ray added long time ago. And all Corona developers could say when I pointed this out was "well, I guess V-Ray team is faster".

Same goes for some bugs I posted many months ago to which I have got answers like "this is a 3ds Max problem, not the renderer". Then after pointing out how V-Ray had managed to solved the same issues instead of blaming Max, all we get is a "well, we'll need to check what V-Ray team have done there". But the issue is never addressed.

Not sure if Chaos final goal is to kill Corona to be honest, but that's probably what will end up happening.

[Basshunter]

Also, what's the point of asking the community about the features we want if at the end of the day you won't listen?

[TomG]

We do listen, but deciding what to work on next is a a tricky art - which is why we created this article to cover all the things that go into our decision-making on what to work on next:
https://blog.corona-renderer.com/behind-the-scenes-the-corona-renderer-development-process/

The result of course is never perfect, as everyone always has different needs and preferences for what they would like to see in the next version, but we do the best we can. No user request ever gets ignored, it's always considered when we make our decisions.

[dj_buckley]

It is clearly obvious what is going on here first corona gets bought by chaos group then every amazing thing of corona gets stripped off and added into vray and lastly the implementation of ideas and development of corona gets slowed down or virtually non existent until Majority of the user base of corona can't take it any longer but to move over to Vray then Corona gets Killed off. The price increases are just to speed thing along smh.

This is not what is happening - there is no slowing of Corona development, we have the same number of people in development, so that is progressing at the same speed as always, in that we are putting just as much work into every release as we always have. There are no plans for this to change. Just wanted to share that fact to avoid unnecessary speculation taking root.

Appreciate you jumping in here Tom and representing Corona.  But what ONO has said, is exactly how it currently feels a looks like to us as end users.

I'll ask again.  What is Corona's USP these days?  What was the last major unique feature that came to Corona first?

[lupaz]

Hi Tom,

I respect the Corona devs and I'm very happy with many of the new features.
However, when comparing to vray, I agree that it looks like Chaos gives way more priority to it than Corona.

Look at these comments from the devs in these two cases below. Two months of development to improve corona pattern is too much? Also, why does vray support displacement and overlapping in enmesh but it would be too much work to develop it for Corona?

Regarding Corona pattern:

If it will take almost a complete overhaul of pattern to have this functionality (given that there are workaround and also Max native tools for this) and also take 2 month, then personally I don't like it.
My bright note on this is that VRayEnmesh actually supports overlapping geometry and works a bit more like scatter than CoronaPattern. So maybe there is a quick fix for this, I am not quite sure.

Regarding displacement in corona pattern:

It is a known limitation for pattern.
You can see a related discussion with this link:
https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=37437.msg203653#msg203653

Nevertheless, we have this reported and will update in case of any news.

(Internal ID=1280225493)

[TomG]

The USP remains as always, our focus on absolute realism for archviz rather than being a general render engine, with a streamlining of the UI and options based on that to make things easier and more intuitive to use for that market. Now I can't get into major features first really, as there is some debate on what counts as a major feature it seems :) For instance the tile map is ours first, as are other things like improved DOF for highlights, just off the top of my head without digging, but we've seen some takes here that the tile map is not a "major feature".

We'll see what we do e.g. with the VFB 2 in 12 as development progresses.

Anyway, we are listening to the comments here on features and recent releases too, just so you know you are being heard and we are considering all that going forward (along with the usual "Feature Requests" section).

[lupaz]

The USP remains as always, our focus on absolute realism for archviz rather than being a general render engine, with a streamlining of the UI and options based on that to make things easier and more intuitive to use for that market. Now I can't get into major features first really, as there is some debate on what counts as a major feature it seems :) For instance the tile map is ours first, as are other things like improved DOF for highlights, just off the top of my head without digging, but we've seen some takes here that the tile map is not a "major feature".

We'll see what we do e.g. with the VFB 2 in 12 as development progresses.

Anyway, we are listening to the comments here on features and recent releases too, just so you know you are being heard and we are considering all that going forward (along with the usual "Feature Requests" section).

Thank you.
BTW, and I'm repeating myself, tile map is certainly a major feature IMO and I'm using it for many things flawlessly.

[TomG]

Glad to hear! And of course the value it brings will vary from person to person, so I understand if some did not find it "major" - the feedback is good to know, on who found it useful, and who did not, and what things people would like to see from it in the future too or as compared to other potential tiling solutions.

[dj_buckley]

But we've seen some takes here that the tile map is not a "major feature".

