Messages

31

Learner’s Corner / Re: Hi there! Corona newbie here, I need help with my renders, they look meh

« on: 2024-02-09, 12:52:24 »

Glad you've found the feedback useful Valerie!

Regarding performance I completely agree with Maru and Tom - that might be a slow(er) CPU for today's standards and if you couple it with running out of memory (RAM) then you'll really have trouble rendering this one out :)

On the more artistic side of things, I really think its good that you've started with something that is an actual place you can visit in real life. When I started out one of my earliest projects was trying to recreate the office space I had - really not that visually stimulating as a render per say but it did give me an opportunity to try and recreate all the objects (and the space itself) pretty much with the same or similar details I could see. I think thats a cool approach to things because you can pick stuff up and just go to work until the render looks convincing enough given what you have in your hands. Takes a ton of time but imho it is very much worth it.

As far as the "atmosphere" I think that might actually come down to your tone mapping as well. Try playing around with some of the LUTs Corona comes with and see if that helps.

Oh and the chamfer modifier, try setting it to "smooth chamfers only". That'll probably help.

32

Learner’s Corner / Re: Hi there! Corona newbie here, I need help with my renders, they look meh

« on: 2024-02-08, 13:29:18 »

Howdy and welcome aboard!

To be honest, for a self proclaimed newbie, this is a friggin terrific start, kudos!!

In my opinion you got all the basic ingredients in there already. For example the lighting feels natural to me although from a "creative director's POV" maybe a little too "everyday" maybe but that is potentially highly subjective of a comment.

The materials are all solid but I think there is room to improve them by adding details on them. Maybe add a little extra sheen on the sofa, put some imperfection maps for the sheen amount so it looks like somebody sat on it... Maybe dirty up the sofa with some dirt overlay textures in the base color slot etc etc. I think that'd help sell this in terms of realism.

Much the same goes for the rest of the materials really, maybe add a little tiny bit of imperfections on those pristine walls (on the base color and the reflections) and some wet wipe imperfections on reflective surfaces (tables).

I'd also double check the kitchen elements, they seem like the smoothing is off on them (they look oddly curved yet flat at the same time). I'm not a kitchen expert at all but there's also seemingly very little detail for when it comes to handles on those cabinets too. And if you continue to dress up that area with kitchen elements (or a small light) it'll add a bit of additional creative flare to it all which sometimes helps with realism as well.

So thats just my first impression, hopefully I can be of more help if you have any sub questions and I'm also excited to hear what other folks might have to say.

Cheers!

33

Learner’s Corner / Re: Lack realism/photorealism

« on: 2024-02-08, 13:20:02 »

Yeah I would very much agree with B here and to me it seems like you are very much on the right track. Kudos!

First thing I'd maybe suggest doing is playing with the lighting a bit - right now its somewhat flat as in everything is quite evenly lit and the small bit of directional lighting you have is kind of maybe not landing somewhat awkwardly on the floor in the lower left corner. I'd personally try adding imperfections to the lighting (a tree outside the window) or a different angle but that might also be a subjective preference I have. That said I do think something less "studio like" would work better here and often that adds realism as well.

Good reference is looking at what photographers sometimes do in these types of setups.

As far as materials go I think if you spend a bit more time adding details to them you'll get more realism in there. Maybe imperfections on that chair's metal legs, some slight dirt spots (maybe also in cavities with AO) on the brick wall (which itself could be a bit more detailed with a different displacement map?) and just generally things of that nature. One thing that does strike me as unrealistic immediately is the white on the table itself. Its too dang white to me (check your albedos with the albedo render element).
These things can take a lot of time but details are important folks say :)

And as always super high quality models can help you as well. I really like that plant you have there from Cosmos but I think it can still be improved by the way of improving materials etc.

So I think you're off to a great start but maybe just keep on hammering it out.

Oh and don't worry about render settings, that's the beauty with Corona. You're not missing out on realism unless we are talking caustics (which you need to enable) but given that there are non in your scene...

34

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-06, 19:00:43 »

Yeah I mean like you said, it is at least something. If you look at it solely from a business perspective (which I don't necessarily like doing) AMD is kind of in an odd position - Threadrippers are basically Epycs and high end Epycs sell for 10k a pop. That is obviously way too much for most consumers / prosumers but then there is a long way to go down to 530€ which is the 7950x 16 core chip. So in that sense I'm honestly somewhat surprised that they cater to the HEDT crowd again.

Given that you are on an HEDT platform yourself, do you notice any speed difference when trying any of the 7950x / 13900k chips in terms of 3ds Max's UI?

35

[C4D] I need help! / Re: [solved] Problem rendering animations with Corona 11

« on: 2024-02-06, 18:53:52 »

Happens to all of us :)

36

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-05, 10:24:54 »

Is it because the TRX50 is now derived from WRX90 directly, just stripped of channels and lanes?

