Messages

1

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: The new way to let us know of feature requests - the Ideas Portal!

« on: 2024-08-22, 16:20:39 »

Great stuff! It'll be interesting to see what users add to this as well as being able to accurately keep track of what the community wants. I've already added a few myself.


One thing I did notice is that if you click the "guides" button, the Corona board seems to be missing from the resulting page.

https://chaoscorona.ideas.aha.io/sections/7388192767117237886

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[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Re: Triplanar: respect bitmap's aspect ratio

« on: 2024-07-22, 09:48:58 »

If this gets implemented (and I certainly hope that it does!) can it be added with a tick-box in the Triplanar map UI? Some users may need the current behaviour and fixing it with no way to undo could mess with some users' workflow.

Cheers!

3

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Random rotation,scale,transform for Corona Pattern

« on: 2024-07-16, 12:48:18 »

position and rotation already exist. unfortunately it was mentioned that random scale per pattern might be difficult/impossible to implement

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[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: CXR saving problem with Corona 12

« on: 2024-07-16, 12:45:16 »

This is similar to a feature I requested a couple of weeks back about setting the desired bit depth/compression per render element.

A workaround someone suggested was to use the open-source tool "gaffer" to re-pack your CXR's as an exr.
It seems to work well manually and I'm currently in the process of trying to automate it. Will share more if I can at a later date.

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[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-07-02, 18:40:32 »

Fantastic, that does exactly what I need! I've never really looked into Gaffer as it didn't seem like it would be useful (for arch-vis at least) but the automation stuff could be really cool.

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[Max] Daily Builds / Re: CoronaPattern playground!

« on: 2024-07-02, 17:23:03 »

Hey Maru, looking forward to the updates although it's a shame a few things aren't possible.

As an alternative can there be any improvements made to scenarios where two or more CPattern objects overlap each other?
A common workflow we're using to avoid less gridded appearances is to copy the base object and apply a pattern mod that is offset a little bit (e.g. by 50%)

The downside to this is that while still faster than Scatter, it's still much noisier than just one CPatternMod.

7

[Max] I need help! / Re: 3DS Max/Corona saving out corrupted EXR's

« on: 2024-07-02, 14:17:06 »

Small update:
It seems these max files were set to 32 bit exr's and saving out something between a 32-bit and 16-bit exr. The file sizes were neither what they should be at 32 or 16 bit exr's.

Switching the exr settings to 32 bit and then back to 16 bit seemed to solve the issue (at least, so far)

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[Max] I need help! / 3DS Max/Corona saving out corrupted EXR's

« on: 2024-07-02, 10:33:01 »

Hello, we've had a couple of projects saving out with corrupted exr's recently.
When viewed in Photoshop they display as completely white and Corona Image Editor shows the error:

Cannot operate with image file
"[filename]"

It is either incomplete, or not stored with a floating point precision.

3DS Max 2024.2.1
Corona 11.1

We can load the exr's through 3DS Max's frame buffer and resave, but the images still have problems (bad alpha for example)

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

9

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-28, 17:11:57 »

Yep, using the copy metadata node. I imagine it's because the Cryptomatte fuse is expecting the elements to appear in a certain order but re-shuffling with pioSaver returns them differently, who knows.

I haven't tested a PS action yet but it's on the radar.

10

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-28, 10:56:11 »

Thanks Marcin.

Handy to know for PS, although the ease at which you can re-render a mask for a still means Cryptomatte isn't required as much.

A few tests I tried in Fusion:

1.
exporting just the beauty element from the cxr/exr using a default saver - reduces file size and keeps the metadata.
exporting all of my other passes using pioSaver - reduces file size but loses the metadata
Unfortunately copying the metadata from the single-layer exr into the pioSaver multi-channel-exr doesn't work with the cryptomatte node

2.
rendering a cxr with "Render Only Masks" enabled and only the channels I wanted (crypto/worldPos/normals). Unfortunately you can't get masks from this.

3.
saving a multi-layered exr from max including all the channels at various bit depths and copying the meta-data from the re-saved cxr/exr - unfortunately this also did not work.

I do wonder if this is partly a limitation of Cryptomatte in fusion but based on this I think the best solution would be for Corona to allow users to choose the specific elements to be CXR'd along with bit depth & compression.

This would allow us to have compressed beauty elements at 16bit with beauty & crypto saved together and other elements left at 32bit.

11

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-27, 14:23:35 »

Once again thanks for the detailed reply Marcin!

I had a look at LifeSaver and its counterpart pioSaver, unfortunately Lifesaver won't work for Cryptomatte as it only saves out to multi-part EXR's and neither option saves in the cryptomatte metadata.

Unless I've missed a step, for now we may still be stuck with creating two renders (beauty elements vs. masking/utility elements) but being able to re-order the render into multi-part will no doubt be a huge help, especially with the smaller sizes DWAB brings

12

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-26, 11:35:01 »

Reading my post back I felt the need to clarify a few things.

My main reason for wanting this is to be easily able to use Cryptomatte in Fusion.
This already works but the downside is that you have to use a monster sized CXR file for it to work as currently the cryptomatte metadata doesn't get written into normal EXR's (not sure if this is the same across other renderers).

Generally one multi-layer EXR's is slower to load than several individual layers which slows down an artist's ability to work and increases comp render times.

Two possible solutions:
1. Implement functionality similar to 3DS Max's default exr setup, where individual passes can be added/removed and their bit-depth changed per element
2. Write cryptomatte metadata/manifest information to the Cryptomatte render element so that all passes rendered to separate files.

13

[Max] Feature Requests / Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-25, 16:00:46 »

There was some discussion in this thread https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=35535.15 that for Cryptomatte it would be beneficial to only output that element into a .cxr file, whilst saving the other elements out in another format in an effort to prevent the file from being larger than necessary.

We're investigating using Cryptomatte more in our workflow (even more so now material masks are supported) and huge CXR files could potentially be a big stumbling block.
I appreciate this may be too late for 12 but in future versions is there a chance this might get looked at again in the future?

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[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Cubemap panorama stitching issues

« on: 2024-06-24, 11:26:47 »

Generally you're always going to have issues with cube maps and denoising as the denoising is screen space instead of object.
Spherical renders will give you less seams to stitch but a distorted result. If you're able to denoise in a separate application then you might be better off converting the cubemap to spherical in post, denoise that and then mask in those areas.

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[C4D] I need help! / Re: Layers compositing problem

« on: 2024-06-24, 11:23:10 »

try a direct visibility override with a more neutral colour than black