Corona Image Editor feedback

[mike288]

Looking forward to your feedback!

[thilima3d]

For now... pretty nice and stable. I´m testing on another scene now, a heavy one. great job guys

[mike288]

Good to hear! :-)

[PROH]

Tested it on a small scene, and it's working great. No problems so far, except from a little brain-work figuring out how to use it correct (a basic guide would be great).

It's easy to see the future use for this extension :)

Great work!

[cecofuli]

1. I cannot save the rendering in the .cexr format (but I can with all other format)  with the SAVE button on the top left side of the 3ds max VFB

2. When I use photographic exposure, the Editor VFB looks completely different from 3ds max VFB.

[mike288]

1) Yes, it is a bug we know about. It will be fixed in 1.6.
2) OK, I will look into it ASAP. Thank you.

[Ryuu]

Small/heavy scene kinda doesn't matter since this tool works only on the rendered images :)

No problems so far, except from a little brain-work figuring out how to use it correct (a basic guide would be great).

Some guides/tutorials are definitely planned. You can help us by pointing out the things that are less than obvious. That way we'll know what needs better explanation and/or redesign of the UI.

[Flavius]

Hi all,

I've been waiting for this since you guys have announced it! This thing is just great, and will smooth out the workflow very nicely.

What I would really really love to have is

- F-stop parameters which should work in conjunction with Bloom and Glare aaaaaaaaand :

!!! Depth of field! But if possible, I have no clue if it is, without using a Zdepth pass, but something like World Position ? would that be possible?

[antanas]

Nice thing for post render lighmix tweaking for sure, now make it exportable to a self sufficient .exe gallery kind of file (like say ACDsee has) which could be sent to clients with a possibility to set some easy to set and to use buttons to specific light mix pass combos which when sent to clients those stupid monkeys could press and get different lighting and even time of the day and well, picture me VERY interested )))
 @Flavius - yeah something like vfb+ or lenscare does with the help of zdepth pass but why use the "outdated crap" for that - maybe using Word position pass for that would make it possible to get blurring behind the transparent objects which makes zdepth pass based dof completely useless in such cases.

About F-stop well totally agree on that too - F-stop + aperture (I mean shape\amount of blades etc) both incamera one and in vfb\image editor one would be very handy to control both the post processing dof (if it will ever be added) and especially glare and bloom both power and shape of em.

DELETED - my overwork induced F-stop related ramble ))

[romullus]

I hate to go to offtopic, but...

About F-stop well totally agree on that too but first we need to have decent working like it should F-stop in Corona itself which would behave as F-stop should - by that I mean "darkening the image" or changing the amount of light coming through it in the lenses well doing things like the real one does - for now it is only useful for rendertime dof setup and motion blur but besides that nothing else - currently it is impossible to set up cameras to match the real world camera's values without it - c'mon guys even vray respects F-stop values in it's physical camera so how comes Corona still doesn't ? And yeah F-stop + aperture (I mean shape\amount of blades etc) both incamera one and in vfb\image editor one would be very handy to control both the post processing dof (if it will ever be added) and especially glare and bloom both power and shape of em.

One thing to add to that - Ev and iso values ABSOLUTELY should work together not separately - it doesn't make any sense like it is done now.

everything you said here does not make any sense to me. F-Stop is working like it should, by changing it, you change exposure as well.

And when simple exposure (EV) is active, ISO ABSOLUTELY shouldn't affect exposure. I don't see nothing wrong with Corona's exposure control implementation, well.. except confusing controls in multiple places, but that is well known issue.

P.S. if you want to go in further discussion about Corona's exposure controls, please start new topic in general discussions board. Let's leave this topic for feedback about CIE.

[antanas]

@romullus yeah you sure are right about "confusing controls in multiple places" for I constantly forget to set exposure controls in render settings to Basic photographic exposure thus constantly getting frustrated while trying to use those in camera and getting nowhere as a result - which occurs especially frequently when I'm overworked and the deadline is near )) this happened today hence my stupid F-stop related ramble so yeah sorry for that - I will delete that for not causing any confusion.

Edited:
One thing to add to that - Ev and iso values in CIE ABSOLUTELY should work together not separately (+both CIE and regular VFB should have those 2 and F-stop controls as well but that's a different topic like you said above) - it doesn't make any sense like it is done now, see DSLR shooting in manual mode - that's what we should have in both vfb and CIE I think - otherwise it's too confusing. 

[romullus]

CIE feedback:
1. tooltips do not respect boundaries of the screen and are hard / impossible to read when editor is maximized.
2. bloom&glare could have some sort of indicator that would show up when calculations are being made. On bigger images b&g calculation might be quite lengthy and it's hard to tell if it's done already or not when changes are subtle.

@antanas, if you're constantly using photographic exposure instead of simple one, maybe it's worth to save it as defaults? Just saying... :]

[PROH]

@Ryuu - For a beginners guide I think it would be helpful to describe how save (dump EXR) and prepare an image in the renderer for future use in the CIE (especially Denoising).

One thing that did puzzle me at first, was that even when I had already made a full Denoising calculation in the renderer, it wasn't carried through to the CIE, but needed to be calculated again. I also was surprised to see all those new "denoiser" render elements showing up after denoising.

Besides that I think that the expanded controls in the CIE regarding denoising and LUT would be really handy to have in the renderer VFB as well.

Keep up the great work :)

[cecofuli]

I think that denoise is calculated "on the fly". So, you cannot calculate it in max, save , open CIE and have denoise done.
That's why there is the option "Gather data" inside 3ds max.

[Tanakov]

Did I miss something?

[PROH]

@cecofuli - yes, I know. Ryuu was asking for pointers regarding what was less obvious. That's why I wrote it.

@Tanakov - I don't know. Did you?

[shadowman]

Cool idea, looking forward!

1. undo/redo
2. load multiple images? (just curious)
3. hotkeys
4. ability to adjust (hue/sat/brightness, etc..) materials of individual objects (pre-defined before rendering)
5. color management

[cecofuli]

In short, Corona TEAM, we want CIE like Motiva COLIMO (^____^)

[mike288]

CIE feedback:
1. tooltips do not respect boundaries of the screen and are hard / impossible to read when editor is maximized.
2. bloom&glare could have some sort of indicator that would show up when calculations are being made. On bigger images b&g calculation might be quite lengthy and it's hard to tell if it's done already or not when changes are subtle.

@antanas, if you're constantly using photographic exposure instead of simple one, maybe it's worth to save it as defaults? Just saying... :]

1) this has been fixed and will be in the next DB
2) this is planned to implement

Thank you.

[johan belmans]

Here my feedback,

some issues have already been mentioned by others:
-yes a progress bar during applying of glare and bloom would be welcome.
-the possibility to define a default location for the LUTs on a network.
-Now, for browsing through all the LUTs (up and down arrow key) you need to have the flip menu of the Luts open. It would be handy if you just have to highlight/select one LUT.
-Add "curves" like in Corona VFB.
-Now all the changes are saved on Render elements, if you click on Save All (vignetting on Z-depth pass, ......). Could this be only saved on the beauty pass?

[Ryuu]

Curves and sharpening/blurring will be added soon. We just didn't have the time to implement it in CIE yet.

Am I right guessing  that you guys would also like some kind of "bloom&glare recomputing" indicator also in Corona VFB?

[johan belmans]

Am I right guessing  that you guys would also like some kind of "bloom&glare recomputing" indicator also in Corona VFB?

Yes

[romullus]

Am I right guessing  that you guys would also like some kind of "bloom&glare recomputing" indicator also in Corona VFB?

Maybe, but only unobtrusive one. Not like denoising progress bar in CIE that shows in pop up window.

[TomG]

Bloom and Glare are not working for me in the CIE from March 29th release - anyone else having this issue? Have tested with a CXR and regular EXR and have been unable to see any Bloom / Glare effect in either test.

Thanks!
   Tom

[romullus]

Works here, but i can't be 100% sure if CIE is from  Mar 29 build - it lacks any kind of "about" info...

[TomG]

Checked against an older version I have, and the older one does bloom and glare, but the new (contained in the Mar 29th build) version doesn't, at least for me!

Also, have found this EXR that won't open in either old or new version of CIE, it was saved from the VFB. It will open in Photoshop. If I save as CXR, it will open in the CIE. Wow, I have gone acronym crazy :)

Attaching the EXR here for diagnostic purposes (I was just experimenting with Scatter and saving out to test bloom and glare while in there, if anyone wonders what the heck the rather random image is!) In the CIE, it opens as solid red, but opens fine in Photoshop (using the EXR-IO plugin there).

[mike288]

Thank you Tom, I will look into it ASAP and let you know.