As I've already admitted, I haven't used it so I couldn't say, but I create a lot of scenes involving tiles/bricks etc and haven't ever felt a need for a dedicated tiles map beyond what already exists with 3ds max tiles, bercon, railclone, floor generator etc etc.  That might change if I get a chance to test drive it.  But I mean in the same sense that I've never used Corona Scatter because I'm so familiar with and have been using Forest Pack for years.

[dj_buckley]

as are other things like improved DOF for highlights

Also I was referring to non "experimental" ones ;)

[Tom]

Anyway, we are listening to the comments here on features and recent releases too, just so you know you are being heard and we are considering all that going forward (along with the usual "Feature Requests" section).

Ahem ... Corona Toon has been asked for 4 years. Am I wrong?

[TomG]

Requests for Toon have popped up over the years, for sure; however when compared to our USP mentioned earlier about photorealism for archviz - toon is not realism, and has a more limited use in archviz, which affects it's ranking in priority. I know for some Toon is really important, but in our assessment when you look at archviz projects published anywhere from Behance to CG Architect to Artstation, very few use such a shader. Again, this is just to give an insight in to how we assess things in terms of priority, not to say that someone wanting a toon shader is wrong - just that we have to consider that request inside of a bigger, particular picture.

This is different for V-Ray of course as it is very much a general purpose engine that gets used for all sorts of things, and Toon is much more widely used in that regard. Naturally those who request Toon will see it's priority differently, and naturally it would sound like they have projects and work where it would be a fit else they wouldn't request it, but overall we've felt that other things take the lead in terms of the target market and use of Corona - so the request isn't ignored, just that is how we've assessed it so far when we choose what to work on for the next release. Sorry to those who are disappointed at not having such a shader yet, of course.

[TomG]

(just to add, that is the unfortunate truth - listening and hearing requests doesn't mean they will get done; it means we will be aware of them and will consider them. Believe me, we would love to do everything requested, but unfortunately we always have to pick and choose as dev time is limited. It's always a difficult art and some folks will always disagree with the decision. But we will keep doing our best!)

[Basshunter]

Requests for Toon have popped up over the years, for sure; however when compared to our USP mentioned earlier about photorealism for archviz - toon is not realism, and has a more limited use in archviz, which affects it's ranking in priority. I know for some Toon is really important, but in our assessment when you look at archviz projects published anywhere from Behance to CG Architect to Artstation, very few use such a shader. Again, this is just to give an insight in to how we assess things in terms of priority, not to say that someone wanting a toon shader is wrong - just that we have to consider that request inside of a bigger, particular picture.

This is different for V-Ray of course as it is very much a general purpose engine that gets used for all sorts of things, and Toon is much more widely used in that regard. Naturally those who request Toon will see it's priority differently, and naturally it would sound like they have projects and work where it would be a fit else they wouldn't request it, but overall we've felt that other things take the lead in terms of the target market and use of Corona - so the request isn't ignored, just that is how we've assessed it so far when we choose what to work on for the next release. Sorry to those who are disappointed at not having such a shader yet, of course.

What about Vantage support then? That's the number one archviz requested feature. What about the improvements in chaos scatter which has been added in V-Ray long time ago but not in Corona? What about ALL the small features that would make our work easier and we never see in Corona but we do in V-Ray. We don't even have a SIMPLE infinite plane which has been requested many times! Is that not needed in Archviz? What about hybrid CPU+GPU rendering which V-Ray has? Not needed for archiviz either?

[dj_buckley]

Requests for Toon have popped up over the years, for sure; however when compared to our USP mentioned earlier about photorealism for archviz - toon is not realism, and has a more limited use in archviz, which affects it's ranking in priority. I know for some Toon is really important, but in our assessment when you look at archviz projects published anywhere from Behance to CG Architect to Artstation, very few use such a shader. Again, this is just to give an insight in to how we assess things in terms of priority, not to say that someone wanting a toon shader is wrong - just that we have to consider that request inside of a bigger, particular picture.

This is different for V-Ray of course as it is very much a general purpose engine that gets used for all sorts of things, and Toon is much more widely used in that regard. Naturally those who request Toon will see it's priority differently, and naturally it would sound like they have projects and work where it would be a fit else they wouldn't request it, but overall we've felt that other things take the lead in terms of the target market and use of Corona - so the request isn't ignored, just that is how we've assessed it so far when we choose what to work on for the next release. Sorry to those who are disappointed at not having such a shader yet, of course.

Just because you don't see toon on Behance doesn't mean it isn't used.  Why would anyone show their previz workflow on a platform design to show your shiny final images?

I don't really understand the response much either.  How did Power Tools rank so highly with regards to arch Viz realism?