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Topics - lolec

Pages: [1] 2
1
Off-Topic / Here we go
« on: 2022-09-26, 16:57:20 »
Ok, I know this is a heated subject and that it has come up several times in the past, however, I think it's important to re-evaluate our assumptions from time to time, specially when initial conditions change so drastically.

While I understand and agree that 8 years ago the right decision was to be proudly CPU only, it seems like we live in a completely different world now.

1. High end GPUs have large amounts of VRAM
2. GPU compute power is growing at an insane rate compared do CPU
3. Rendering tech also evolved to make GPU more capable and versatile
4. Vray is Hybrid, Corona is part of Chaos now.

So my question is, Has the situation changed enough to make you consider changing your original stance and maybe work on a Hybrid solution to take advantage of the good that GPU has to offer? Is that even technically feasible or is Corona so strictly CPU only that there is no way to take advantage of that other than denoising?

I fear that at the current rate of progress in hadrware, Corona won't be able to compete. I love Corona and want it to continue to be the best render engine forever :)

 

2
[Max] I need help! / Distribuited Render Issues
« on: 2022-07-13, 22:22:51 »
Hello, I'm new to distributed rendering. I Just built a small cluster of 7 5950x machines, 6 of them have 32gb of ram and one has 64 gb. My workstation is 3990x with 256gb of ram.

I started running tests and I found something unusual, maybe someone with more experience can tell me why something like this happens.

I sent the render to only 2 nodes, one with 64 and the other with 32 of ram. AS the render progresses, the one with 64g is working properly, but the other one is not contributing any passes, even though the processor it's been at 100% usage for 30 minutes or so.

Both have the same processor and joined from the beginning,  any ideas ?

Thanks.



3
Hardware / Best bang for buck render node.
« on: 2022-07-05, 07:15:43 »
Hello!

We just got a big project that will require a lot of animation in the next 12 months or so. We want to build a small render farm.

My workstation is a threadripper 3990x 256 gb ram ( although I rarely use more than 32 GB for rendering) . I would like to get around 5X my current rendering capability. But now, I'm faced with a question I've never faced before. As building a rendering workstation is a relatively easy decision, but I'm finding building nodes is not as straightforward.

This is because the case,  power supply, cooling, GPU, motherboard, storage and even ram scale with the number of nodes, so apparently the equation would lean towards minimizing the number of nodes, but at some point, the performance per dollar plummets so buying 4 3990x based systems might not be ideal.

I'm finding it hard to figure out what the absolute best strategy is.

Is there a currently accepted "best" node configuration?

Thanks :)

4
I rarely need to do animation so I'm a noob at it. I've been struggling to solve this for almost a week, hopefully someone can give me a tip that unlocks my brain.

Here is what I need to animate in max:
https://share.getcloudapp.com/nOu9ZPn0


Here is what I got so far doing manual animation (the green cylinders are supposed to overlap at all times.):
https://share.getcloudapp.com/yAukErYQ


Manually animating both groups to match is impossible, so i'm thinking on creating some kind of rig that locks the green cylinders together. but I have no idea on how to do that.

Anything will be appreciated :)


5
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.

6
[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!


7
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.


8
Off-Topic / Selling Quadro RTX 5000
« on: 2020-08-24, 22:56:26 »
I'm guessing is ok to sell stuff in the off-topic? if it is not, please delete :)

Quadro RTX 5000. Never overclocked. I take good care of my hardware.

I could probably flip it in eBay but I'd rather deal with a trusted party.

Jurag?

I'm willing to sell at a fair price, accepting offers. Shipping from Mexico using preferred shipping method.

9
Off-Topic / Coronavirus Impact
« on: 2020-07-31, 17:51:42 »
I'm very curious about what effect - if any- did the CORONA named virus had on corona render sales/traffic/search term/support tickets etc?

Not talking about the economic ecosystem having an impact on sales, but if you saw a clear and interesting effect related to the shared name?






10
[Max] I need help! / Square Artifacts
« on: 2020-07-27, 00:00:36 »
I'm getting strange square artifacts in some images. (caustics enabled in render rollout and on every material) DOF enabled.