[TomG]

Cheers! Let me know if you need anything else for testing purposes - you know where to find me lol!

[romullus]

I think CIE should ask user if he wants to save existing file before new one can be opened or drag&dropped.

Bloom and Glare are not working for me in the CIE from March 29th release - anyone else having this issue? Have tested with a CXR and regular EXR and have been unable to see any Bloom / Glare effect in either test.

I found that if you load some regular exr or cexr that was saved with B&G being turned off, then bloom/glare doesn't work in CIE, but if you load cexr with B&G being turned on, then it magically unlocks that effect and after that it will work with any exr for that session.

[mike288]

Thank you romullus. Both issues have same purpose and will be fixed in the next daily build.

[TomG]

Just a quick note in case Mike doesn't get time - the problem EXR was saved from Max as Integer rather than Float. An error message will be added to the CIE to indicate when this has happened. Just be sure to check what Max has defaulted to when you save an EXR :)

[mike288]

Yes, Tom, thank you. :-) This too will be in the next DB.

[romullus]

1. Maybe error message "Cannot read image file "...". File is not an image file." should be replaced with "Cannot read image file "...". File is not supported image file."?  It's rather strange to find that jpeg is not an image file ;]

2. Do you plan to bring support for .HDR files?

[romullus]

Since CIE doesn't has undo, it should ask confirmation when user press reset settings button.

[Flavius]

Hi team,

So I've been playing a bit more with this AMAZING tool, love it. But I think I've encountered a bug:

-While setting the Temp. color of light to a low value, the color of the light gets black, or I assume some super negative 32bits value since the whole image goes black. See here http://clip2net.com/s/3J7AtIA 

It seems to happen on Temp. lower than ~2000K

! This doesn't happen if I manually enter some HSV values, so I assume there is something broken with the Temp. Slider ? I can send the .cxr file if that would help.

Also, the app seems slower than if I would do this in the Corona VFB from Max, is this normal? about twice as slow, even when clicking lights on/off.

Thanks!

[maru]

Two nice-to-have feature requests from me:
-crop (including specifying aspect ratio, horizontal/vertical switch, proportional resizing)
-rotate (including grid overlay, and defining horizon line)
-mirror

[Ryuu]

Thanks for reporting all the issues. We'll look into them.

Two nice-to-have feature requests from me:
-crop (including specifying aspect ratio, horizontal/vertical switch, proportional resizing)
-rotate (including grid overlay, and defining horizon line)
-mirror

No, no and no :) While these features are not that hard to implement, they definitiely won't make it into 1.6. They may be possible for 1.7 if enough people want them.

[mike288]

1. Maybe error message "Cannot read image file "...". File is not an image file." should be replaced with "Cannot read image file "...". File is not supported image file."?  It's rather strange to find that jpeg is not an image file ;]

2. Do you plan to bring support for .HDR files?

1) Thank you. It is a 3rd party message, but I will override it to give it more sense.
2) Yes. And we also plan to add direct support for loading JPEG files.

[mike288]

-While setting the Temp. color of light to a low value, the color of the light gets black, or I assume some super negative 32bits value since the whole image goes black. See here http://clip2net.com/s/3J7AtIA 

It seems to happen on Temp. lower than ~2000K

! This doesn't happen if I manually enter some HSV values, so I assume there is something broken with the Temp. Slider ? I can send the .cxr file if that would help.

Also, the app seems slower than if I would do this in the Corona VFB from Max, is this normal? about twice as slow, even when clicking lights on/off.

Thanks for the bug report. I will inspect this and let you know. As for the speed issues - do you have bloom and glare enabled while playing with LightMix?

[mike288]

Since CIE doesn't has undo, it should ask confirmation when user press reset settings button.

Good idea. We will consider it. Thanks.

[Flavius]

-While setting the Temp. color of light to a low value, the color of the light gets black, or I assume some super negative 32bits value since the whole image goes black. See here http://clip2net.com/s/3J7AtIA 

It seems to happen on Temp. lower than ~2000K

! This doesn't happen if I manually enter some HSV values, so I assume there is something broken with the Temp. Slider ? I can send the .cxr file if that would help.

Also, the app seems slower than if I would do this in the Corona VFB from Max, is this normal? about twice as slow, even when clicking lights on/off.

Thanks for the bug report. I will inspect this and let you know. As for the speed issues - do you have bloom and glare enabled while playing with LightMix?

Hello,

Haha, yes I had Bloom and Glare enabled, that makes sense. Silly me.

By the way, about the Color Temp, Corona VFB is affected as well. So a color Temp of 1901 is ok, but color temp of 1900 switches the whole image to black, well to -nan(ind) whatever witchcraft that is :d (when color picking it)

[sprayer]

Can you clarify? What it the purpose of that image editor and what advantage to pohotoshop or image viewer like xnviewMP etc?

[Ondra]

Primary objective is to offer functionality of Corona framebuffer outside of 3ds Max - mainly denoising, lightmixing, but also postprocessing. This is our start and we will see where we go from there.

[sprayer]

Thanks Ondra. I see now, yes denoising and lightmixing without resume rendering of saved EXR is good, but i think more convenient to use it will be via Photoshop plugin or connection to Corona Image Editor in Photoshop.

[Ondra]

Our intention is currently not to replace photoshop, but to give you more convenient way to access the unique Corona features. That might change in the future though ;)

[cecofuli]

Yes, exactly. CIE must be an unique tool, not a PS replacement.
That's why I suggest you to think seriously at Motiva Colimo features.
I have read in this forum, some guy who make 200.000 rendering for a catalogue.
In Italy, a lot of people make a technical catalogues with different material.
No one renderer in the World has the same tool like Colimo.
The possibility to change color, textures, UVW in post it something invaluable. =)

[romullus]

Thanks Ondra. I see now, yes denoising and lightmixing without resume rendering of saved EXR is good, but i think more convenient to use it will be via Photoshop plugin or connection to Corona Image Editor in Photoshop.

I hope that CIE will remain as standalone app and not as a plugin for some comercial program. For those who don't have photoshop, it's a matter of CAN use vs CAN'T use.

[romullus]

Is it possible to save all elements to separate exr files and not into one like it is now?

[sprayer]

I hope that CIE will remain as standalone app and not as a plugin for some comercial program. For those who don't have photoshop, it's a matter of CAN use vs CAN'T use.

I just suggest to make connector at least, it's not a plugin, many viewers have feature to work with PSD format and can even run filters for Photoshop. Where are many replacement for photoshop - Krita  for example can work with PSD, so PSD not exclusive format for Photoshop and never die

[denisgo22]

Nice, but... It's a possible to make compression tab options to saving in jpg/png format's as in photoshop and others image reduction softwares?? :)))
Because now we don't know with which compression level was saving jpg format,-- for example:)

[romullus]

Denoising progress bar could show what element is being denoised, so it won't seem that denoising is so slooow when many elements is present.

[mike288]

Guys, thank you for all your suggestions. They help us in further development of the editor. You are great!

[mike288]

Is it possible to save all elements to separate exr files and not into one like it is now?

No, right now it is not possible. Would that be useful for your workflow?

[romullus]

It really would. I don't know how to import layered exr into photoshop (if possible at all), so i have to save all cessential elements from CIE one by one. It's pretty tedious. Also it's a bit confusing when same button - "save all" saves LDR image layers into separate files and HDR image layers combines into one.

[mike288]

It really would. I don't know how to import layered exr into photoshop (if possible at all), so i have to save all cessential elements from CIE one by one. It's pretty tedious. Also it's a bit confusing when same button - "save all" saves LDR image layers into separate files and HDR image layers combines into one.

OK then, we will change current behavior to the following (in some post RC daily build):

Save

• for the Corona EXR format: it will save all elements + their current settings to a single .cxr file
• for any other format: it will save only the currently selected element

Save all (will be probably renamed slightly)

• will not offer the Corona EXR format
• and for any other format (including EXR) it will save each element to a separate file

[romullus]

Thank you!

[mike288]

you are welcome ;-)

[orenvfx]

chromatic aberration and barrel lens in the image editor and this app will turn to most powerful tool for speed post production!

[Juraj]

Thanks Ondra. I see now, yes denoising and lightmixing without resume rendering of saved EXR is good, but i think more convenient to use it will be via Photoshop plugin or connection to Corona Image Editor in Photoshop.

This would be perfect and make total sense.

Keeping it as filter on smart-layer would offer perfect non-destructive workflow from start to finish. Otherwise you would still have to use CIE as middle-soft, which is still useful... but not as useful.

