Messages

31

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-08-22, 22:23:55 »

yeah, thanks, I did. I tried before and it just didn't upload it, now i hope it is

32

Gallery / Re: Star Trek TMP Enterprise

« on: 2019-08-18, 22:55:02 »

Hey everyone,

This is my model of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek the Motion Picture. I built it in 3ds Max and rendered it with Corona 3 Hotfix 2. Creating the pearlescent materials for this was a challenge, but Corona made it really fun and enjoyable. Please let me know what you think. Thanks for looking!

hi, so is this a test for learning/exercising? I mean if you really like sci-fi why don't you create your own spaceship?

33

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-08-18, 22:32:26 »

so i tried again to render the scene with the glass (from the beginning of the thread) with some changes of materials and lighting, i mean simplifying it and i had a funny error (attached)

34

Gallery / Re: FREE exercise scene in 3ds max and Corona

« on: 2019-08-15, 23:40:10 »

Hi Jamie,

thanks so much for this feedback, i appreciate your response. I'm so happy somebody actually understands the sort of thing i did, it's great.
 

Hi,

First I think you have done a nice job of recreating the original photo and this must have served as a great exercise in focussing on detail, lighting and texture work.  Given that the forum has a mixed user base, I would suggest providing an export option that can be used across a range of modelling packages (.obj, .FBX).  I use C4D and noticed there is only a Max file available.  This could broaden your audience and give others the opportunity to replicate the exercise you undertook, using your model as the starting point.

["Anyway, that is my two-pennies worth and hope some of that helps, even just a bit. 

let me know if you decide to export an OBJ file, I'd love to have a play with this scene.  It's the perfect subject for a 'monthly render challenge'.  I used to run a twitter challenge with an untextured scene to see what people came back with for a bit of fun and practice.  Would be nice to do something like that again... it's been a while.

J

Absolutely, please find the obj files at this link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s4Zyxsfq8ED_QugM6Au7YbiXTkGj8l2u?usp=sharing

..the cutlery models were a bit destroyed (initially made them in 2014 version and imported them in 2018 with allthe stacks), anyway, i think the model is not clean at all so i tried to re-export them separately.

["If you're open to feedback, there are a couple of aspects that, if tweaked, could bring you closer to the photo.  You seem to have done a great job on the modelling and the lighting is nice, however a few of the shaders could do with some attention just to bring them in line with the rest of the image. " ]

I am open to feedback, of course! Yes, I agree, I didn't pay much attention to all the materials, for the crockery I actually used corona built-in material. I worked a lot on the metal materials especially at the ambient occlusion bit but I ended up by overcomplicating them. Initially, I looked at the corona tutorials on youtube for metal, layered old metals and i started from there.

Also i think one of the problems is that i've absolutely destroyed it in post... if you look at the raw render it doesn't have quite the right light so, i thought maybe i boost the contrast in post which kind of wrecked my white materials...

true, my IOR was way too high indeed

["lastly, the glass shader appears to lack depth.  Try incorporating some very subtle volumetrics and maybe chuck in the new caustics solver... takes a wee bit longer but really pings glass to life. "]

If you look at my other posts (in the "i need help" section), i also had a play with caustics on different scenes, more experimental stuff, abstract or rather odd but I would like to render this one with the new caustics, it could maybe look cool, it's just i didn't have time at all to get back to it.

you know this is definitely very precious feedback for me, i absolutely love your idea with the render challenges! Please, by all means, you can use this scene for this sort of thing! I love challenges! usually participate, actually,(ok, so a bit of bragging...) my first successful one was evermotion 2015, when i won the second place with my ballerina loft :)

Also I'm very curious to try/learn cinema 4d because of its physics and dynamics. I'm super struggling to create similar stuff in 3ds max but it's quite complicated and it takes ages to learn more although i use max from 2011, physics and particles are not very intuitive... anyway

thanks so much for the feedback
cheers,
V

35

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-08-14, 18:44:17 »

hi, i did another test on the same scene with the daily built. As you told me, I increased  "Max photons/iteration" from the default 5 000 to 15 000.
tried to upload the scene on the link you shared but it didn't want to upload, maybe it's my internet or smth i don't know.

here's the scene anyway:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/110DX3D1F1QtrCuiUZurDZMYFBkWxnqKQ?usp=sharing

I attach the stats but you can find everything in the folder. This scene is a bit over the top anyway but i just wanted to kind of "push it" just for test. It's highly unlikely to have such a scene for a client but this is just a play.

many thanks,
cheers

36

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-08-08, 22:45:59 »

Thanks a lot! just installed the latest daily build so I'll do more experiments :)

Thanks so much Corona team for the great support

37

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-08-04, 15:11:35 »

ok, so this is the raw render (for the previous post)
thank you

38

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-08-04, 15:10:06 »

Hi Maru,

Thank you so much for looking into this scene and thanks for all your comments. I actually tried again now in a different scene - with simplified materials and also I ticked the box with caustics in the material slot as well (not only in the performance tab). The main glass material I used this time is the builtin corona material for glass only with caustics on. Also I only have an hdri and a sun. If you think it would be useful, I can also share this scene as it is just a test scene.

