Rounded Edges & Bumps - VERY NOISY !!!

[Designerman77]

Rounded edges and bumps are getting much lesser denoising, causing huge render times.

Already discussed this bug with the support, who promised to fix this issue.

Total crap, when you need quick test renders. And in the daily workflow, this is the most important part, where most time is consumed.

Since no improvement has happened menawhile, I will re-post this again, including screenshots from rounded edges & bumps, properly denoised in Release core 1.7.
And badly denoised in actual core 3 / official release.

Makes the daily project work very annoying, destroying the creative process by super noisy test renders, especially in interior scenes.

Please fix this ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

As well as the weird displacement, when materials are stacked !!!!
Also worked great in core 1.7.
Now it behaves as if someone programmed it who never really used Corona for real project work !

Corona quality management should very carefully watch what the programmers are "improving"...

To me it looks almost like sabotaging the software ! Too big rival for V-Ray ?

With a broken displacement on stacked materials and broken denoising in bumps and rounded edges, Corona ist literally mutilated!

[TomG]

There was a change to denoising so that it did less denoising with bump maps (see "improved denoising of bump maps" on https://corona-renderer.com/blog/corona-renderer-2-for-3ds-max-released/). This preserves the detail, and avoids denoising removing that detail. A round edges is a bump map, so the same effect applies there, denoising is less intense in order to preserve detail. As you can see, a very sensible reason for introducing that (and not "deliberate sabotaging" - such a thing would never happen in either render engine).

On stacked displacements, best to raise a separate thread or contact support@corona-renderer.com with example scenes, or at least renders and screengrabs of the material set ups. Always easie to track and reply to issues when they are separated out.

EDIT - just saw that you have posted the displacement issue separately (am working my way through unread posts :) ), so that is good!

[Designerman77]

Hi Tom,

thanks a lot for your quick reply!

I know that the reduced denoise on bump channel has been done from the reason you described (preserving more details in renders).
Your colleague Bengamin already figured this out.

BUT in real daily workflow, the result of this good intention is horrible - leading to extremely noisy test renders.
And test renders cannot take 3-4 minutes. They need to be done in 30-40 seconds, without being so horribly noisy!
In Core 1.7 this was possible without any problem!

Even on fast machines like my 2018 iMac Pro, quick test renders look noisy now. And sorry, a 6000,- EUR machine does have some horse power.

Us users DON´T need microscopic details as the main goal. They anyway appear in a final render with many passes.

We need super quick test renderings - without being super noisy! Because on test renders, 90 % of the project time is spent.
This should sound logical to your programmers.


I stress it out once more: with this reduced denoising and also that weird displacement when materials are stacked,
working in Corona has suddenly become very difficult and nerve consuming.

Especially while finding the look for a scene, the strong noise in test renders destroys all your creativity!

Of course my assumption about "sabotaging" was just a joke - but your team should really take those two issues super seriously, as they literally destroy what makes Corona great: simplicity, fast & beautiful rendering and intuitive use.


I really hope your programmers make it work again, at least like in Core 1.7.


By the way, I started to teach Corona to students at a university and I personally very much promote Corona...
But such messed up basic functions are not the best advertising for your future clients.



Looking forward to your reply.


Cheers, Lucian

[Designerman77]

One more thought regarding the new "selective" denoising.

When a 3D-artist wants more texture details, one simply lowers the denoise amount and choses a longer render time.
Worked perfectly until core 3.

So why for heaven's sake to introduce an "automatic" amount of less denoising on bump maps ???

By this, renderings visibly fall apart in two areas with different amounts of denoising. Especially when short render times are needed.
Areas with bump look super noisy, while those without bump look smooth - when you combine short render times with high denoise amounts.

AND : do we need super fine texture details on... ROUNDED EDGES - which are also a bump map... ???



I´m counting the days until your team will finally DUMP this totally useless new function, that only destroys the workflow and results!

[maru]

The issues with denoising preserving bump map areas is already logged in our secret internal tracker.
(id=297173001)

[Designerman77]

G´day Maru !


Thanks a lot for your update.

That's truly good news. :)

If your team will also manage to fix the displacement behavior on stacked materials ( like it was in Core 1.7 ), Corona will be perfect again!


Have a great day!

Lucian

[Designerman77]

By the way,

any chance to re-activate a Core 1.7 - licence until bump/denoise and displacement on stacked materials are fixed in Core 3 ?


Greetings!

Lucian

[Designerman77]

So, guys at Corona,

will your programmers finally fix the denoising issue on bump maps and the unlogical behavior of displacement, which got totally weird when applied to poly selections and materials are stacked ???

I started to look at Arnold today... !

Would be sad to be forced to change to another renderer because you guys don't manage to repair these two major issues !

Looks like your quality management doesn't really take the complaints seriously enough.
And I´m not the only one who tells you about those two bugs !