I don't see how this would be replacing Photoshop, it's doing it much more in form of middle tool. In PS, one could stack it on together with all the other non-destructive tools like AdobeCameraRaw filter, and then seemelessly go down to lowest layer of CIE to change high-light compression or denoising, and use post-production of PS instead of the insufficient of CIE. It would be the perfect match.

[romullus]

1. CIE doesn't ask if user want to save changes when another image is drag&dropped
2. Zoom level in the title bar doesn't update on zooming. It updates once, when some changes to the image are made and after that it doesn't updates anymore.

[mike288]

1. CIE doesn't ask if user want to save changes when another image is drag&dropped
2. Zoom level in the title bar doesn't update on zooming. It updates once, when some changes to the image are made and after that it doesn't updates anymore.

Thank you for reporting. Both issues should be fixed in RC2.

[maru]

Another low priority nice-to-have: drag and drop support for conf files

[mike288]

It really would. I don't know how to import layered exr into photoshop (if possible at all), so i have to save all cessential elements from CIE one by one. It's pretty tedious. Also it's a bit confusing when same button - "save all" saves LDR image layers into separate files and HDR image layers combines into one.

Hi romullus, last RC 8 introduces changes of CIE's saving behavior as we have agreed. Can you please try whether CIE now fits better to your workflow? Thank you.

[pokoy]

I tried CIE only yesterday and this opens up some nice possibilities I didn't think of before - many thanks for this!

Some thought, sorry if they have been posted:

- It would be good if prompts (do you want to save changes etc.) could react to y/n/esc keys. Currently we have to use the mouse and press buttons in the prompts.
- CIE's prompt logic is 'inverted' from most programs (PS, Max), at least from my experience. Most programs will ask you if you want to save changes when you want to open another image without saving or exit the program, while CIE asks you if you really want to open a new image or exit the program. So it kinds of contradicts muscle memory with these prompts. A simple solution would be to ask 'Save changes?' instead and would be valid for many cases.
- Not sure if this is a valid request since we can save postprocessing files but would it be possible to add a preset tab where we could save and rename our postprocess settings, similar to how render history is working in Max's cVFB, and simply save them together with the cexr when resaving? This would make it obsolete to manage these files which can be a pain sometimes when moving or archiving projects.

Other than that, it's great to have CIE now!

[Dippndots]

Is there some way of rebuilding layered EXRs (in photoshop from 32 bit TIFFs for instance) in a way that CIE will recognize and work on correctly?

[mike288]

Is there some way of rebuilding layered EXRs (in photoshop from 32 bit TIFFs for instance) in a way that CIE will recognize and work on correctly?

CIE is currently able to open regular EXR files and Corona EXR files (.cxr). We are going to add support for loading HDR and JPEG files. Meanwhile you can try Exr-IO plugin (http://www.exr-io.com/) which is free and should be able to save EXRs from Photoshop in a way that works for CIE.

Technically: inside EXR files CIE looks for R, G, and B channel triplets ("layers"/elements). For instance, if you create an EXR file consisting of 6 channels named "R", "G", "B", "SomeElement.R", "SomeElement.G", and "SomeElement.B", CIE would see that file as a 2-element file holding "BEAUTY" and "SomeElement".

[mike288]

I tried CIE only yesterday and this opens up some nice possibilities I didn't think of before - many thanks for this!

Some thought, sorry if they have been posted:

- It would be good if prompts (do you want to save changes etc.) could react to y/n/esc keys. Currently we have to use the mouse and press buttons in the prompts.
- CIE's prompt logic is 'inverted' from most programs (PS, Max), at least from my experience. Most programs will ask you if you want to save changes when you want to open another image without saving or exit the program, while CIE asks you if you really want to open a new image or exit the program. So it kinds of contradicts muscle memory with these prompts. A simple solution would be to ask 'Save changes?' instead and would be valid for many cases.
- Not sure if this is a valid request since we can save postprocessing files but would it be possible to add a preset tab where we could save and rename our postprocess settings, similar to how render history is working in Max's cVFB, and simply save them together with the cexr when resaving? This would make it obsolete to manage these files which can be a pain sometimes when moving or archiving projects.

Other than that, it's great to have CIE now!

Thank you too. :-)

• You are right, some keyboard shortcuts would be nice. We will also improve the dialog logic.
• The "preset tab" is a nice feature tip. We will think about it. Thanks for that!

[Dippndots]

Thanks Mike, I can create layered EXRs from my TIFFs, and CIE recognized the layers when I load that EXR, but it doesn't operate on them correctly (i.e. changing bloom and glare, doesn't modify the bloom and glare element layer). Additionally, if I render all my layers out to individual EXRs and then try to merge them it says it is missing the vertex weights "CORONA_FB_WEIGHTS".

I should add, I rendered those EXRs in 1.5.2 so maybe I'm missing something that 1.6 appends to exrs?

[romullus]

It really would. I don't know how to import layered exr into photoshop (if possible at all), so i have to save all cessential elements from CIE one by one. It's pretty tedious. Also it's a bit confusing when same button - "save all" saves LDR image layers into separate files and HDR image layers combines into one.

Hi romullus, last RC 8 introduces changes of CIE's saving behavior as we have agreed. Can you please try whether CIE now fits better to your workflow? Thank you.

Thank you, it works perfect. However i have found one more small bug - when i choose save all, CIE offers to save to EXR by default, but keeps CXR filename extension. Clicking on save, gives error message: "unrecognized bitmap format in filename".

[Ryuu]

Thanks Mike, I can create layered EXRs from my TIFFs, and CIE recognized the layers when I load that EXR, but it doesn't operate on them correctly (i.e. changing bloom and glare, doesn't modify the bloom and glare element layer). Additionally, if I render all my layers out to individual EXRs and then try to merge them it says it is missing the vertex weights "CORONA_FB_WEIGHTS".

Thanks for pointing out this UI bug. "Merge" is properly not the correct word here which causes confusion.

The current merge functionality is intended mostly for render farms as it merges together partial renders from DR slaves into a final render the same way DR master does. It does not produce a single combined CXR file from multiple single-layer files storing different elements.

[Dippndots]

Yay, I helped! Haha, but seriously, it sounds like there isn't a way to "rebuild" an exr in a way that CIE can read it. I guess it's not the end of the world, we'll just have to add bloom and glare to the beauty pass in CIE instead of being able to save it out as a separate element.

[mike288]

Thank you, it works perfect. However i have found one more small bug - when i choose save all, CIE offers to save to EXR by default, but keeps CXR filename extension. Clicking on save, gives error message: "unrecognized bitmap format in filename".

Great! The file extension bug will be fixed in next RC. Thanks.

[mike288]

Thanks Mike, I can create layered EXRs from my TIFFs, and CIE recognized the layers when I load that EXR, but it doesn't operate on them correctly (i.e. changing bloom and glare, doesn't modify the bloom and glare element layer). Additionally, if I render all my layers out to individual EXRs and then try to merge them it says it is missing the vertex weights "CORONA_FB_WEIGHTS".

I should add, I rendered those EXRs in 1.5.2 so maybe I'm missing something that 1.6 appends to exrs?

Yay, I helped! Haha, but seriously, it sounds like there isn't a way to "rebuild" an exr in a way that CIE can read it. I guess it's not the end of the world, we'll just have to add bloom and glare to the beauty pass in CIE instead of being able to save it out as a separate element.

• Please, could you provide us some EXR file for which CIE doesn't work as you are expecting? I mean, you have written that you can create layered EXRs from TIFFs. Could you share it so we can better understand what are you trying to do? If yes, please use our uploader for that: https://corona-renderer.com/upload/. Thank you.
• As pointed out by Ryuu, the Merge button can merge/accumulate/stitch (whatever we can call it) multiple images coming from DR nodes into a final image. Pixel weights (stored inside files as a special channel named CORONA_FB_WEIGHTS) are needed for that. This is something what Corona 1.6 writes into Corona EXR files (.cxr). That explains the error message.

[Dippndots]

Hi Mike, sorry for not being clear, I'm happy to upload the EXR on Monday when I'm back in the office.

My main goal is to use CIE to generate a bloom and glare element for my image because I need to strip render all my large stills at work, and B+G doesn't work correctly when strip rendering, understandably. Essentially what I've tried to do is take my strip rendered image (TIFF) and it's elements, combine them into a layered EXR, and then bring it into CIE, with the hope that CIE will recognize all the elements as if it was an EXR saved directly from corona. However, CIE doesn't seem to recognize this, I can see all my layers in the drop down, but if I adjust the bloom and glare, it just operates on the beauty pass, the bloom and glare element stays black.

