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Messages - RickToxik

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31
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: Corona Scatter
« on: 2015-08-19, 18:13:04 »
That was with Maya 2015, yeah the v2.0 is already the default - I did not know they were going to remove it from Maya though.  I am pretty sure that they are aware of the viewport 2.0 limitations and potential long load times, since it relies on GPU for refreshing...  Yeah maybe you're right I should probably flag this to Autodesk, but at the same time, huge scenes are common in maya, so probably many people have experienced "viewport 2.0 Processing...." issues.  Thanks for your kind comments : )

32
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: Corona Scatter
« on: 2015-08-18, 23:06:26 »
We had to use several tricks to optimize the scene, split the scene in references, work with instances.  Our biggest problem was to work efficiently in the viewport.  Viewport 2.0 was our biggest problem throughout this scene production.  If it was selected when opening the scene we could wait 15 minutes just to open the maya file, and at some point we were not able to open the scene at all with viewport 2.0.  Since we were working on other scenes that relied on viewport 2.0 feedback (glyph projections), it has been a nightmare to work with this scene only because of viewport issues.

My vegetation was on a display layer that had a bounding box display override that I could toggle on and off when I needed to place things, and the scene was modelled in a half-cylinder manner that I instanced at the end.  Because we were working with references for all the parts of the scene, we could unload and load at will, freeing ressources on the computer when working on a particular task..

Here is wip of one section of the shot.  The end result was not as good as I was hoping but this kind of shot with tv deadlines can get crazy lol..


33
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: Corona Scatter
« on: 2015-08-17, 02:00:02 »
Until I can paint live proxies with xgen, I'm sticking with sppaint3d...  I've created a scene with around 600 millions polygons (if I remember correctly...) of vegetation for a tv show with it, vines and trees all scattered among towers of apartments.  It really made the job we had to do possible.

I use it all the time for vegetation in my scenes, you just have to force display bounding boxes or proxy boxes and you can scatter hundred of millions of polys on the fly - as instances or copies : )

34
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-07-20, 23:39:50 »
Hi,

  I might not be plugging things properly, but I cannot plug the alpha channel of my file (tif, exr, png...) into the opacity slot of the corona surface.  It works with other renderers / shaders, but the same alpha channel is not properly read by corona.  It renders like semi transparent, full on or full off.

  Like I said, it might be an error on my side.

35
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-07-14, 05:15:23 »
Hi Hamburger!

Yeah the built in hdri works pretty good (no .hdr though), it renders quite fast.  Like I thought, lighting with a sphere with a hdr texture does not produce the same results as lighting with the environment, it's a lot more noisy.

I did not know the sun and sky were not accurate though, i had good results when I played around with them...

Yes the scene rotation is definitly the only way to go I guess currently! 

36
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-07-13, 22:40:08 »
Hi Haggi,

  I would have an archviz project for a client that would be perfect for testing Maya to Corona: no deadline, awesome model, interior exterior with glass and several rooms, etc.

  I am very nervous though about not being able to rotate my hdr / environment, I fear that my client would ask for lighting changes late in the process and I have multiple lighting conditions to render...  Is there any workaround that I could use, like lighting with an emissive dome? Would it mess with any importance sampling process?

  It would be very cool to do this project with Corona, I am waiting for your ideas : )

37
[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Re: *Most wanted tutorial topics*
« on: 2015-07-02, 18:28:07 »
Anything in Maya!!  : )

38
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-07-02, 17:30:42 »
Cool!!  Thanks, keep up the good work : )

What's already in MayatoCorona is really stable.

39
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-07-02, 05:56:40 »
Hi!

  I was wondering how do I rotate my EXR environment for IBL?  I thought I was able to do it before but no, it seems that the place2D node attached to the environment file does not have any effect.

  Also, in the case that it would be possible to rotate it: since we do not have IPR or the Corona frame buffer yet, it could be cool to have a visual feedback of the dome in the viewport as an option.  Will the Corona Frame buffer provide realtime feedback for lighting?

Thanks!!

40
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-06-14, 18:33:41 »
Hi!

  yes the sampler info => ramp => fresnel map works as expected, exactly as a falloff map would do in 3Ds max indeed.  Being a bit of a lazy node connecter, I admit I would not use that setup all the time or I would script it because of the complex setup to build for it  It works good though and does what it's expected to do.

