Messages

61

[Max] Feature Requests / Region improvements

« on: 2022-11-15, 14:20:17 »

Hey guys

Something we often do when rendering single objects (e.g. minor updates to a material that don't require a full render) we often find that the render goes faster if we put a corona region around the object in question in the frame buffer rather than letting the entire thing render. Not sure why - maybe something to do with the noise level calculation?

Anyway, for super-duper noise calculating speediness the tighter this region is to the object in question the better.

I would love it if you guys could add something similar to VRay's render mask texture (where you basically draw an alpha of what to render) or perhaps implement some kind of subtractive region?

I'd love to know if others would find these features useful too, or if it's just me.

62

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Triplanar mapping and displacement

« on: 2022-11-14, 16:33:12 »

Hi Maru,

Apologies for the delayed response - I really need to come back to the forums more regularly and certainly not trolling!

As others have mentioned, it mainly comes down to when using texture sets from a source like quixel, poliigon etc. where someone has
a) photoscanned a surface
b) created a material in substance designer
c) some other form of specific texture creation

In these instances, the diffuse/normal/roughness etc. are all pretty much tied to the displacement.

Lets take a set of maps for bathroom tiles as an example and assume that it tiles perfectly on every edge (wouldn't that be the dream eh?) but the pattern might change in the middle
I want to run all of these maps through a UVW Randomiser to get 90deg rotations per tile and then I run each of those through a triplanarTex so that I don't need to re-UV additional walls/floors if they change, or if the client sends through a new model.
The grout lines of the diffuse must line up with the grout lines displacement otherwise you'll get a crevice in the middle of an area where there shouldn't be one.

Example #2, a set of photoscanned maps of snowy ground, with variation in the roughness map that shows ice as well as some footprints - which may be more reflective as the snow has been compacted.
Same as before - UVW Randomiser with 360degrees and per tile is enabled. It's crucial for the glossiness/roughness/normal/bump to line up with the displacement as the reflections and fine details won't be in the right place.

Perhaps this isn't how these two features are designed to be used, but it is certainly how many artists in our studio are using them. Do let me know if this isn't clear and I'll try to come up with another example :)

Edit:
re-reading the chain I noticed you asked for non-brick/tile examples. My bad.

Roads would be another example of needing this to work - downloading a texture set of asphalt without road markings but with cracks - these would need to line up with the respective normal maps

Using a rocky material on cliff faces etc. would need the displacement to match up with other maps

Looking through quixel bridge, I think I can safely say that any surface isn't explicitly manufactured/arranged to a pattern manually would benefit from the displacement triplanar matching the other maps.
Even then for things like bricks UVWRandomiser is great to get random mirroring per tile and I generally find myself using triplanar instead of UV's as it's faster to set up the scale on a material than it is to apply a modifier to multiple objects.

63

[Max] Resolved Bugs / [solved] CoronaTriplanar/CoronaNormal gamma warning

« on: 2022-10-27, 11:13:23 »

Hello,

I noticed that plugging a CoronaTriplanar map into a CoronaNormal map triggers the "incorrect gamma" warning even if the map has correct gamma. The warning disappears when the map is removed.

I'm aware that TriPlanar should go as close to the main material as possible, but when this is not possible this might result in incorrect gamma adjustments when they aren't needed.

Corona 8.2, 3DS Max 2022.3

Thanks

64

[Max] Feature Requests / Triplanar mapping and displacement

« on: 2022-10-26, 14:25:19 »

Hey all,

We were recently having some trouble with the triplanar mapping on displacement not matching the mapping on the rest of the channels and I discovered this thread https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=19726.15
The summary being "the mismatch is intended".

Would it be possible to add a checkbox/radiobutton onto the CoronaPhysicalMtl to allow the user to decide the order of operations between Displacement and Triplanar.
I completely understand the devs reasoning that displacement should be mapped prior the other channels but as an artist, there are use cases where we would like them all to by synced up together.

Cheers

65

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Chaos Corona 9 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2022-08-21, 18:48:45 »

Amazing. I'll give this a try tomorrow morning!

Is there any compatibility issues with the "old" PRG sky model when copying the .dat file over or does it just not get loaded by Corona 8?

Thanks for the tip!

66

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Chaos Corona 9 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2022-08-19, 22:16:22 »

Hey all,

I was curious what max version others are using on the latest daily build? I was hoping to test out the clouds but they don't seem to be rendering at all (unless I'm missing a trick here?)
Max 2022.3.3
Corona Daily 18 Aug 2022 - installed using "Unpack files" option and loaded in max via multi loader/.bat file

Steps taken:
Corona sun added to scene
"Add CoronaSky Environment"
Environment menu, right click map, Edit in SME
"Enabled Clouds"
Interactive render & production render - no clouds
All sky models tried
Automatic and manual sun selection tried

Seriously looking forward to being able to test this out!