EDIT by moderator: the discussion continues here: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,15660.0.html

[pokoy]

After trying to use CIE in production I see two major gaps:

- none of the LDR files I saved out had an alpha channel included. When inspecting a pixel, I can see there's alpha information so it's included in CXRs. In any case, we need alpha to be included in any format we save out, too.
- it looks like we have no way to save 16 bit images - we absolutely need this! Would it be possible to add TIFF files to the Save dialog with the common options like in PS (Alpha, LZW compression, 8/16/32 bits)? Saving to EXR would be sufficient IF PS could correctly convert 32 bits to 16 bits (which it unfortunately doesn't because it always shifts tones). Without TIFF with 16 bits, we miss a way to get 16 bits files out of CIE that match exactly what we see in Max VFB and CIE.

Other thoughts:
- when loading CXR images, I can only display the Beauty pass. What about displaying all the channels that are saved in the CXR? At least displaying alpha should be possible.
- could we have more steps when zooming in/out? Maybe in 1/4 steps instead of 1/2 like now?
- zooming seems to somewhat respect mouse pointer so it zooms into the area under it, but often it jumps either a bit or a lot. Not sure why this is but I feel this could improve, best would be the same behavior like in PS.

Thanks in advance!

[pokoy]

...another one:

- can we have a visual cue when B&G is being calculated? It can take a while for high res images and currently the only hint is that zooming/panning is slower but something similar to the denoiser progress bar would be fantastic
- can we get a way to save B&G separately? Maybe with a save dialog for any filetype where user can specify what to inlcude in the output file: beauty, alpha, B&G...

[mike288]

After trying to use CIE in production I see two major gaps:

- none of the LDR files I saved out had an alpha channel included. When inspecting a pixel, I can see there's alpha information so it's included in CXRs. In any case, we need alpha to be included in any format we save out, too.
- it looks like we have no way to save 16 bit images - we absolutely need this! Would it be possible to add TIFF files to the Save dialog with the common options like in PS (Alpha, LZW compression, 8/16/32 bits)? Saving to EXR would be sufficient IF PS could correctly convert 32 bits to 16 bits (which it unfortunately doesn't because it always shifts tones). Without TIFF with 16 bits, we miss a way to get 16 bits files out of CIE that match exactly what we see in Max VFB and CIE.

Other thoughts:
- when loading CXR images, I can only display the Beauty pass. What about displaying all the channels that are saved in the CXR? At least displaying alpha should be possible.
- could we have more steps when zooming in/out? Maybe in 1/4 steps instead of 1/2 like now?
- zooming seems to somewhat respect mouse pointer so it zooms into the area under it, but often it jumps either a bit or a lot. Not sure why this is but I feel this could improve, best would be the same behavior like in PS.

Thanks in advance!

...another one:

- can we have a visual cue when B&G is being calculated? It can take a while for high res images and currently the only hint is that zooming/panning is slower but something similar to the denoiser progress bar would be fantastic
- can we get a way to save B&G separately? Maybe with a save dialog for any filetype where user can specify what to inlcude in the output file: beauty, alpha, B&G...

Thank you for your feedback!

• alpha in LDR: Not saving alpha channel to PNG files is a bug and should be fixed in 1.6 hotfix.
• TIFF: Support for saving to the TIFF format + some compression dialog will be considered for 1.7. CIE operates in 32-bit depth. Saving to 16-bit files always loses information (simply because there is not enough depth to represent all possible 32-bit pixel values). It is actually kind of compression. Probably that is why PS "shifts tones" - they are shifted already in the saving phase. There is nothing we can do about it.
• displayable elements: CIE shows all non-internal elements. But you are right that the alpha channel is missing. I will open a feature request for it.
• zooming steps: Currently it behaves the same way is in VFB. I will discuss it with Ondra.
• zooming & mouse cursor: This seems to be a bug. I will look into it. It is a bug and will be fixed in 1.6 hotfix!
• B&G indication: This is something which is planned for 1.7.
• separate B&G: Already added to a nice to have list. See https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,15660.msg100281.html#msg100281.

[pokoy]

Thanks for the feedback!

About 16 bit TIFFs: I know about the 32 bits > 16 bits data loss, that's not the problem. In fact, many people still save out to TIF since 32 bits require 'special' treatment in post, support from both the post prod package and plugins. What we need is something that saves 16 bits as all current LDR formats support 8 bits only. TIFF is the best candidate here because it supports 8/16/32 bits, additional compression and is an industry standard, much more than BMP or PNG.
If you're worried about HDR values being clamped with 16 bits, no worries here, what we need is the exact same result as if we save out a 16 bits from Max cVFB to a 16 bits TIFF (which naturally clamps values, too).

As long as we have no 16 bits file output support, CIE is useless for me, and believe me I'd really love to use it in production.

[mike288]

as Ondra has said https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,16024.msg101710.html#msg101710, 16bit save format won't make it to 1.6 hotfix, will come in daily builds later

[pokoy]

Yes, saw the post - many thanks!

[Flavius]

Hi guys,

I have a pretty annoying issues here. While denoising an image in CIE, my computere completely freezes for 5-10 seconds, randomly. I am not running out of RAM, I have 64 GB, CIE only using 10 GB or so. CPU = 2x E2670. I've set the priority to "below normal" and it still freezes, completely. Not even the mouse pointer moves.

Image is 5300 by 3000 px, and I have 7 lightmix elements/passes

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

P.S. -> It does NOT freeze like this while denoising in Corona VFB in 3dsmax.

Thanks!

[mike288]

Hi guys,

I have a pretty annoying issues here. While denoising an image in CIE, my computere completely freezes for 5-10 seconds, randomly. I am not running out of RAM, I have 64 GB, CIE only using 10 GB or so. CPU = 2x E2670. I've set the priority to "below normal" and it still freezes, completely. Not even the mouse pointer moves.

Image is 5300 by 3000 px, and I have 7 lightmix elements/passes

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

P.S. -> It does NOT freeze like this while denoising in Corona VFB in 3dsmax.

Thanks!

Hi Flavius, thank you, could you please write down some additional info?

• Is it happening only for some particular image?
• Could you share the image? That could be very helpful ...
• Is the denoising progress bar still moving during the lags?
• Is CIE the only piece of software where you experience such behavior?
• Do you run some other performance demanding process while you are denoising in CIE?

[Flavius]

Hi Flavius, thank you, could you please write down some additional info?

• Is it happening only for some particular image?
• Could you share the image? That could be very helpful ...
• Is the denoising progress bar still moving during the lags?
• Is CIE the only piece of software where you experience such behavior?
• Do you run some other performance demanding process while you are denoising in CIE?

Hi there!
It happens mostly on high res images, not only one.
I can share the image, but all privately (client work, very sensitive)
I haven't checked the denoiser bar, well I can't even because everything freezes completely.
Yes, CIE is the only one, Corona VFB in Max seems to run properly
No, I only had Microsoft Edge opened, and some photos.

How can I safely share the image with you? WeTransfer + PM with the link?

Thanks for looking into this.

[mike288]

Thank you for your reply. Please use our private uploader at https://corona-renderer.com/upload/. This way it will be shared only with Corona dev team for debugging purposes. After uploading please send me the name of the uploaded file via PM (just for sure).

[mike288]

And Flavius, do you use some kind of anti-spyware or anti-virus software? I yes, could you turn it off (or kill it in the process tab) for a while and try to denoise the image again in CIE? Sometimes this sort of protection may slow down things.

[Flavius]

And Flavius, do you use some kind of anti-spyware or anti-virus software? I yes, could you turn it off (or kill it in the process tab) for a while and try to denoise the image again in CIE? Sometimes this sort of protection may slow down things.

Hehe, nice timing of your question. I had Mcafee Installed untill 2 days ago which was a PLAGUE for my system, (that windows refreshing when the IR was opened was because of it) so no, at the moment I have nothing but windows 10 built in stuff. I will upload the scene +.cxr shortly

[ihabkal]

Mcafee sucks, stick with Avast, even though last two releases Avast was acting funny during installation and running DR, it wanted to check things out.

[pokoy]

I did some extreme postprocessing in Max and opening the saved cxr doesn't give me the exact same result. It looks like the vignette, curve editor or LUT order is different. Most likely the vignette is processed before LUT/curves in Max but not in CIE... Not sure what it is but it doesn't look the same for some reason.
Sorry, I have no examples right now but will try to follow up with a comparison later today.

[mike288]

I did some extreme postprocessing in Max and opening the saved cxr doesn't give me the exact same result. It looks like the vignette, curve editor or LUT order is different. Most likely the vignette is processed before LUT/curves in Max but not in CIE... Not sure what it is but it doesn't look the same for some reason.
Sorry, I have no examples right now but will try to follow up with a comparison later today.

