Topics

61

[Max] Feature Requests / Automatically Enable DR When Server is Idle

« on: 2016-09-01, 09:42:45 »

Just had an idea this morning... currently if you're sending off a load of backburner jobs you obviously don't enable DR on your nodes or on those network render jobs, since they will be in-use for the backburner jobs and having both running concurrently would kill the machine and negate any speed benefit.

What if Corona had a setting in the DR settings where you could enable DR but only under the condition that Corona is not already rendering on that node? I.e. a "Use only if idle." checkbox in the DR settings.

This would mean that you could have DR kick in only when the machine is free and not running another network render job (or local render job). This would then allow you to avoid having any idle nodes on your network which have finished all available network render jobs and have nothing to do, yet there is still one remaining job that is only running on a single node - they would automatically "release" their DR servers for use in the one remaining job on the network and get through it quickly.

62

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Merge Render Settings doesn't include Render Elements

« on: 2016-07-06, 17:19:39 »

This might be a max issue, but when you do a Merge and merge Render Settings from another file, it doesn't bring across any Corona Render Elements.

Cheers,

63

[Max] General Discussion / episcura_textures_metal_raw_9849_m_Fixed.jpg

« on: 2016-06-30, 18:09:16 »

Hi folks,

The new Corona Materials look great but the following map is missing:

episcura_textures_metal_raw_9849_m_Fixed.jpg

We found the original on the website www.episcura.com but it's not the "fixed" version the person who contributed these materials has listed and not included.

64

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Removing Env Map while IR is on = crash

« on: 2016-06-06, 15:49:09 »

Not entirely unexpected behaviour I guess, but easily done...

Simply run IR and then remove the environment map from E&E window = crash.

Cheers,

65

[Max] Bug Reporting / Render Selected slower than expected

« on: 2016-05-18, 11:56:55 »

Didn't mean to make that title rhyme, but what can you do? :)

We're having a little trouble with render selected at the minute. With only one very small and fairly simple object in the include list, the render at 1080p still seems to take quite a long time to reach only 50 or so passes - in the region of around 2 minutes. We've noticed that this is helped a lot by using a region around the object, but this isn't practical for animation, which we're doing, since the object is visible across most of the frame, so the region would be the whole frame.

Are we doing something wrong here? Is there a way we can optimise?

Currently using daily build from April 24th. We *could* move to 1.4 for this if it would help?

Cheers,

66

[Max] I need help! / CoronaLightMaterial - Take into account camera white balance?

« on: 2016-05-10, 13:13:14 »

Here's one for you that might well have been asked before (quick search doesn't turn anything up):

I have a scene setup through, as always, CoronaCameraMod with the WB set appropriately. I then include a CoronaLightMaterial with a texture map on it - it's just a simple plane and the texmap is a simple black and white image. I set the multi to 2 and it looks bright as expected, but it looks really cold compared to the scene around it. Seems that it is not being taken into account by the WB value of the camera, so it remains completely monochromatic in the render where I would expect it to be warm like the rest of the scene.

I am guessing that any CLightMat behaves like this when you use a texture map, is this correct?

Can anything be done to "fix" this? The only work-around I can think of right now is to manually colour-correct the texmap so it looks warm, but this still won't solve the problem if you need to re-shoot the scene in a different WB.

Cheers,

67

[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Denoising - Guide & Comparisons

« on: 2016-04-20, 12:38:00 »

Hi guys,

We just published an article comparing denoising on/off and the significant time-savings you can achieve with it, which also contains some simple tips for using this new tool.

http://www.recentspaces.com/blog/2016/4/13/corona-denoising-comparisons

Hope you find it useful!

Cheers,

68

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Can't load EXR IFL sequence in CoronaBitmap

« on: 2016-04-15, 11:27:58 »

Hi guys,

As per title. I'm trying to load in a EXR sequence into the CoronaBitmap loader, but I'm getting:

Could not load texture file: R:\RESOURCES\HDRI\HYPERFOCAL\Sample Frames\0850.ifl
Reason: Unrecognized bitmap format in filename "R:/RESOURCES/HDRI/HYPERFOCAL/Sample Frames/0850.ifl"

Works fine using VRayHDRI loader.

Cheers,

69

Gallery / Primrose Hill - Animation & Stills

« on: 2016-04-04, 12:33:39 »

Hi folks,

Putting adaptivity and denoising to the test, this was rendered entirely using one of the recent daily builds and the render time savings were simply massive. Typically, before these tools, we were looking at around 250-300 passes per frame and approx. 30 mins per frame on our workstations. With A&D enabled this dropped to 50-85 passes per frame and 7-11mins per frame. Massive time-saving and no issues with flickering/weirdness/loss of detail.

For us the main thing that could be improved here would be a simple include/exclude option so we can enable/disable denoising where needed in a shot.

If anyone has any questions about our workflow let us know. Hope you enjoy ;) (Video best viewed with sound up!).

http://www.recentspaces.com/work#/primrose-hill/  to see them larger.

Cheers,

70

[Max] I need help! / Backburner render not getting to required no. passes, but "complete"

« on: 2016-03-01, 10:04:29 »

Hi folks,

We sent a job off to backburner last night, max 300 passes and no time limit. We set the job to have a backburner timeout of 20000 to avoid any issues there.

The job "completed" and the output file saved correctly at 262/300 passes.

"3dsmax adapter : CORONA : Pass 262/300
"Application is down
3dsmax adapter: Autodesk 3dsMax 18.6 shutdown."

Any idea at all how this could have happened? We double checked the max file, including the one BB saves in its own local folder, and there are no time limits set and the pass limit is definitely 300.  If max crashed then there would be no output file, but there is one, so it must have been a "successful" job. Backburner reports it as "completed".

Using 1.3 retail with max 2016 sp2.

Cheers,

71

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Render Autosave EXR Bug - Wrong White Balance & EXR Format

« on: 2016-02-26, 10:18:06 »

Hi folks,

I think I found a bug here, or maybe two related ones.

I have set my main Save File output to Half Float (16bits/channel) EXR in the Common Tab, with zip compression per scanline band, Store Image as Tiles, Save Full Image. When I enable render output autosave in System Tab, any autosaved renders are coming out enormous file size (350mb instead of the proper file which is only 90mb), even though they are the same resolution (6k). So I assume that the autosave renders are not in fact respecting the settings from the Common Tab.

Furthermore, the autosave EXRs have an incorrect white balance compared to the final proper file. They are considerably warmer. Even the _end001.exr file is incorrect compared to the final proper file.

I am guessing there is an inconsistency between the autosave EXR settings and the Common Tab Save File EXR settings.

Cheers,