That will probably go for the physical boards themselves, paying same price and one gives you overclocking and other gives you the bigger physical layout for more dimms and pci cards.
In the end, you're just saying bit of money with non-WX chips.

To be honest that would be my guess as well. I mean the TRX50 boards even have IPMI / BMC now as well which is typically WS / server grade stuff? And the WRX90 platform supports overclocking too so looking at it from a distance the only difference to me is the PCI-E lane count, ha :) Oh and moar memory / memory capacity support and the like.

37

Hardware / Re: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)

« on: 2024-02-05, 08:09:03 »

Yeah this has been brought up in various discussions on other online forums because while RDIMM kinda make sense for the WX (PRO) series it kind of doesn't make as much sense for the "consumer" HEDT platform.

But yeah, Threadripper 7xxx, regardless if its PRO or HEDT, RDIMMs are a must it seems.

38

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to disconnect Fast render in setting Corona 11

« on: 2024-02-03, 12:52:32 »

Howdy! If I'm not mistaken you're looking to enable the fast preview denoiser?

If so it is still there its just called a little differently and it gives you more options. Now it is called "Denoising during rendering" under the Interactive Rendering compartment (its in your screenshot).

Just set it to Optix or Intel - Optix tends to be a little faster (Nvidia GPU) but a little less detailed whereas the Intel denoiser (Nvidia GPU or AMD / Intel CPU with AMD GPU support getting looked into) tends to be a little bit slower but a bit more detailed.

Cheers!

39

Corona Academy / Re: News

« on: 2024-01-31, 17:01:25 »

Thanks Tom for the reply and Yes eagerly waiting for new lessons. Keep up the good work guys. Cheers.

Glad to hear there's a want for more!

Two new lessons are ready to go :) And thank you for your patience!

40

Hardware / Re: Setting up a renderfarm for Corona+Max Combo

« on: 2024-01-30, 18:53:17 »

Hm hm, to be totally honest that looks like a previous gen Xeon and it's only got 12c per CPU which means it is probably slower than your i9 (if you're using something like a 13900k).

Really depends on the type of output you're aiming for and the price of the machines but to be honest I'd probably look for something more powerful as typically, with many less powerful nodes, space / heating / electricity starts becoming a problem.

But imho it really depends on how much rendering you want to do, how fast you want it and whats the price of the thing :)

At first glance I'd say you might be better off with racking a couple of 7950x / Intel equivalents with something like a Silverstone RM41 or slimmer.

41

[C4D] Bug Reporting / Re: Scanned material and alpha channel

« on: 2024-01-29, 13:15:39 »

... Display Tag also does not work when I use 0 to 100%. Is there any different way in Corona? ...

Howdy!

For this one I'd currently suggest, as one of the workarounds, to right click on the Display Tag visiblity parameter -> Xpressions -> Set Driver. Then right click on your material's opacity parameter and do the same right click bonanza except hit "Set Driven" instead.

That'll basically link the Display tag visiblity parameter so that it drives the opacity of the material.

Hope that helps!

42

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Win10/Win 11 Lag

« on: 2024-01-22, 14:22:21 »

Very interesting because I did try installing Windows 10 on my WS again (5995wx) and unfortunately I had the same lag / stuttery issues there.

In any case we are looking into it but are still kindly asking for all the users with this problem to raise their hand. We might need help profiling the issue.

43

Corona Academy / Re: News

« on: 2024-01-15, 13:07:59 »

BTW right now that is looking like next week that we'll have the next video out - I have to go and check the Max version of the next lesson, then it should be done and dusted and out and live sometime at mid-week or after.

Indeed, can confirm the above :) Thank you all for your patience!

44

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: dual CPU issues?

« on: 2024-01-08, 11:46:33 »

If it helps knowing I'm running a dual Epyc build that has 8 memory slots per CPU (16 total). Just for the fun of it I tried running the benchmarks (and one rather simple interior) in a 8 sticks vs 16 sticks scenario.

The results were for all intents and purposes identical between the two configs.

I do think that going with less than 8 sticks though would result in slower rendering - I haven't tested it out though.

Do note that each platform can be a bit different so the above might work for my 7B13 Epycs but might not for your dual Xeons.

45

Hardware / Re: Cooling down the i9-14900K

« on: 2024-01-08, 11:39:08 »

From what I've gathered online is that if you go with say a Noctua D15 (or whatever equivalent from other brands) you'll be fine. Intel's 13th / 14th gen along with Ryzen 7xxx will basically boost into the higher 80s regardless but that doesn't appear to be a problem because we're talking incremental and negligible gains from better cooling (at best).

I'd personally opt for the highest end air cooler reasonable money can buy (like the D15) and I'd feel that'd be a safe choice.