Author Topic: Should I use Corona Bitmap for all my material maps?  (Read 2636 times)

2021-12-09, 21:46:05

johnnyswedish

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Hi Forum!

I have a question. Until now every time I have created textures I have always just gone to the texture and loaded in my bitmap standard way (I do use PSDs). Last night I was reading about Corona Bitmap which I realize gives you much more control. Should I use this for all my texture imports in the future? Does it render faster as well? My gut feeling is I should. Love to hear your feedback on this :-) John

2021-12-10, 09:17:31
Reply #1

rojharris

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I too would be interested to know this. I've been using Corona for years and have never once used the Corona Bitmap... Hmmmm. curious.

2021-12-10, 09:35:43
Reply #2

rojharris

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So I've just discovered one reason not to use it. If I drop in a photoshop file I can't choose which layer set to use like I can with a normal C4D bitmap. I like to create my maps with all the diffuse/gloss/bump/alpha etc in the one layered file (it's just quicker). Seems like I can't do this with the Corona bitmap.

2021-12-10, 13:55:28
Reply #3

davetwo

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So I've just discovered one reason not to use it. If I drop in a photoshop file I can't choose which layer set to use like I can with a normal C4D bitmap. I like to create my maps with all the diffuse/gloss/bump/alpha etc in the one layered file (it's just quicker). Seems like I can't do this with the Corona bitmap.

This is my workflow too. PSD support is super useful!

I dont think there is any advantage to using the Corona bitmap unless youre using some fancy pipeline or UDIMS etc

2021-12-10, 15:01:31
Reply #4

johnnyswedish

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Hi,

I thought I'd get slaid for using PSDs, LOL! Good to hear I'm not the only one. I do find the Corona Bitmap easier to control surface imperfections for example. Being able to scale them easy etc is brill! Does anyone know if it does speed up rendering? Thanks for your input on this guys :-)

2021-12-10, 16:49:53
Reply #5

Beanzvision

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There are some advantages of using the Corona bitmap :)
https://support.corona-renderer.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402649729553-Corona-Bitmap-
Bengamin Jerrems l chaos-corona.com
3D Support Specialist - Corona l contact us
Corona Uploader l Upload
Portfolio l Click me!

2021-12-10, 17:25:45
Reply #6

johnnyswedish

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BOOM!!!! There you go. Thank you for clarification. Will use as often as possible now. Have a good weekend all :-)

2021-12-14, 00:28:26
Reply #7

BigAl3D

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Almost seems like Corona should, by default, always add the Bitmap shader whenever you add an image. I mean, why not?

2021-12-15, 09:29:27
Reply #8

rojharris

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Almost seems like Corona should, by default, always add the Bitmap shader whenever you add an image. I mean, why not?
Because it doesn't support layered PSDs.

2021-12-15, 17:30:55
Reply #9

BigAl3D

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Almost seems like Corona should, by default, always add the Bitmap shader whenever you add an image. I mean, why not?
Because it doesn't support layered PSDs.

Fair enough, so add an error message saying you can't use certain formats. Not the end of the world, but thought it made sense.

2021-12-15, 18:11:04
Reply #10

James Vella

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Almost seems like Corona should, by default, always add the Bitmap shader whenever you add an image. I mean, why not?

why not? Well I would say its ok if you want a 5-10%? increase in speed, but for conversion scripts to function correctly it helps that the bitmaps are in their standard format. Lots of plugins/scripts rely on searching for scene bitmaps in native format, if they are inside corona bitmaps that can break these scripts/search functions. Not saying it will be like this in the future, just saying these things take time to implement in production pipelines and the way it defaults is actually quite useful at this point.



2022-07-04, 11:18:48
Reply #11

4b4

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One idea to try to keep everyone happy, how about having a checkbox for "default images to Corona Bitmap shader"? This way users can decide whether they want it or not?

With regards to speed increases, I managed to take the scene parsing value from 8 secs down to 4 sec, just by putting the HDRI into a Corona Bitmap, that's before I went through all the other images and changed those over, I think that got me another 1 second. Makes the IPR much snappier if you have to restart it.

2022-07-04, 11:36:16
Reply #12

davetwo

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So I've just discovered one reason not to use it. If I drop in a photoshop file I can't choose which layer set to use like I can with a normal C4D bitmap. I like to create my maps with all the diffuse/gloss/bump/alpha etc in the one layered file (it's just quicker). Seems like I can't do this with the Corona bitmap.

This is 100% my workflow and I'd hate to lose it.