That sounds strange. Could you please upload some example and some screenshot may be ( https://corona-renderer.com/upload/ )? About which version of Corona Max plugin and CIE are you talking about?
EDIT: OK, you are right. It behaves differently, I will look into it.
EDIT2: Will be fixed in next release.

[romullus]

Latest DB (may 23) installed with warnings - failed to associate CXR extension. My OS is win10.

[Frood]

Same here. Additionally I have script troubles.


Good Luck

[Ryuu]

The "failed to associate" warnings are OK. We added them in the latest build where previously it just silently failed.

Associating a file extension with an application from code is not as simple as one would imagine. There's possibility of some serious fuck up if we're not careful. For this reason we've chosen to go the safe way that could easily fail to associate the extension, but there's no risk of any damage. We have a better way planned for 1.7.

When the association fails in the installer you can always associate it manually using the standard Windows interface.

[denisgo22]

Will be pretty fine option for /Image Background/ something same in Vray, for inserting others background images or correcting exist//
Something like opinion /Directly Visibility Override/ ---only in Image Editor...

[mike288]

Will be pretty fine option for /Image Background/ something same in Vray, for inserting others background images or correcting exist//
Something like opinion /Directly Visibility Override/ ---only in Image Editor...

OK, do you mean some kind of blending elements together - for instance like in LightMix, but not only for light selecting elements?

If not, could you please explain the missing feature in a bigger detail (what would be the inputs, what kind of output do you expect, does it relate to alpha somehow)?
Thank you.

[denisgo22]

Will be pretty fine option for /Image Background/ something same in Vray, for inserting others background images or correcting exist//
Something like opinion /Directly Visibility Override/ ---only in Image Editor...

OK, do you mean some kind of blending elements together - for instance like in LightMix, but not only for light selecting elements?

If not, could you please explain the missing feature in a bigger detail (what would be the inputs, what kind of output do you expect, does it relate to alpha somehow)?
Thank you.

 i must to have separate adjustments for lighting and visibility of background, same in Corona visibility background option//
For example: I have rendered picture with very bright sky HDR background for lighting scene, and want to play with brightness for
detail cloud visibility of the sky background  without changing lighting of the all scene,  /same i can to do in PS, but without using Image Editor/,and desirable to finish at all in Image Editor for getting the ending result without three-part application's, because now in Image Editor i don't have Alpha channel
, And I can not even save the image with alpha channel as png/tif/exr format's, for post-processing in PS and changing background of the sky///
Now for this tricks only with sky brightness, i must re-rendering whole picture /8 hour's of render/ or use only PS /not CIE/  for post-process :(////
In Vray VFB for example exist option /Load background Image/
In Corona Background's exist option /Direct visibility override/
Why do not to make the same thing in Corona Image Editor?//:)

[JakubCech]

Hey CIE is a beautiful tool - very usefull :) Most of my spotted bugs are corrected in the Hotfix but still:
Tone mapping + LUT is applied on maps where it should not (ZDepth, ID...).

Thank you.

[mike288]

Hey CIE is a beautiful tool - very usefull :) Most of my spotted bugs are corrected in the Hotfix but still:
Tone mapping + LUT is applied on maps where it should not (ZDepth, ID...).

Thank you.

Oh, thank you. :-) You are right. Unfortunately this is something which was impossible to fix in 1.6 hotfix version. But it will be done in 1.7 (and in daily builds of course).

[mike288]

i must to have separate adjustments for lighting and visibility of background, same in Corona visibility background option//
For example: I have rendered picture with very bright sky HDR background for lighting scene, and want to play with brightness for
detail cloud visibility of the sky background  without changing lighting of the all scene,  /same i can to do in PS, but without using Image Editor/,and desirable to finish at all in Image Editor for getting the ending result without three-part application's, because now in Image Editor i don't have Alpha channel
, And I can not even save the image with alpha channel as png/tif/exr format's, for post-processing in PS and changing background of the sky///
Now for this tricks only with sky brightness, i must re-rendering whole picture /8 hour's of render/ or use only PS /not CIE/  for post-process :(////
In Vray VFB for example exist option /Load background Image/
In Corona Background's exist option /Direct visibility override/
Why do not to make the same thing in Corona Image Editor?//:)

Couldn't that be done using LightMix?

[denisgo22]

i must to have separate adjustments for lighting and visibility of background, same in Corona visibility background option//
For example: I have rendered picture with very bright sky HDR background for lighting scene, and want to play with brightness for
detail cloud visibility of the sky background  without changing lighting of the all scene,  /same i can to do in PS, but without using Image Editor/,and desirable to finish at all in Image Editor for getting the ending result without three-part application's, because now in Image Editor i don't have Alpha channel
, And I can not even save the image with alpha channel as png/tif/exr format's, for post-processing in PS and changing background of the sky///
Now for this tricks only with sky brightness, i must re-rendering whole picture /8 hour's of render/ or use only PS /not CIE/  for post-process :(////
In Vray VFB for example exist option /Load background Image/
In Corona Background's exist option /Direct visibility override/
Why do not to make the same thing in Corona Image Editor?//:)

Couldn't that be done using LightMix?

That's a problem///
I don't need to change Lighting from background, i need change only background picture visibility as backplate /etc. down exposition of the sky picture, or ability to changing sky at all , don't changing a lighting at whole scene:)
Shorter--- i need same thing as i can to make in Photoshop ,when i put a Rendered image with alpha channel and separate layer to sky background, for possibility changing sky picture or adjustment it///

[mike288]

OK, I understand. I will open a feature request for it. We will see what could be done in this area. Thank you for your feedback. :-)

[sprayer]

are you planning to add color fringe effect?

[denisgo22]

OK, I understand. I will open a feature request for it. We will see what could be done in this area. Thank you for your feedback. :-)

Thanks very match:)

[mike288]

are you planning to add color fringe effect?

Hi, this is not planned right now. I will open a request for that ...

[sprayer]

Hi, this is not planned right now. I will open a request for that ...

Hi, thanks, this would be great as it makes almost useless arionfx for me

[johan belmans]

Hi,
would it be possible to implement the compare feature (Something like RAM player) of the the history tab of the VFB into CIE?

[mike288]

Hi,
would it be possible to implement the compare feature (Something like RAM player) of the the history tab of the VFB into CIE?

Hi, this is something which is already in our feature request list. But thanks anyway ;-)

[johan belmans]

awesome

[JakubCech]

BUG: Denoising in CIE of CXR using regions does not work.

[mike288]

BUG: Denoising in CIE of CXR using regions does not work.

Thank you. This is already fixed. The fix will be released in next daily build.

[kahein]

Hi,

I have two request.

Is it possible to have a function to save the cxr automatically in jpg (at the same size not just a thumbail) after the rendering to have the file in jpeg for fast preview or browsing and the cxr for editing. When you have to launch tousand of rendering and can't see any of them in your browser it's quit fatidious.
Also the cxr format save all the lightmix but we don't need them if they actually encapsuled in the cxr beauty.

[mike288]

Hi,

I have two request.

Is it possible to have a function to save the cxr automatically in jpg (at the same size not just a thumbail) after the rendering to have the file in jpeg for fast preview or browsing and the cxr for editing. When you have to launch tousand of rendering and can't see any of them in your browser it's quit fatidious.
Also the cxr format save all the lightmix but we don't need them if they actually encapsuled in the cxr beauty.

Hi, thanks for your feedback.

1) In VFB you can save into CXR and then into JPEG. Or you can open CXR in CIE and save it to JPEG later (either in GUI or easily in command-line version). I am afraid that saving to both formats at once wouldn't have much use case - why exactly save to CXR and JPEG, why not to PNG, why not to three formats etc. etc.

2) CXR saves all. This is one of the reasons why we have such format. If you don't want LightMix in CXR, disable it completely in Max. Or save to regular EXR if you want only beauty.

[kahein]

Hi, thanks for your feedback.

1) In VFB you can save into CXR and then into JPEG. Or you can open CXR in CIE and save it to JPEG later (either in GUI or easily in command-line version). I am afraid that saving to both formats at once wouldn't have much use case - why exactly save to CXR and JPEG, why not to PNG, why not to three formats etc. etc.

2) CXR saves all. This is one of the reasons why we have such format. If you don't want LightMix in CXR, disable it completely in Max. Or save to regular EXR if you want only beauty.

