SME Very Slow on Corona 10

[Tanner]

I just updated to v10 for 3ds Max this morning, eager to take advantage of the MappingRand and Triplanar overhaul but it's gotten worse in terms of speed material editor speed. I noticed in the blog release that there were improvements to the material editor speed but it's slower now than it was with 9.2.

Even with Rendering disabled, if I have the MappingRandomizer with a bitmap plugged in, I have to wait tens of seconds between each input for the values.  Even plugging a map into the input or dragging from the output into a slot in another map or material locks up SME. It's not just MappingRand and Triplanar, it's connecting anything in SME that takes time now where it didn't before.

I'm using 3ds 2020.3.8, Corona 10, Windows 10 22H2, 128GB RAM, Quadro P3200 6GB.

[romullus]

I think that's because now Corona tries to show correct material preview in viewport with triplanar and mapping randomizer, while in older versions it was just showing simple maps. To be honest, i'm not the biggest fan of this strive to show as accurate materials as possible, because of the lags, which is absolutely killing productivity. This is especially bad in recent 3ds Max versions, where show material in viewport is enabled by default.

[Tanner]

I agree, it'd be nice to have a setting in the Corona System Settings where you can dictate fast viewport representation or typical (typical obviously being the way it is now). We have the ability to say we prefer glossiness over roughness, we should be able to have a setting for default VP display.

But I definitely started to notice a slowdown with the Distance Map in the same regard. Even though there isn't a visual representation of the distance map in the viewport, it makes working with that node a bit too slow.

[romullus]

Distance might not be displayed in viewport explicitly, but it still can be used to drive real-time effects, like scattering, displacing, etc. I think that means it has to be evaluated constantly, hence the slowness with complex meshes.

I agree, it'd be nice to have a setting in the Corona System Settings where you can dictate fast viewport representation or typical (typical obviously being the way it is now). We have the ability to say we prefer glossiness over roughness, we should be able to have a setting for default VP display.

I like the idea about the switch between simple and realistic material display. Personally i would probably keep it on simple all the time, since i find realistic material representation in 3ds Max completely useless anyway.

[Tanner]

I would keep it simple too.  And if I do show materials in the viewport, its typically a bitmap not the material itself. But you can't get rid of it completely, there's probably too many people that find an accurate representation outweighs any performance losses.

Anyway, I hope at least a hotfix could address some of the slowdown issues the new nodes present in SME.

[hurrycat]

SME has been the no.1 productivity-killer for me for some years now, mostly due to how 3ds Max handles it. Disabling material previews (bottom-left) improves things a bit, but it remains slow as hell, especially during IR. Wires won't be drawn if you don't click on the map output 3-4 times, the UI constantly freezes etc.

I am using Corona 9 with hotfixes. Has anyone tried 3ds max 2024 (SME has been rewritten i think) to see if it is any speedier?

[romullus]

I am using Corona 9 with hotfixes. Has anyone tried 3ds max 2024 (SME has been rewritten i think) to see if it is any speedier?

While i'm happy with most of the changes in SME in Max 2024, i don't feel that much has been changed in regards of Corona. It still suffers from most of the issues it have in previous versions of 3ds max and itself. Parameter editor is still significantly slower compared to Max'es native renderers and it still gets progressively slower over time. Some UI elements still fails to update while IR is running. I've heard that most of those issues cannot be easily solved by Corona devs, unless they cut support for older 3ds Max versions. Maybe one day, when 3ds Max 2016-18 user base will fall down below certain threshold, we will have much improved Corona experience in SME.

[arqrenderz]

Yeah... Vray moved all materials to QT, i asked and Corona just took another road which was the cache, but its no better than the QT road..

I am using Corona 9 with hotfixes. Has anyone tried 3ds max 2024 (SME has been rewritten i think) to see if it is any speedier?

While i'm happy with most of the changes in SME in Max 2024, i don't feel that much has been changed in regards of Corona. It still suffers from most of the issues it have in previous versions of 3ds max and itself. Parameter editor is still significantly slower compared to Max'es native renderers and it still gets progressively slower over time. Some UI elements still fails to update while IR is running. I've heard that most of those issues cannot be easily solved by Corona devs, unless they cut support for older 3ds Max versions. Maybe one day, when 3ds Max 2016-18 user base will fall down below certain threshold, we will have much improved Corona experience in SME.

[Marijan]

SME has been the no.1 productivity-killer for me for some years now, mostly due to how 3ds Max handles it. Disabling material previews (bottom-left) improves things a bit, but it remains slow as hell, especially during IR. Wires won't be drawn if you don't click on the map output 3-4 times, the UI constantly freezes etc.

Parameter editor is still significantly slower compared to Max'es native renderers and it still gets progressively slower over time. Some UI elements still fails to update while IR is running.

I was really hoping this would be resolved in Corona 10 and Max 2024. There are some speed improvements but as Romullus said I don't feel that much has changed.
Smooth work with material editor while IR is running would be major improvment in productivity.

[Ink Visual]

Really hope this it a top priority thing to address in Corona 11, if indeed not much has changed.
It's really frustrating that other engines are handling SME much better than Corona does.

[_fosafosa]

On top of that, there issues with displaying maps in viewport. These problems do not occur with the 3dsmax default materials...
The "Show Maps in viewport" button with CoronaBitmaps often do not work...

[NazarVitkovskyi]

Hello,

may I please ask somebody to share a scene where you noticed some slowdown/issues?

Use this link for file upload- https://upload.chaos.com/d/qa_corona@corona-renderer.com

[Tanner]

Hello,

may I please ask somebody to share a scene where you noticed some slowdown/issues?

Use this link for file upload- https://upload.chaos.com/d/qa_corona@corona-renderer.com

At least for me, the issue wasn't limited to one scene but any scene. I will try to reinstall version 10 this week and provide one of two things:
1. If it is limited to one scene, I'll upload and send it your way,
2. but if it happens even in a fresh file, I'll record it and send the video to you instead.

[NazarVitkovskyi]

Hello @Tanner

would be great if submit a scene anyway, even a "fresh one". Also, recording a video showing slowdowns is a good idea.

Thanks.

[NazarVitkovskyi]

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