41
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-06-10, 13:35:44 »
Hi Haggi!

- Personally, I mostly use the Remap Value (for Alpha), Remap HSV (for RGB) and Gamma utility nodes.  If you have to recreate from scratch you could build a custom color correction node specific to corona, but imho I think it's better to stick to maya's philosophy / nodes: that way, the renderer can play well with mel and python scripts floating around as it keeps the same input and output names, attributes, etc....

- Yeah the framebuffer I meant the highly experimental lol..  It crashed maya 2015 as soon as I was launching a render view

- I will read the docs and look around concerning the fresnel map, as I don't know how to use it right now.  In 3ds Max, people use mostly the falloff map to control the amount of reflection at 0 and 90 degree with a curve.  The idea is to have more control than a linear curve.  In 3ds max it can be set to control other things than parallel / perpendicular reflections, but I believe that's the main usage.
http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-B3F75800-E884-467B-A4D1-C95702BFA15F-htm.html
The ability to control fresnel with a map is very cool it would be nice to be able to control the amount of fresnel with a curve (there are curves and ramps in many nodes in maya) - just an idea coming from 3ds max : )

- For the layered texture, yeah it would be totally awesome to have it if possible!!

edit: After reading the docs, I did not know corona maya already supported some utility nodes, I will use those already supported!

42
[Archive] Chaos Corona for Maya / Re: mayaToCorona 0.41
« on: 2015-06-09, 18:53:43 »
Hi Haggi,

  thank you for letting me join the beta.  My first impression are that I am very pleased with Maya to Corona, it looks really stable, very responsive, well-featured and nicely integrated into maya for a beta.  I do miss all the utility nodes of maya but I guess some of them will come along the way some day.

  I have noted all the little things that were not behaving as expected - or some ideas - but it's really nothing...  I was able to complete a first scene as I would with any other renderer.  I only had one crash but I don't think it's related to Corona.  When I started from a new scene it has been 100% stable.

So, my notes are:

- IPR not working

- frame buffer crashes

- absorption / sss values changes do not appear in shader swatch

- It would be nice to link attribute of the sun intensity in the render settings (along with the sky multiplier) instead of going in shape tab

- For the fresnel map of the corona surface, it would be AWESOME to add a falloff map like in 3DS max, maya users have wished that for a long time.  Would it not be possible to hack a ramp from the Remap Value node of maya and control fresnel ramp with that?  I did not find any info on this fresnel map attribute, not sure how to use it.

- maybe add a multiplier for file environment, when you use an exr to hdri you scene.  I did not know how to light properly with those, the luminosity was too dark and could not fix it...

- ctrl-leftClick-slide in the render settings do not step correctly for some values, maybe lower the step (highlight compression, contrast)

- contrast does not go below 1.000

- Autosave crashed once...  I will look further into that - I was not able never to repoen my .ma (I started from an old scene though)

- no support for hdr, from what I understood in the forums?

- corona surface does not appear in my right-click menu favorite materials, even though it's added as a favorite material

- There is no turbidity for Hosek and Rawafake, how do you add atmospheric dirt for those two...  without a volumetric solution...?

- Could we have an option in maya for converting to tx?  Arnold does it and even replaces a jpg with the tx version at render time - so you can still view your textures in viewport 2.0 and render with mipmapped.


Finally, some questions:

1. Are the Corona surface shaders energy-conservative?  They looked blown-out with high diffuse and reflection in my hypershade?

2. I know that you cannot support maya nodes, but it would be very useful to have something like the layered texture, I use it all the time...  I know that there is a corona layered shader.  Having an ambient occlusion texture and dirt texture would be cool too.  AO is a must I think : )

3.  You mentionned in the first email you have sent me that there was a "pdf" (for maya to corona?).  Can you link me to it, maybe a sticky thread for that would be useful, even if it's not updated at each version of the beta.  It was supposed to indicate which maya nodes were supported.  Any generic info on

THANK YOU!  I love my new toy : )  I was really surprised how stable and responsive the plugin was.  Congrats!

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