Hi,

we misunderstood.
I know I can save jpeg via the CIE but I would like to have thatt automatically. In my studio we render maybe thousand of images and dont have time to waste to open each of them and save them i jpeg.
When you open your folder with thousand of images with no thumbails preview its difficult to be efficient.
Plus the fact the Cxr save the pass of the light mix for nothing. I explain. When I save "MyFile.cxr" I have "MyFile.cxr" and all the lightmix.
But when I deleted the unecessary lightmix file, I can edit "MyFile.cxr" via CIE and use the lightmix. Why saving all that unecessary pass twice.

thanks

[mike288]

Hi,

we misunderstood.
I know I can save jpeg via the CIE but I would like to have thatt automatically. In my studio we render maybe thousand of images and dont have time to waste to open each of them and save them i jpeg.
When you open your folder with thousand of images with no thumbails preview its difficult to be efficient.
Plus the fact the Cxr save the pass of the light mix for nothing. I explain. When I save "MyFile.cxr" I have "MyFile.cxr" and all the lightmix.
But when I deleted the unecessary lightmix file, I can edit "MyFile.cxr" via CIE and use the lightmix. Why saving all that unecessary pass twice.

thanks

1) That is something we won't implement because it is too much specific to one usage scenario. But you can experiment with command-line version of CIE. It has been added to 1.6.1 hotfix version as an experimental stuff. You can script it to do what you require. Just open Windows console and try to start with the following command. It generates JPEGs for all CXR files in current directory. You can adjust it to your specific needs. ;-)

Code: [Select]

for %f in (*.cxr) do ( "C:\Program Files\Corona\CoronaImageCmd.exe" --element "BEAUTY" "%f" "%f.jpg" )
2) I still don't understand. If you render with LightMix, saved CXR will contain inside all light selects for the LightMix. It is one single file. If you delete it, you will have nothing. Unfortunately I don't understand what you mean. There is no data duplication. BEAUTY is rendered beauty, LightMix Interactive is virtual element composed in real-time from light selecting elements.

[mike288]

Hi,

we misunderstood.
I know I can save jpeg via the CIE but I would like to have thatt automatically. In my studio we render maybe thousand of images and dont have time to waste to open each of them and save them i jpeg.
When you open your folder with thousand of images with no thumbails preview its difficult to be efficient.
Plus the fact the Cxr save the pass of the light mix for nothing. I explain. When I save "MyFile.cxr" I have "MyFile.cxr" and all the lightmix.
But when I deleted the unecessary lightmix file, I can edit "MyFile.cxr" via CIE and use the lightmix. Why saving all that unecessary pass twice.

thanks

2) Oh, I see - you mean saved elements due settings made on the Render Elements tab (see the attachment)! OK, this is something which is being done by Max itself, not by Corona. If you setup LightMix and set Render Output on the Common tab, Max will automatically setup output paths on the Render Elements tab. As I understand it, such behavior is unfortunate for you, right? Would you like to have those render element paths empty if you set up the Render Output? I am not sure if we can do something about it, but I will talk to Ondra ...

[kahein]

Yes it's exactly that. So it a problem from Max. it would be great if we can tell Max to not saving those elements when a cxr is chooses.
Thanks for the script tip. It will be very helpful. It not specific to us. It's like exr
or open exr. It's annoying that they can't be thumbnail in windows browser.

[pokoy]

I haven't seen this requested (maybe missed it) but it would be very useful to be able to save out the B&G pass only, or as part of the 'Save All' command. Would this be possible to add?

[kahein]

Is it possible to add two Redo and Undo icons in the Post Tab in the curves panel and in the Lightmix tab. Because ctrl z act in the scene and not in vfb

[maru]

Is it possible to add two Redo and Undo icons in the Post Tab in the curves panel and in the Lightmix tab. Because ctrl z act in the scene and not in vfb

The request makes perfect sense, but I just could not help myself!
Every time I see a VFB/CIE request. :)

[mike288]

I haven't seen this requested (maybe missed it) but it would be very useful to be able to save out the B&G pass only, or as part of the 'Save All' command. Would this be possible to add?

Yes, there is already a feature request for that. Thank you.

[mike288]

Is it possible to add two Redo and Undo icons in the Post Tab in the curves panel and in the Lightmix tab. Because ctrl z act in the scene and not in vfb

Same in here - this is already recorded feature request. Thank you.

[Juraj]

Is it possible to add two Redo and Undo icons in the Post Tab in the curves panel and in the Lightmix tab. Because ctrl z act in the scene and not in vfb

The request makes perfect sense, but I just could not help myself!
Every time I see a VFB/CIE request. :)

I really have to restraint myself from requesting this stuff on weekly basis :- )

I still want vibrance...parametric highlights/shadows/blacks control.. just the whole ACR would be good.

[pokoy]

Shadow/Midtone/Highlight control would be fantastic, indeed.

Another thing that I'd find super helpful would be if the CXR would save some metadata and expose it. Most of the time, I'd like to see the final pass count, noise level and rendertime so if I have to re-render a part of the image something I know which pass count or noise level to aim for.

[Frood]

if the CXR would save some metadata and expose it.

It´s already there and has always been, even before Corona EXR was renamed to "CXR" :) Unfortunately it seems not possible to write this (textual) metadata to standard EXR max output as well (that´s what myself would LOVE to have for the reasons you mention). But Image Editor could easily reveal those stats imho (and itwould make perfect sense). I use ProEXR to view it in PS when needed, still had no time to test CIE in depth.


Good Luck

[maru]

This is already planned for the upcoming versions of CIE.

[pokoy]

Great! I'm always requesting something that's already on the list...

[mike288]

...
I still want vibrance...parametric highlights/shadows/blacks control.. just the whole ACR would be good.

I will add it to our feature list. Thanks.

[kahein]

Hi

Is it possible to resize via command the size of the cxr file;
ex. I render a 6k image and need to resize it at 1K or 2k ( due to the size of the 6k file above 5GB) so that someone could work on it on CIE, save the
work as .conf and reapply it on the 6k version ?

what is the best config needed for work at 6k with CIE with smooth and responsivness ?

[mike288]

Hi,

Is it possible to resize via command the size of the cxr file;
ex. I render a 6k image and need to resize it at 1K or 2k ( due to the size of the 6k file above 5GB) so that someone could work on it on CIE, save the
work as .conf and reapply it on the 6k version ?

no, command-line rescaling is not possible in current version. I will add it to our feature request list. Thanks.

what is the best config needed for work at 6k with CIE with smooth and responsivness ?

What kind of config do you mean?

[kahein]

I mean what is important for a smooth use of CIE
lot of ram, lot of thread, a fast ssd or HDD or maybe CIE will use the GPU for those task.
because at 6k the CIE is not smooth. you can wait maybe 5 sc after scrolling a vallue or just check uncheck a light visibility

[mike288]

I mean what is important for a smooth use of CIE
lot of ram, lot of thread, a fast ssd or HDD or maybe CIE will use the GPU for those task.
because at 6k the CIE is not smooth. you can wait maybe 5 sc after scrolling a vallue or just check uncheck a light visibility

CIE uses CPU for its tasks. It is heavily multithreaded so you will get major speedup from CPU upgrade.

RAM capacity does not affect speed unless your system does not need to swap to disk, i.e. you have enough memory to hold whole uncompressed image including all its elements (plus memory to satisfy requirements of your other running programs and the system itself, obviously). For instance, 6k single-element EXR without alpha channel takes about 240 MB of RAM.

Using SSD affects only loading/saving. On my system loading from SSD is about 2x faster than from standard HDD.

Computing LightMix is not so much CPU intensive task but a LOT of data has to be processed. So speed of RAM is probably the bottleneck there. More light select elements you have, more data has to be processed. Maybe you can group your lights into smaller number of light selects?

On my system using CIE is pretty much smooth for 6k images (if not denoising at the same time). I have a Ryzen 7 1700. Is VFB also slow for you?

[kahein]

I mean what is important for a smooth use of CIE
lot of ram, lot of thread, a fast ssd or HDD or maybe CIE will use the GPU for those task.
because at 6k the CIE is not smooth. you can wait maybe 5 sc after scrolling a vallue or just check uncheck a light visibility

CIE uses CPU for its tasks. It is heavily multithreaded so you will get major speedup from CPU upgrade.

RAM capacity does not affect speed unless your system does not need to swap to disk, i.e. you have enough memory to hold whole uncompressed image including all its elements (plus memory to satisfy requirements of your other running programs and the system itself, obviously). For instance, 6k single-element EXR without alpha channel takes about 240 MB of RAM.

Using SSD affects only loading/saving. On my system loading from SSD is about 2x faster than from standard HDD.

Computing LightMix is not so much CPU intensive task but a LOT of data has to be processed. So speed of RAM is probably the bottleneck there. More light select elements you have, more data has to be processed. Maybe you can group your lights into smaller number of light selects?

On my system using CIE is pretty much smooth for 6k images (if not denoising at the same time). I have a Ryzen 7 1700. Is VFB also slow for you?

