release 0.29

[haggi]

Hi,

after a lot of work under the hood, there is the new release of mayaToCorona.
Unfortunatly this version is a Windows 7 only version. I tested it on Windows 8 and it crashes as soon as you try to connect a texture file to a shader.
I'll try to find the problem, but because this will take some time, I thought it could be a good idea to give you something to play with on Win7.

Here is what's new in this release:

release 0.29
- Option to save renderstamp to file
- switched to new api
- added volume shader attributes for sss
- added alpha mode and opactiy for corona shader
- updated color mapping methods
- OSL: added ramp node
- OSL: removed color from nodes, vector only now
- fixed smooth mesh bug with multiple shaders
- refactoring of mesh/smooth mesh handling
- removed automatic error prone internal diffuse->color connection
- internal rebuild for independet OSL usage (swatches rendering)
- added fix for missing uv's. Warning will be printed.
- added warning for malformed Normals.
- OSL: fixed contrast in checker node
- implemented swatch rendering
- added viewport 2.0 diffuse implementation openGL only
- renamed iesProfile attribute (this means old shaders with IES profile will need a new assignment)
- bifrost motionblur seems to work now (but I had some problems as well, please give some feedback if it works)

Highlights are: ramp node implementation, smooth mesh with per face shading works, shader swatches show a rendered image, in viewport 2.0 you will se a good shaded result (no speculars at the moment).

[Hamburger]

thanks Haggi!

[max45]

Viewport 2.0 incorrect

[haggi]

Oh, that's bad. I suppose this is better if you assign a lambert shader?

[max45]

I assign default corona shader. 

Maya standart, Vray shaders work fine

[haggi]

Okay, I'll have a look.

Now I had a look and I could fix it.

[Hamburger]

There is also a fatal error when you change brdf type to ward.

I have a list of other things I'll send through later on too but so far this is the only critical bug. :)

[Ludvik Koutny]

There is also a fatal error when you change brdf type to ward.

Jesus christ, why would you do that? Why the hell is it even exposed?!?!?!?!

[haggi]

Yea, the fix for the bug is that it will not be exposed any more in the next release ;)

[Ludvik Koutny]

Yup, and actually there's quite a few more things exposed in Maya plugin that should not be. I'll grab the latest one and write them down. I could also help you with UI layout, if you want, so that the ease of use and overall user experience is on par with Corona standards.

BTW: Ward was just super-experimental BRDF that was never finished.

[Ondra]

actually ward is now fixed and working in the latest daily... but the model itself is not very good.

[haggi]

Yup, and actually there's quite a few more things exposed in Maya plugin that should not be. I'll grab the latest one and write them down. I could also help you with UI layout, if you want, so that the ease of use and overall user experience is on par with Corona standards.

Oh, that would be really useful. Even if I implemented the features, my knowledge of Corona is really poor. I'd really appreciate any help.

[Hamburger]

There is also a fatal error when you change brdf type to ward.

Jesus christ, why would you do that? Why the hell is it even exposed?!?!?!?!

Ward is good for metals, at least in the V-Ray discipline of thinking. I think I have to learn more about Corona obviously. :)

I already use Corona for Maya on some extremely complicated scenes in terms of lighting and it handles GI so much better than any render engine I've used in 10 years of this. There's a few issues (expected so early) but so far even at this early state it is fun to use this render - I will have no problems switching over in time.

I just render to see how awesome and fast the GI looks in grey shader! I have to experiment and that led me to the ward crash!

[Ludvik Koutny]

Yeah,

i know a lot of people have some misconceptions from other renderers. In Corona, there is no need to touch BRDF at all. There is just a default one, that works simply best for all materials.

[Ondra]

Ward is good for metals, at least in the V-Ray discipline of thinking. I think I have to learn more about Corona obviously. :)

But vray AFAIK uses blinn by default, which is even worse than ward ;). Corona uses Ashikhmin-Shirley/GGX, which are both good for all kind of different materials

[juang3d]

I'm unable to make Corona appear in Maya 2015, my env file is correctly configured but ti does not show up in the plugins manager.

Here is my ENV file content:

MAYA_MODULE_PATH = D:/3D/Corona_2_Maya/mayaToCorona/;

Some ideas?

BTW Windows 7

Chers.

[Hamburger]

Maya the silliest program ever.

Sometimes it is forward slash, sometimes backslash. I think this time it might be backslash because my env file looks like this;

MAYA_MODULE_PATH = C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2015\mayaToCorona_2015

[juang3d]

Ok, I'll try that, thanks!

[juang3d]

I had no luck... Corona is not appearing at all :P

[juang3d]

Problem solved.

The thing is that my ENV file was pointing to:

MAYA_MODULE_PATH = D:/3D/Corona_2_Maya/mayaToCorona/;

But inside the .mod file in the corona folder to targeted folder was "+ LOCALE:en_US mtCorona 0.1.0 ../mayaToCorona_2015"

So changing the mayaToCorona to mayaToCorona_2015 solved the problem.

Cheers!

[haggi]

I'll try to add an installer for one of the next releases. This way these types of problems should disappear.

[juang3d]

Cool, thanks Haggi.