Topics

1

[Max] Feature Requests / Masks for Decals

« on: 2024-04-25, 16:24:01 »

Hello,

I would like to have the ability to create a Monochrome or RGB mask from Decals in the future. The ID Mask is basically unusable when it comes to color selection in Photoshop.

Thanks

2

[Max] Bug Reporting / Decals not visible in masks

« on: 2023-05-26, 13:17:49 »

Hello,

I have found out that decals are not visible in masks (RGB, monochromatic, Wirecolor and ID (Material ID)), even if the option is checked on their properties. The only exception is Mask ID with "Instance ID" selected.

Corona 9.1, 3ds max 2023.3.3

3

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Corona Decal not visible in masks

« on: 2023-05-22, 19:38:27 »

Hello,

I am trying to create a mask for a decal but I can't find the way to do it.
In decal's object properties the "visible in masks" is checked. In assigned material everything look normal.
The decal is visible in beauty and reflection elements. However, no matter what mask I am trying to create (RGB, Monochromatic, Wirecolour, MaskID), it doesn't show up.

Corona 9.1, Max 2023.3.3.

Any idea?

Thanks,
Christos

4

[Max] I need help! / Brainstorming session

« on: 2023-05-03, 03:24:59 »

Hello,

I would like to hear your ideas regarding a technical issue we have to solve.

We lately work on a project of a holistic renovation of two attached buildings plus a new pedestrian bridge which will connect these two buildings with a 3rd building across the steet.
We have been asked to create in 3d the renovated buildings and the bridge and compose them into real photos.
In order to recreate the same lighting conditions we have created, in simplified form, the buildings of the neighborhood. We have also created the building to which the pedestrian bridge will connect.

The problem we face is that the new bridge casts some shadows to the connected 3rd building across the street. We want to keep these shadows in order to add them on the real building which is an existing building and is part of the real photo we want to keep. I know the existance of Shadow Catcher, however, any related online available information talks about how to use it on simple planes. We also want the geometry of the simplified building to keep contributing to the GI of the scene.

I am not sure I explained the situation clearly so I am attaching some photos.



I know that the simplest answer could be to just paint some shadows in photoshop, but what is the legit solution to this, if for example we had to create an animation of it?
How would you approach it?

Cheers

5

General CG Discussion / Impossible to match real photo with 3d camera

« on: 2023-04-28, 00:30:00 »

Hello,

I have an issue that drives me crazy... I am trying to match a real photo I took with a 3d camera.
I know what camera was used (mine, canon RP), I know the lens was used (tilt/shift 17mm from canon), I know the spot from which the photo was taken because I took it, but still if I set Focal length to 17mm and film width to 36mm the result is night and day...The problem is not about the shift effect of the lens, the problem is that 17mm at 36mm is much wider than the actual photo.
The 3d camera matches approx. at 26mm focal length. Have a look at the attachments. Any idea why that happens?

Thanks!

6

[Max] General Discussion / Stop vs cancel when you want to resume from cxr file

« on: 2023-04-20, 02:34:39 »

Hello,

It is always confusing to me if we have to press "stop" or "cancel" when we need to stop the render and resume it from the cxr file later.
In the updated "Corona Knowledge Base" web page it clearly states that you have to press "Stop". However, on the included video on that page, which is old, the user presses "Cancel".
Ofcourse, the difference between "Stop" and "Cancel" is the denoising part. If you press "Cancel" and then you resume from the cxr file, you get a warning about missing elements. I don't know if you get that warning in the case you pressed "Stop".

I know that there are a lot of old posts regarding this, however, I feel that none of them clearly states what you have to press in order to not get that warning, render your image and denoise it at the end without issues.

So, what is the official answer to this? "Stop" or "Cancel"?

Thanks!

7

[Max] General Discussion / Match Corona Camera with Fujifilm GFX 100S

« on: 2023-04-09, 12:36:03 »

Hello,

I am pretty sure this has been asked and answered at the past many times, however, I cannot find it right now.
The question is simple. Does the setting of "Focal L. [mm]" requires the equivalent of 35mm (aka full frame) lens focal length?

I have to match photos taken from a Fuji GFX 100S wearing a 35mm lens. This lens is not actually a 35mm, as this number refers of what that lens would be if it was on a full frame camera.
GFX 100S has a crop factor of 0.79. This means that this 35mm is actually a 28mm lens. The sensor's width of GFX 100S is 43.8mm.

So the real question is: what should I put in Corona's Camera "Focal l. [mm]" and "Film width [mm]" to match 3d and real camera look?

Thanks!
Christos

8

General CG Discussion / Messed up Substance ecosystem and work around

« on: 2023-01-24, 04:07:20 »

Hello,

I know this post has nothing to do with Corona but I feel more comfortable with this forum than anything else, so here it is...
Recently I have started using the Substance2 plugin. Although it looks like a good workflow it is full of bugs. It is super heavy, it crushes 3ds max all the time and it fails to work through render farms' software like Render Manager from Pulze (there is an ongoing discussion on their forum for that matter).

I have tried to use the Substance Player to export textures from the .sbsar files in order to create classic Corona materials, but Substance Player doesn't work either anymore, at least for me.
Whenever I launch it, it crushes. Adobe's support suggest me to clear my cache and cookies and then uninstal and install again.... which it didn't work... strange it was a good idea 😂

Does anyone use Substance2 plugin or Substance Player software and faces the same issues?
I would like to see if I am alone in this 😒

Cheers,
Christos

9

General CG Discussion / Suggestion: Corona Collection

« on: 2022-06-23, 10:22:12 »

Maybe this post is on the wrong place of the forum but I couldn't see a better category to place it.