I have a Dual xeon 2699 v4 with 128Gb of ram
I have light group for my ligths just I find  that the CIE is not smooth when switching the value rapidly or scrooling the spinner. I have to wait few second before seeing an effect. Note that the denoise is active on all the elements.

[Ryuu]

That's very strange. Could you please send us any EXR/CXR file you're having similar problem with? You can use the private uploader from my signature.

Also to repeat Mike's question: Are you having these problems only in CIE or do you see the same slow response also in VFB?

[kahein]

only on CIE

[mike288]

only on CIE

and is CIE the only performance-demanding process on the system while you are experiencing the issues?

I have a Dual xeon 2699 v4 with 128Gb of ram
I have light group for my ligths just I find  that the CIE is not smooth when switching the value rapidly or scrooling the spinner. I have to wait few second before seeing an effect. Note that the denoise is active on all the elements.

And BTW by "active denoise" you mean exactly what? That the elements has been denoised, or that you are denoising them while spinning LightMix spinners?

Still, please, can you upload the CXR so we can inspect it?

[steyin]

Can you guys add presets for the curve editor (like those in Photoshop's)? Yes I know you can save presets, but figured having a base to start from would be beneficial.

[mike288]

Can you guys add presets for the curve editor (like those in Photoshop's)? Yes I know you can save presets, but figured having a base to start from would be beneficial.

recording it as a feature request, thank you

[Tanakov]

Can you guys add presets for the curve editor (like those in Photoshop's)? Yes I know you can save presets, but figured having a base to start from would be beneficial.

recording it as a feature request, thank you

Can you also add % of usage? I often click "Equalize" and its just bit too strong, manualy changing stuff often gives me wobly effects.

[moriah]

Is it possible to add image sequence support? Unless i'm blind and don't see an option for it, it would be extremely useful!

[pokoy]

Is it possible to add image sequence support? Unless i'm blind and don't see an option for it, it would be extremely useful!

I think a batch mode for processing sequences has been added. Have a look at the latest version and the release notes, or look in this thread, I'm sure I saw this being discussed.

[TomG]

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=16428.0

Was the thread with info :)

[moriah]

Nice! Now it just needs to work with non-CXR images, at least EXR and i'm happy :P

[wiktorstankiewicz1]

I'd love to see save as TIFF feature, since that is the way I usually save my images

[scionik]

I'd love to see save as TIFF feature, since that is the way I usually save my images

+1

[mike288]

Nice! Now it just needs to work with non-CXR images, at least EXR and i'm happy :P

It should be possible to load EXR images. Not all features will be available (like denoising, LightMix, ...), but for instance tone mapping should work. And in the command-line version / batch script you can do pretty much the same as in the GUI version.

[mike288]

I'd love to see save as TIFF feature, since that is the way I usually save my images

Yes, adding support for saving TIFF images is planned.

[mike288]

JFYI, the possibility to display image's alpha channel (and any other single-channel render element) will be added to 1.7.

After trying to use CIE in production I see two major gaps:

- none of the LDR files I saved out had an alpha channel included. When inspecting a pixel, I can see there's alpha information so it's included in CXRs. In any case, we need alpha to be included in any format we save out, too.
- it looks like we have no way to save 16 bit images - we absolutely need this! Would it be possible to add TIFF files to the Save dialog with the common options like in PS (Alpha, LZW compression, 8/16/32 bits)? Saving to EXR would be sufficient IF PS could correctly convert 32 bits to 16 bits (which it unfortunately doesn't because it always shifts tones). Without TIFF with 16 bits, we miss a way to get 16 bits files out of CIE that match exactly what we see in Max VFB and CIE.

Other thoughts:
- when loading CXR images, I can only display the Beauty pass. What about displaying all the channels that are saved in the CXR? At least displaying alpha should be possible.
- could we have more steps when zooming in/out? Maybe in 1/4 steps instead of 1/2 like now?
- zooming seems to somewhat respect mouse pointer so it zooms into the area under it, but often it jumps either a bit or a lot. Not sure why this is but I feel this could improve, best would be the same behavior like in PS.

Thanks in advance!

Will be pretty fine option for /Image Background/ something same in Vray, for inserting others background images or correcting exist//
Something like opinion /Directly Visibility Override/ ---only in Image Editor...

OK, do you mean some kind of blending elements together - for instance like in LightMix, but not only for light selecting elements?

If not, could you please explain the missing feature in a bigger detail (what would be the inputs, what kind of output do you expect, does it relate to alpha somehow)?
Thank you.

 i must to have separate adjustments for lighting and visibility of background, same in Corona visibility background option//
For example: I have rendered picture with very bright sky HDR background for lighting scene, and want to play with brightness for
detail cloud visibility of the sky background  without changing lighting of the all scene,  /same i can to do in PS, but without using Image Editor/,and desirable to finish at all in Image Editor for getting the ending result without three-part application's, because now in Image Editor i don't have Alpha channel
, And I can not even save the image with alpha channel as png/tif/exr format's, for post-processing in PS and changing background of the sky///
Now for this tricks only with sky brightness, i must re-rendering whole picture /8 hour's of render/ or use only PS /not CIE/  for post-process :(////
In Vray VFB for example exist option /Load background Image/
In Corona Background's exist option /Direct visibility override/
Why do not to make the same thing in Corona Image Editor?//:)

[pokoy]

That's great!
One question, will we be able to display AND save out bloom&glare element separately from CIE, even if it wasn't saved in the CXR? That would be really useful.

[Ryuu]

Definitely not in 1.7. While this should be pretty simple to implement, we don't want to add any new functionality this close to release. There's always possibility of introducing new bugs, especially with simple "no big deal" modifications :)

[pokoy]

Definitely not in 1.7. While this should be pretty simple to implement, we don't want to add any new functionality this close to release. There's always possibility of introducing new bugs, especially with simple "no big deal" modifications :)

Sure, adding this for 1.8 is good enough ;)
Thanks!

[mike288]

Yay, I helped! Haha, but seriously, it sounds like there isn't a way to "rebuild" an exr in a way that CIE can read it. I guess it's not the end of the world, we'll just have to add bloom and glare to the beauty pass in CIE instead of being able to save it out as a separate element.

I haven't seen this requested (maybe missed it) but it would be very useful to be able to save out the B&G pass only, or as part of the 'Save All' command. Would this be possible to add?

That's great!
One question, will we be able to display AND save out bloom&glare element separately from CIE, even if it wasn't saved in the CXR? That would be really useful.

Implemented. The possibility to view and save separate Bloom and Glare element will be merged into one of the forthcoming daily builds. Track the changelog for it.

[pokoy]

Ah that's great, many thanks for this!

[AM_visualization]

Hi, i've a question...is possible when using vr image add some stuff to add the hotspot to link the image to create a panotour?

Thanks

[mike288]

Hi, i've a question...is possible when using vr image add some stuff to add the hotspot to link the image to create a panotour?

Thanks

Hi, there is no such feature in CIE right now.

[AM_visualization]

Hi, i've a question...is possible when using vr image add some stuff to add the hotspot to link the image to create a panotour?

Thanks

Hi, there is no such feature in CIE right now.

hi, i know that right now there isnt the possibility to do that, i'ma asking if is possible have it:)
i know that is possible to do it by max, but it will be wonderfull and more simple (for me..) have this kind instead of image editor, it wull be fast change linked image....

[mike288]

Hi, i've a question...is possible when using vr image add some stuff to add the hotspot to link the image to create a panotour?

Thanks

Hi, there is no such feature in CIE right now.

hi, i know that right now there isnt the possibility to do that, i'ma asking if is possible have it:)
i know that is possible to do it by max, but it will be wonderfull and more simple (for me..) have this kind instead of image editor, it wull be fast change linked image....

OK, I have added it to our feature requests list. Thanks.

[denisgo22]

Hi Guys and Corona Team///
I propose to adding in CIE menu some useful information about opened cxr. file /same in Corona VFB/
etc---noise level/number of passes/ time counter for Denoising process and may be something others positions:)

[maru]

This has already been requested, so we will have it. :)

[denisgo22]

CIE always saving PNG/EXR/ images without Alpha channel at all from CIE lightmix mode/
if saving same thing From corona VFB lightmix mode --- always ok///
This Bug or known limitation?
Corona DB 18 max 2017//

[mike288]

Yes, it is a bug a needs to be fixed. We already know about it. Thank you.

[Frood]

Feature request/proposal:

Please add additional directory paths for save/load images and save/load .conf files:

Currently save and load operations share the same location. There should be at least two independend ones for load and save. You have to play ping-pong when you want so save a jpg out of your CXRs into another directory. Save directory would default to load directory at the beginning of a session but remeber the save path when changed for the first time without affecting the load path.

Saving/loading .conf files could be handled alike maybe.


