Node Setup

[Higashi]

Hey!

I'm super new to Corona after having used Cycles for a while but seeing some of the images produced by this renderer had to make me try it but I have a couple of questions.

Is there any guide or documentation on how to use the nodes for textures and materials? I've looked but it seems like it's mostly all for Cinema 4D or Max and not Blender. Or do they all work the same? Can Corona use PBR workflow generated from Substance?

I worked out that the plugin can use cycles like nodes but the naming conventions are different so it's a bit confusing. I often use a diffuse, gloss, normal and disp maps if in Cycles.

All my scenes being built with Cycles in mind has kind of made this a tricky transition to get right. I have so many questions but I'll how with these for now.

[blanchg]

Hi Higashi,

There is some documentation about the nodes that Corona provides and the documentation that was used to write the exporter here: https://corona-renderer.com/wiki/standalone

Chocofur has also got some great documentation on several material types: http://www.chocofur.com/corona-renderer-and-blender-introduction.html

Corona itself provides more of a universal shader so you should expect to use less nodes than you would in Cycles (similar to the new cycles principled shader coming in blender 2.79).

It is a bit of a shift in thinking but makes sense.

It will work with a pbr workflow but it doesn't have the "metalness" input.  Metals though should have no diffuse, massive IOR and slight tint to the reflection color.  What I usually end up doing is have two materials one setup for metal and one for dielectrics and combine them with the metalness map using a Layered Material node.

[Higashi]

Thank you for replying :)

I've looked at Chocofur's website and love his work. The guy clearly understands how to make good images in Blender.

So a new question or two is, Is the Blender/Standalone free to sue or do I have to pay? (which I don't mind doing) as I noticed it says in the command line prompt it is the demo version and finishes 11th July.

My other questions refers to lighting an interior scene. Do people use a HDR and a sun lamp? It seems like there's a lot less options for settings compared to Cycles as you mentioned.

Thanks for helping.

[blanchg]

Yes it is free.  It does require activation regularly but that will happen in the background for you as long as you have an internet connection.  Older versions may expire but that hasn't happened with 1.6 yet.

Depending on the look you want.  Yes a HDR or a sun lamp can work for "natural" light.  Mesh lights are often used as well as IES profile mesh lights.  There are currently some issues with translating/rotating the IES profile though.

While there are less settings I find that I can usually create whatever look I really want.  Especially hand is the light group feature so that you can adjust lights while it is rendering to get the look you really want.

[Higashi]

The light group seems very useful but I don't know if it's a bug but when I use a sun lamp and then try to change the sun in the render phase it's the environment tab and not the sun tab that changes the sun intensity. Almost like it's got crossed over.

One more thing, here's a picture of my nodes in Blender for a basic material using 3 textures, diffuse, glossy and normal map. However it doesn't show the gloss correctly and the normal map isn't working well. http://imgur.com/CFz0cVG Did I use a wrong slot or do I need to add some extra nodes to invert the glossy and for the normal map?

[blanchg]

Your reflect fresnel is at 1.0 which means there is no reflections at all try increasing that.  Metals use a value of 99 or more most other materials are 1.3-1.8 with 1.45 being a good default value

[blanchg]

The light group seems very useful but I don't know if it's a bug but when I use a sun lamp and then try to change the sun in the render phase it's the environment tab and not the sun tab that changes the sun intensity. Almost like it's got crossed over.

It is a bug in corona, waiting for a fix.

[Higashi]

Thank you. Yes I thought it was a bug. Good to know I'm not going crazy.