The effect looks better now but I still got fireflies as you can see. Attached is the image directly from the frame buffer and another one with the caustics pass overlayed in photoshop (actually with linear dodge) and some retouching. The render had 125 passes and the noise level was almost down to 1.09%

I can understand that users may want to render similar scenes, so I will report it to our dev team for further investigation
(internal id=374242858)

- Thank you for this! I must say - love experimenting and I like to try things that can be absurd, abstract, awkward, etc. To tell you the truth, I looked a lot at some guys that create abstract compositions in Cinema4D and Octane... guys like Peter Tarka, Roman Bratschi, Philip Lück, etc... their work inspired me to try to see if I can do "similar" things with max and Corona...
I do love to also create stuff that goes beyond visualisation, beyond just "let's imitate reality" - in which corona already does a great job. I worked in archvis and really I had amazing results with Corona since 2015, but I'm also a graphic designer and do a different kind of work. I'm also into branding and marketing imaging, love to try 3d for advertising, branding and illustration, I like to play with particles and massFX and to try new stuff, I still have lots to explore even in 3dsmax... and maybe even go into motion (tried already a small animation with corona) so... the sky is the limit...

thanks so much
cheers,
V

39

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-07-10, 21:54:48 »

Enabling the checkbox in render setup will enable the new caustics solver, which will always render reflective caustics and will render refractive caustics if they are enabled in the material.

Thanks for your answer. I'm gonna rerender it to see if this was causing the fireflies but it will probably take ages.

Thanks,

40

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Grate workz!!! Congratz!!!!

« on: 2019-06-25, 14:03:46 »

Communication over internet is hard... I recommend visiting some of the archviz conferences, you will see that almost everyone in the field is really nice person when you talk face to face. Additionally, Total Chaos had a panel with discussion about women in archviz, and I think there will be also one at this years siggraph.
[/quote]

Hi Ondra, yes, it's a lot better when you meet people at conferences and events believe me I would love to be able to attend every time. Lately, it became more difficult because we are parents but we (me&my husband who is a software developer) use to attend almost every industry event in London.

thanks

41

[Max] I need help! / Re: free experimental scene with caustics in corona4

« on: 2019-06-25, 13:53:50 »

One question: most of the materials (all?) in this scene have refractive caustics disabled. They should be enabled first, before any optimizations, am I right?
One more: which frame of the animation should be rendered?

Thanks Maru, I thought that if it's enabled is going to slow rendering so much more, I had no idea that actually it affects everything. I thought if you enable caustics in the performance tab somehow overwrites that... but that's not right, isn't it?

42

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Grate workz!!! Congratz!!!!

« on: 2019-06-23, 20:15:39 »

I know the series as articles on website, but didn't know it had FB group, that's new!

8 years ago, when I first went to SOA Academy Days in Venice, the most popular Archviz event, I swear I remember it correctly, there were 2-3 women attending out of 150 guests, including my studio co-partner (and now wife) Veronika. But as years went by, I would say solid 30perc. attending now are women. So it's not parity yet, but I would say much better than many technical industries. Archviz is unique blend of creativity and technical proves, but so is Architecture itself, and when I attended Architecture College in Prague (CVUT), 60perc. were women, so I believe it will not be long before it's much more than my guess-timated 30/70. (I know Jeff does industry questionaries, but this never reaches enough people).