67

[Max] I need help! / Machines losing corona material library after upgrading to Corona 8

« on: 2022-06-13, 15:35:08 »

Hi,

Some of our machines appear to be losing the Corona Material Library after installation.
One of them could not load the material library immediately after installing (the only thing that worked was a complete un-install and re-install), another one has lost it even though it was working fine before the weekend.

In all instances Custom settings were used but the material library was definitely ticked to install.

Any ideas why it might suddenly disappear?

68

[Max] I need help! / Re: Crash to desktop after a few passes

« on: 2022-05-25, 12:59:34 »

Thanks, sadly that didn't seem to help.
As far as I'm aware all scenes on this project have been created with Corona 7.1 so that won't be causing the problem.

I did try removing the atmospheric height fog on the corona sky but again, no joy.
Were you using the PRG sky model when you were having the same issue?

69

[Max] I need help! / Crash to desktop after a few passes

« on: 2022-05-25, 10:26:02 »

Hey guys,

I've got a scene that I'm currently trying to render but it seems to crash after 7-10 passes, no warning or errors - just a straight crash to desktop
This happens on a variety of machines and not always at the same number of passes.

3DS Max 2022.3
Corona 7.1

We have one test machine running Corona 8 which did render without crashing, but currently cannot roll this out across the studio due to other projects.

The geometry in this scene has previously rendered fine for other view files.
Dump data attached.

Cheers

70

[Max] Feature Requests / "Smart Regions" for render selected/max region

« on: 2022-03-18, 09:38:36 »

I noticed when using "Render Selected" mode or a 3DS Max region then each pass can take a long time.
However if you then add a Corona VFB region around the area that is rendering, the whole render suddenly speeds up.

It would be great if Corona could intelligently add a VFB region around the area that is rendering.
Perhaps Corona already does something like this behind the scenes but at least in my testing it appears to make a big difference (with one pass every few minutes going down to every few seconds).

Cheers.

71

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Edit camera tone mapping from VFB

« on: 2022-02-04, 11:38:41 »

When using tone mapping override on a Corona Camera it would be great if this tone mapping could be controlled from the VFB as opposed to the controls there being locked.

Perhaps a tickbox in the VFB could get synced to the camera override?

72

[Max] Feature Requests / Custom Tone Mapping Render Element

« on: 2021-08-02, 14:45:31 »

Hi guys, might like how we can have custom tone mapping per camera, it would be great to have the option to save out multiple versions of tone mapping for one camera.

Ideally everything would look perfect in the render but sometimes artists need to save out a version with slightly brighter/darker exposure or highlight compression etc.

I would love to be able to assign different exposures to render elements so that I don't need to go back and re-load my beauty in the Corona Image Editor to make tweaks.
Perhaps a "Tone Mapping" section could be added to the beauty element.

Thanks

73

[Max] I need help! / Re: Caustics rendering dark during network/DR rendering

« on: 2021-06-10, 10:17:38 »

Hi Maru,

Increasing the Lookup Radius worked perfectly for my water, although I did start to notice a lot more fireflies from reflected caustics in the scene.
As such I've been sending two deadline renders
- one for the main scene with lookup radius on 1
- one for just the objects with dark caustics with the radius on 2 or 4

This works great for now but is there any sort of fix on the way for this in future versions?

Cheers

74

[Max] I need help! / Re: Caustics rendering dark during network/DR rendering

« on: 2021-06-01, 11:35:05 »

Hi Maru,

By high res I'm referring to 6000x4000px vs 2000x1333px for low res.

I'll try the initial lookup radius value next.

I haven't tried a full test locally but as I mentioned, after 3 passes at 6k it seemed to look ok.


Thanks

75

[Max] I need help! / Caustics rendering dark during network/DR rendering

« on: 2021-05-28, 16:20:50 »

Hey all,

I'm having a bit of an issue when trying to render caustics - doing a local low res test render they look great - really bright and looking great, however when I try to render over deadline or through DR at high res, they come out much darker.

I've tried doing a quick render at high res (6k vs 2k) and after 3 passes the caustics once again look great. I increased the photons to 15000 to compensate for the high resolution but this doesn't seem to have helped.

I haven't yet tried sending a local render for a long time but may give this a go over the weekend.

All machines are running the same version of max/windows/corona (Max 2020.3, Corona version 6, hotfix 1)

Cheers