Good Luck

[mike288]

Feature request/proposal:

Please add additional directory paths for save/load images and save/load .conf files:

Currently save and load operations share the same location. There should be at least two independend ones for load and save. You have to play ping-pong when you want so save a jpg out of your CXRs into another directory. Save directory would default to load directory at the beginning of a session but remeber the save path when changed for the first time without affecting the load path.

Saving/loading .conf files could be handled alike maybe.


Good Luck

Thanks! ... Recording it as a feature request into our tracking system.

[pokoy]

Just tested the latest CIE from the 2018-02-20 daily.

It's great to have a separate B&G channel now - many thanks for this! But I miss a way to save a beauty image without the B&G pass. The reasoning behind my initial request for a separate B&G pass was to be able to split them right out of the CIE. As of now, I have to save a beauty with B&G, the separate B&G pass, and then disable B&G and save another beauty image without the B&G.
To improve this, can we get a dialog upon 'Save All' that would list all available passes? Like this:

• Beauty with B&G
• Beauty without B&G
• B&G channel

The dots would be checkboxes. I know it's another burden for you but the current behavior is only half way done in terms of a convenient workflow. I guess you could also add other channels to the Save All dialog in the future that way, and many users would probably like to have that, too.

[TomG]

You can already set up a Virtual Beauty in your render, which can have B&G disabled, giving you Beauty with it, and Virtual Beauty without it, would that work?

[pokoy]

You can already set up a Virtual Beauty in your render, which can have B&G disabled, giving you Beauty with it, and Virtual Beauty without it, would that work?

Not if I want to set up final post processing in the CIE, because than then Beauty saved in Max (for example) won't match with the one from CIE (let's presume I want to do all the work in CIE). So I'd still end up with doing the manual saving procedure.

The background is I don't want to spend any CPU cycles and memory on B&G and sharpening & blurring (S&B?) - I'd like to do this in the CIE, and ideally it should allow to do all of this in batch mode (pass saving options also available in batch mode). Hope that makes sense, I have to admit my mind is kind of blurry at late hours these days ;)

[mike288]

Just tested the latest CIE from the 2018-02-20 daily.

It's great to have a separate B&G channel now - many thanks for this! But I miss a way to save a beauty image without the B&G pass. The reasoning behind my initial request for a separate B&G pass was to be able to split them right out of the CIE. As of now, I have to save a beauty with B&G, the separate B&G pass, and then disable B&G and save another beauty image without the B&G.
To improve this, can we get a dialog upon 'Save All' that would list all available passes? Like this:

• Beauty with B&G
• Beauty without B&G
• B&G channel

The dots would be checkboxes. I know it's another burden for you but the current behavior is only half way done in terms of a convenient workflow. I guess you could also add other channels to the Save All dialog in the future that way, and many users would probably like to have that, too.

Recording it as a feature request. Meanwhile it should be relatively easy to make a script running CIE's command-line version twice: once with B&G turned on, once with B&G turned off. Other postprocessing options or LightMix options could be loaded from config files. You can even script it to loop over all files in a directory performing the stuff in batch. See bottom of the https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/12000030886 article where you can download a script which could be your start point.

[pokoy]

Ok, thanks so far. It would preferable to have that in the CIE rather soon but I guess it needs another batch of work in a place which you thought was finished probably.

Something different - I believe there are still problems with alpha when using either B&G or S&B and using saved EXRs in After Effects, for example. I got some nasty vertical lines yesterday when working in AE in a 32bits comp, and while switching the comp to 8bits or 16bits wasn't as bad the alpha channel had odd artifacts on the white/black borders. This was with an image from an NDA project so I'd need to find a good repro case. As far as I remember it was reported a few times on the forum already. Not sure if it's limited to CIE only or if the issue is present in the Max plugin, too. I'll try to find some time to dig a bit deeper and give you a useful repro case.

[mike288]

Ok, thanks so far. It would preferable to have that in the CIE rather soon but I guess it needs another batch of work in a place which you thought was finished probably.

Unfortunately I cannot give you any time estimations.

Something different - I believe there are still problems with alpha when using either B&G or S&B and using saved EXRs in After Effects, for example. I got some nasty vertical lines yesterday when working in AE in a 32bits comp, and while switching the comp to 8bits or 16bits wasn't as bad the alpha channel had odd artifacts on the white/black borders. This was with an image from an NDA project so I'd need to find a good repro case. As far as I remember it was reported a few times on the forum already. Not sure if it's limited to CIE only or if the issue is present in the Max plugin, too. I'll try to find some time to dig a bit deeper and give you a useful repro case.

Aha, I am not sure whether we know about this bug. Is it in daily? Do you have a forum link where it has been reported? It would be great if you could also provide us a scene or/and CXR where it is happening. You know the private uploader ...

[pokoy]

I'll give it a go later and see if I can reproduce, I guess it will happen with any scene but need to find out what exactly causes it. Thanks!

[pokoy]

I'll give it a go later and see if I can reproduce, I guess it will happen with any scene but need to find out what exactly causes it. Thanks!

Thanks!

Found some time to test it - turns out it's not a CIE specific problem and it's not a problem with alpha but the beauty and probably any other element when using Sharpen & Blur.
Posted in Bug Reports: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=19423.0

[mike288]

I'll give it a go later and see if I can reproduce, I guess it will happen with any scene but need to find out what exactly causes it. Thanks!

Thanks!

Found some time to test it - turns out it's not a CIE specific problem and it's not a problem with alpha but the beauty and probably any other element when using Sharpen & Blur.
Posted in Bug Reports: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=19423.0

Thanks for that!

[mike288]

Hey CIE is a beautiful tool - very usefull :) Most of my spotted bugs are corrected in the Hotfix but still:
Tone mapping + LUT is applied on maps where it should not (ZDepth, ID...).

Thank you.

Hi, CIE in next Corona v2 daily build will correctly limit tone mapping (and gamma) only to those render elements that are expected to be tone mapped, as it is in Corona VFB.

[Dippndots]

Would it be possible to save 16-bit PNGs from the CIE?

We suffer from that obnoxious 3ds Max bug where we can't save PNGs directly out of the render, so our workflow at the moment is to render to CEXR, save EXRs from CIE and then batch process them to 16-Bit PNGs in photoshop, which we then use for the final image building.

[mike288]

Would it be possible to save 16-bit PNGs from the CIE?

We suffer from that obnoxious 3ds Max bug where we can't save PNGs directly out of the render, so our workflow at the moment is to render to CEXR, save EXRs from CIE and then batch process them to 16-Bit PNGs in photoshop, which we then use for the final image building.

Recording it as a feature request. Thanks.

[sprayer]

Could you discuss feature of making CIE free or new free tool for a purpose of sending render with lightmix to client for adjusting colors on their own? Or web service, or executive standalone file with lightmix image.

[mike288]

Could you discuss feature of making CIE free or new free tool for a purpose of sending render with lightmix to client for adjusting colors on their own? Or web service, or executive standalone file with lightmix image.

Thank you. Recording it as a feature request/idea. Meanwhile, even now you can use CIE for 45 days for free. So you can send CoronaImage.exe (eventually with required DLLs) to the client together with renders and he/she can do the magic ...

[pokoy]

Thanks for finally implementing 16 bit output to TIF - great!

One thing though - if Alpha channel is ticked, the resulting TIF opens with the alpha already applied to the image (pixels in black alpha areas already removed). I'd prefer it to be saved as a separate alpha channel, just like when you save it from Max. Is this possible?

[pokoy]

Can anyone comment on the alpha with TIF post above?

Also, is there a way to inspect a CXR file in CIE, I'd be interested to see the meta-information like passes rendered, noise level, render time, or whatever else there might be included. But mostly pass count, noise level and render time.

[Ryuu]

Hi, we're currently investigating the alpha issue.

AFAIK there's currently no way to view the metadata in CIE. It is planned, but it is not really among the highest priorities, to be honest.

[pokoy]

Hi, we're currently investigating the alpha issue.

AFAIK there's currently no way to view the metadata in CIE. It is planned, but it is not really among the highest priorities, to be honest.

Ok, thank you.

The metadata would be very useful, if only to see what the render time or pass number was so you can match the quality if you need to re-render something.

[pokoy]

Another request (I know I'm getting annoying with all those requests) - if rendering to CXR with Denoiser set to 'Gather data for later', would it be possible to include both datasets, for Quality AND Fast denoiser? I figure we probably want to have all options available in CIE if choosing that option. Is this possible?

[lupaz]

This is already planned for the upcoming versions of CIE.

Is this done in Corona 7?

EDIT: I'm actually using CIE 6 because of the slowdown that CIE 7 had.