So... I was wondering if we will be able to purchase in the future a bundle of Chaos softwares-plugins along with Corona. Vray was a package called "V-Ray Collection", which includes V-Ray plus Phoenix, Chaos scans, Chaos cloud and Chaos player. It comes with a very friendly price, much lower compared to what you have to pay for buying each one of these software separately.

Corona is part of this big Chaos family, so I can't see why this is not an option.

I would just love to see a bundle with Corona, Phoenix and Chaos Player. That's it :)

10

[Max] General Discussion / Corona Material Library textures path on Rebusfarm

« on: 2022-03-28, 00:46:07 »

Hello there,

I am uploading a big scene on rebus in order to render a sequence out of it.
I was wondering if the textures from Corona Material Library textures will be uploaded correctly or not. In Asset tracking path is missing and status is "Found" instead of "Ok". Also in Relinks Bitmaps the textures appears to be missing, which is not the case when I render locally but it could be problematic for a render farm.

I am pretty sure someone else faced that in the past. I would like to know how that works.

Thanks!
Christos

11

[Max] I need help! / Caustics Flickering in animation

« on: 2022-03-02, 22:58:08 »

Hello,

I am trying to render the animation of an aerial camera but caustics are giving me a pretty nasty flickering as you can see in the attached GIF.



Water's waves are made with PhoenixFD (Ocean Texmap as Displacement) and they are animated. I am using Corona 6 (Hotfix 2) as I didn't have the time to jump to Corona 7 yet. Also I use 3ds max 2020

The result in the GIF came out with UHD Cache (load from file) option and although I have tried:
a) To calculate it for every frame.
b) To use Path Tracing as the secondary solver
c) To use 4K Cache, both with load from file or calculate it for every frame

I haven't found the solution yet. 4K Cache and Path Tracing helps a bit the situation but still the flickering is visible.
Displacement for the whole of the scene is set to World size 1cm except the stonewalls which are set to 0.7cm for cleaner results.

Any idea?

Thank you!
Christos

12

[Max] General Discussion / Memory usage does not build up during "parsing scene"

« on: 2021-12-06, 15:49:00 »

Hello,

I am fairly new to distributed rendering so I am not confident with it.
I try to use distributed rendering but it seems that something isn't working correctly.
Although everything looks fine at the beginning, the memory usage does not build up during the "parsing scene" phase. It goes to 15-20GB and then it stops. After approx. 5 mins memory usage goes down and DrServer is acting like restarting. After that memory usage goes again close to 20GB and then it does the same thing again and again.

I am using corona 6 Hotfix 2 3ds max 2020.
Any help?

Thanks

13

[Max] General Discussion / CoronaDistance and CoronaAO exclude/include objects and lag

« on: 2021-11-26, 12:15:37 »

Hello there,

I am facing an annoying issue regarding CoronaDistance and CoronaAO when I exclude or include objects.
It looks like both of these features bring lag on the viewport and in general during I work on the scene.
It is like 3ds Max runs calculation real-time when I move, rotate or isolate an object (or a group of objects) which happens to be included or excluded for a material that has CoronaDistance or CoronaAO. For example, when I have a floor which has a "dirt" effect but with specific objects close to it and I try to to do something with these objects I got instant lag.

More objects bring worse lag. It feels like it shouldn't be like that because I don't do IR to see that "dirt" while I move objects.

Is it something I only face?

Edit: I work with Corona 6 Hotfix 2 at the moment. I didn't find yet a gap between projects to update the engine

Cheers!

14

[Max] General Discussion / Distributed rendering and LAN disconnect issue

« on: 2021-08-31, 13:36:15 »

Hello everyone!

I am facing an issue when I try distributed rendering on my simple LAN. Let me explain.
First of all, I am a completely noob in everything about LANs. However, I have managed to create a local LAN with two computers that works. It is an "offline" lets say type of LAN as I get my internet wirelessly in both of my computers. So the LAN connection between these two computers is pretty straight forward, an ethernet cable goes from one pc to the other. The second pc does not have a monitor-keyboard-mouse so I control it through Microsoft's Remote Desktop*.

* There are two software available from Microsoft that do the same thing. One called "Remote Desktop Connection", which is the old classic one and the other called "Remote Desktop", which have a fresh and more user friendly UI so I chose that.

Remote Desktop works fine. I have no other issues except when I try distributed rendering.
At start, distributed rendering works fine, the main pc sends all the information the second pc needs and then "updates" start to count. At about 5 "updates" the second pc has the first "pass" ready to be sent and at that moment my LAN stuck! The Remote Desktop software and the distributed rendering freeze. It is like someone is pulling out the cable. Then I have to close down everything and restart the second computer. Sometimes it doesn't stuck and "passes" start to count normally but it is very rare.

Had anyone faced this? Any help would be much appreciated!

As I said, I am a noob in LANs, so forgive me if I didn't use the right terminology about something.

Thanks!

15

Gallery / Serifos Extended

« on: 2021-03-29, 10:53:18 »

Hello all!

It's been a while since we post something. 2020 was wild in many ways. Anyway!

We would like to share with you one of our latest completed projects.
We have been commisioned to visualize a fully independent extension located below an existing summer house in Serifos Island, Greece.
All furnitures and big part of shading have been created from scratch.

Earthy tones have been chosen in order to match the design with the dry summer climate of Serifos. Our goal was to create a set of images that would virtually travel the viewer there and make him feel the relaxing vibes of the place.

Hope you like it!

Software:
3ds Max 2020
Lightroom Classic & Photoshop 2021

Website: www.image-complete.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Image.Complete.Studio/
Behance: www.behance.net/imagecomplete
Instagram: http://instagram.com/image.complete