Hi there,
since yesterday, I am also an upcomming Corona (for C4d) user by the recommendation of a (3dmax-) friend.
I checked for Corona some time ago, but there it was only for max and so I didn't follow it further as I am a C4d and Lightwave-user.
It would be very interesting to see and try a first alpha-version of Corona inside C4D.
C4D is widely spread among users, but has only 4 render-engines that are usefull so far.
Top is VrayforC4, no question. But as already said, the development is really slow and it takes months, sometimes years to get current features of the max-version lately ported to C4d.
Second place is now Octane which developed really fast in the last months with a good integration to C4d and is superfast and has a very affortable price, but has a complicated material system and no usable Skin-SSS for organic renderings.
Third place for me is Iray and Maxwell. The Iray-devs are nice guys, but also development is slow as they only port it over to C4D and therefore have no influence on developing Iray itself. Nice engine, good results, but regarding organic SSS-shaders it's very limited so far and no one knows if there comes something better or not.
Mental Ray , included with Iray, is no option for me.
Maxwell is , well, Maxwell. Nice results, but super, super slooooooooowwwww. And expensive too.
Not really the engine of anybodys first choice.
So, there is definetely space for a new render-engine in C4D.
From my longtime experience with all the high and low with the engines and their devs, I would recommend some simple rules if Corona for C4D wants to be a serious competitor for VrayforC4d in the future.
I know there are a lot of architectural guys out there and therefore, most engines are focused on their needs and demands and oftly made by devs who are in the architectural business like VrayforC4D.
But please remember that a lot of users like me , be they private users or professionals, are desperately looking for a usable engine for really realistic, fast and high quality ORGANIC renderings, like human skin for characters, scientific purposes (medical visualisation) etc..
So a suitable Skin-SSS shader is really a must (and I don't mean these shitty little blowed-up SSS milk and honey things that produce horrible results that the devs call then 'skin'). If you need an experienced user to help you with tests and feed back, I could be your man among with some other really good guys in that who I know.
We have a deep and longtime experience in developing good looking human skin results with almost all available render engines out there and can give professional feedback so things can be efficiently developed in a short time.
Furthermore, a good integration inside C4D is helpfull, meaning a fast working IPR and a viewport rendering like Vray provides. Both is needed.
The viewport rendering of portions defined by a frame made with the mouse/pen for fast preview of small areas and the IPR for the interactive overall result.
Then a good understandable material system with support for all C4D features and C4d-plugins (filter, layers etc.) is really recommended.
And last but not least, update frequency is crucial. Daily builts are a good idea to give people access to new features for tryouts in short time, regardless of the stability etc.
People want to see their feedback and new things integrated in the engine of their choice in short time, not in a year or so.
The last Vray-update took over a year and then, it was super-buggy. People where pissed off.
So, I whis Corona a good start with C4D and hope that you can avoid at least some of the typical faults that so far most of the new and promising engine-devs made to bring this promising looking render-engine to a suitable result that it deserves.
Good luck.