I suspected Nvidia denoising but it happens when it's on or off.

Probably unrelated but just in case it helps, the previews for Quixel Bridge starter looking like this a couple of days ago.




I remember seeing something similar in the forum, couldn't find it.

Thanks.

11
[Max] Feature Requests / CoronaSun Improvements.
« on: 2020-07-03, 19:53:15 »
Now that the CoronaSun and Bloom and glare where revamped, I find myself using them more and more. Here are a couple of things that I believe would be a good additions

1. A real position visualization in the viewport on where the sun will be at infinite distance.
The sun helper is nice and practical, but a helper in the viewport will make precise positioning even easier.
Something like this.


2. Real sun size (maybe this is the case already)

The current sun scale seems a little subjective (1, 2, 3...)  1 seems a little small compared to the real sun size in my opinion, but not sure if 1 corresponds to the real-world sun.  In case it doesn't a "real-world size" checkbox would be nice.


12
[Max] General Discussion / Quixel bridge workflow for Corona
« on: 2020-06-27, 19:58:29 »
Hello, I'm new to megascans - bridge and I'm struggling to define a correct workflow to export. Found this thread by Mr Dubcat https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=12945.0
But it seems to be obsolete now.

Specifically talking about surfaces (Although the same happens to objects and their materials) , when I export to max I get strange settings that don't make a lot of sense.

The setup I get is:

Corona displacement modifier applied to the object ( I would rather control the displacement in the material node and not the corona displacement mod, but while the settings in the modifier seem correct, the settings in the material are not the same)
Displacement usually too big ( my Max Unit setup is Meters and Unit is CM, not sure what is the best to ensure bridges sets it up properly)
Bump map at 0
Tiling mode instead of real world: It would be nice to bring textures in with "real wolrd" scale activated at the right size so I don't have to guess every time.

I'm also worried, based on dubcat's thread that some material properties are not being imported properly.

My questions:

1. What is the right setting to use in max regarding Units etc so Bridge works as seamless as possible?
2. Is there an optimized or tweaked version of the brdige exporter that works better?

Thanks

13
After installing the latest TyFlow beta, I started getting this error every time I open Max.

Is there a known way to fix this?

Thanks.

14
[Max] General Discussion / AI super-resolution speedup
« on: 2019-04-12, 23:18:38 »
Nvidia denoiser has made a huge impact in our workflow, allowing us to vizualize a close aproximation of the final render much faster.

With the latest set of supersampling algorithms, I think there is another oportunity to bring even more speed into the process.

My idea is to have a checkbox called SuperSampling that would essentially devide the render size by half and use AI to upscale to the expected resolution.

I'm not sure, but I believe supersampling is much faster than actually rendering 4x the pixels.

This won't be intended for final renders. But it could be awesome to speed up work.

I've done a few tests with https://topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai/ , but having it integrated in corona would be amazing. What do you think ?

 

15
General CG Discussion / Photogrametry with few images
« on: 2018-12-06, 19:42:26 »
Hi,

I have an odd problem and maybe some expert here can help me get un-stuck.

I need to do the best possible 3d reconstruction of a human body based only in 5 pictures taken at 90, 45, 0 -45 and -90 degrees.  Before you ask, no, I can't take more pictures, unfortunately, as I'm using an existing dataset :(

Of course, I know the reconstruction won't be great or maybe even good, based on the extremely limited data set.

Some requirements:

-There are 200 human sets, so doing a manual 3d model for each one is not feasible, but doing some manual work is reasonable (like manual alignment, manual point matching etc)
- The 3d model should be textured too.
- The pictures have plenty of details and texture
- The pictures where captured with a filter that removes all reflections so the texture detail is pretty solid and there are no specular occlusion
- the 90 and 45 degree images are not precisely at 90 and 45, but close
- I only need to build the front of the body
- The camera FOV is known

I've done research using many photogrammetry software and could not find one that has a special "low number of images" mode. Maybe a human-assisted mode?

Hope someone here can help.

Thanks :)

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