I am never one for stereotyping but I would fully agree there definitely is currently a soft influence among many best women Archviz artists. Same timeframe, 8 years ago, Alfa Smyrna known as Pixela (she was also speaker at that first SOA event!) was respected to the same degree as Bertrand Benoit and Peter Guthrie were and not only was she as technical as Bertrand (that is achievement in itself) she did had that "soft touch" to renderings that was pointed to me back then by Veronika on example of her bedroom rendering, where (outside of perfect light, materials,et..) she also painted the wallpaper on wall, positioned blanket and coffee mug. Plus perfect technical knowledge, I remember seeing Bertrand asking her for BruteForce settings of Vray ( I remember all sort of odd stuff...rather perfect longterm memory, zero short term sadly).
This is the rendering I am talking about: https://forums.cgsociety.org/t/my-bedroom-design-alfa-smyrna-3d/1403992

6 years ago, Veronika and I worked on personal project of Parisian Bedroom. Back then, every bed looked super CGI but also boring, it wasn't paid any attention to. Veronika loves fabrics, sewing and knitting, so she tried to make that better, took her 10 days but the result was something different. And yeah, we had guys ask us (some former classmates from architectural school), why bother with something like bed ? But it proved revolutionary to our studio. Up to this day, we have clients who just come and ask for that messy bed. We literally wouldn't be where we currently are in business if Veronika didn't brought her unique perspective as woman.
( Awkward self-promo for illustrative purpose https://www.behance.net/gallery/7009863/White-Bedroom-MarvelousDesigner-tutorial-for-3dArtist )

If I were to start naming some super talented Archviz individuals, few women would easily come straight to my mind without much trying as well at least. Britta Wikholm, Lucia Frascerra,..in Lucia's work particularly you can see the soft influence, Nefeli Kallianou, Ewelina Lekka, etc.

I would say women definitely have solid foothold in the industry. Maybe not yet where it could be, but definitely on path there.

Thanks for your answer Juraj, I'm actually following your work from a long time ago, your fb page as well and I knew your work with the Parisian apartment when you first posted on behance, is very famous.
Thanks for the kind words about the women in the industry. I am also supporting women in archvis even though I'm not even an architect nor had architectural background (I studied fine arts, I was a graphic designer for many years) then learned 3d (in 2011) and that changed my life, I absolutely love it. I got into archvis by chance and it was a challenge with myself a lot. I don't intend to selfpromote either but I also loved to play in Marvelous designer: https://www.evnvis.co.uk/blog/ballerina-loft-tutorial
so I inderstand what you mean by attention to details and the messy bed :))
Thank you again for mentioning a few of the famous women artists out there, I totally admire them and some I know personally from the 3ds London meetups :)

again sorry corona team for this out of topic thingy here

cheers

43

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Grate workz!!! Congratz!!!!

« on: 2019-06-23, 18:32:19 »

Hi Juraj,

Quote: "Definitely continue to post, perseverance is most important, most people here can't tell stranger's gender and even the most interesting posts might not stir attention. You could post the most beautiful archviz work and some grumpy cat would come tell you "another building ? I would have liked more star wars ships". Just post away and don't give slightest fuck."

I like your spirit (lol)
You are describing quite accurately what's out there... I suppose I wasn't very aware of the situation on forums because it seemed to me people are still quite active, especially on the archvis ones... but yes, almost everyone seems to be self-centred on his own work and not caring about other people's work... it's also an oversaturation of images as more and more people are doing this, but it's normal, the number of people choosing a career in CGI (or related) will continue to increase because the population is increasing overall and also it becomes easier to use software, etc, we already know the reasons.   

I understand it's not necessarily a matter of gender but maybe you know the guy who owns CGarchitect, Jeff Mottle, he created "Women in ArchVis" group on fb and since it started we had quite a number of trolls posting stuff like "women shouldn't do this... because of various reasons (from biological differences between genders to professional incapabilities, etc) really upsetting stuff...and so on..." so... someone creates a group to encourage a certain segment of professionals and what you get is also a number of haters... so I was rather under the influence of haters... when I mentioned gender...

I'm sorry I'm out of topic again, maybe this message will be erased but I just meant to say thanks to Juraj for replying!

cheers

44

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Grate workz!!! Congratz!!!!

« on: 2019-06-23, 12:12:54 »

Hi Designerman77,

Thank you so much for the kind words! I will pass on your words to my girls' community, I'm sure they'll be appreciated

Cheers,
V

45

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Grate workz!!! Congratz!!!!

« on: 2019-06-23, 12:08:27 »

Hi Maru,

Thanks for your answer. It's very nice to hear that, sorry I took it that way, it's hard to realise the tone in writing. Yes, I totally agree we need to be clear about licencing, I saw you asked the same question to other people that shared free scenes on the forum and it's only fair.

Anyway, thank you for clarifying and for the kind words you said about the girls in the community. I'm a supporter of other girls in the field because they're very few and tend to have self-trust issues more than guys.

I'm always happy to share work with the community every time I can and try to be more active on the forum. This forum is absolutely vital for corona users and I always check here first whenever I need to create a new project and every time I have a technical problem.

Thanks
Cheers,
V