Messages

91

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-03-21, 13:43:43 »

I would say “no” on the denoiser.
BigAl3D, that iMac has a lot of life left in her. Pretty ok result for a 5y old.

I’m not sure what my expectation for the ultra was but that score is in line with Philw’s Max best 4:25 min score. Ultra doubling Max power.
I think the important number here is the rays/s to make things comparable.
I was sort of hoping the Ultra to be in the 12M rays/s range, only because all my I9 10 cores hover around 6M r/s. Wanted to see at least double the power.
This Ultra comes in at 9.7M r/s, that’s according to the benchmark list the middle ground for Ryzen 9 5950X 16 core but also some older 32 cores rippers
If the coming Mac Pro Extreme doubles the Ultra to 20M r/s that would still barley touch a 64 core ripper. They mostly cruise around 25-30M r/s

@ Philw’s any updates on the render power weirdness between PV and VFB?
I don’t know the first thing about coding, but maybe corona M1 code optimization will be able to squeeze out more power in the future?

@piredude Did you run just 1 test or multiple with the same result?
Any difference when rendering only to PV or to PV+VFB? Just for comparison, can you also run the corona benchmark? I’m curious to see the rays/s there 

92

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-03-20, 23:10:46 »

Let's find out if this is fast,
Philw can you pour some gasoline into your ripper and run it to the same 4.2% noise?

frv is right, maybe we should run this test at a more real world rez like 4k/ 3% noise?

93

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Mask for light material

« on: 2022-03-20, 21:38:01 »

Lol, that’s pretty bad design then.
Not arguing here with you, but hover with your mouse pointer over corona sky or c4d sky… both are “objects” and nothing is real…

So, there is no way to mask out a sky object? Seems pretty basic and sky replacement is a daily thing in archviz/ photo.
I always used the prehistoric technique of an upscaled sphere object with tons of unnecessary polys and phong tag.
I’m looking for a better way.   

94

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Mask for light material

« on: 2022-03-20, 14:18:11 »

Basically the comp tag gets ignored on a sky object. Tried with corona sky and c4d sky.
When I put the same light mat and comp tag on a regular sphere I get a mask.
Is this a known bug? When I search the forum for “composition tag on sky object ignored” I get nothing.

95

[C4D] I need help! / Re: Mask for light material

« on: 2022-03-18, 18:22:55 »

Nothing? Nobody?

96

[C4D] I need help! / Mask for light material

« on: 2022-03-14, 18:01:06 »

I use a Corona sky w/ HDRi for lighting and a c4d-sky w/ light material -no emit light -tonemap shader sky image (Comp tag: only seen by cam, buffer 1). See attached. ** I need a mask for the c4d-sky image.
Double-checked all checkboxes…
I get the mask layer but no mask. What am I missing?

97

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Thin shell transparency settings v8

« on: 2022-03-08, 00:17:26 »

Hi frv,
I just went through the same thing. Updated some trees to PBR mat and even with "same" transparency, the trees looked very different.
Kind of "dull". I ran out of time to experiment and just went back to legacy.
Did you find a solution for PBR mats? Any tips what to try? 

98

General CG Discussion / Re: Job contract & number of revsions?

« on: 2022-03-07, 15:19:06 »

I think it depends on the initial price you charge, how many revisions this would allow.
I break down my pricing into 3 parts.

• “Building 3D model” from construction plans - 1 clay render / revision. Any structural changes, +50% of base price.
• “Staging / materials” - first preview,1revision, second preview included. Any additional revision +50% of “staging” base price.
• “Rendering” price. - incl. rendering, retouching, print and web file output. Any additional image, if no addl. modeling or staging is required will cost the “rendering” price.

I let my clients know that I can offer “this great price” because I don’t factor in several revisions that are not needed if communication is clear from the start..
Also, if several revisions are “needed”, let your client know at each step how much the additional cost is. Money is the ONLY language clients understand.
Your situation is even better because you can address the “revisions til death” with them from the beginning.

99

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-02-28, 18:45:24 »

I picked the 8min mark on the M1max to find a noise or pass level that is challenging enough and doesn’t take too long to test.
Ultimately, this test is to find out how Apple Silicon compares to Intel/AMD in a “real world” scenario.
Since there’s such a big difference in render time with VFB on or off and also the macOs power settings, maybe it’s best to first figure out what’s going on there, before setting test parameters?

@Philw is there any difference when rendering to PV, opening VFB to establish the connection and closing VFB again? Or you only get the faster times after c4d restart and no connection between PV and VFB?

100

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-02-27, 21:45:04 »

I would say that's a LOT better!
Definitely strange that the VFB might throttle performance.
Maybe other M1 users can confirm this?   

101

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-02-27, 20:12:43 »

Interesting… So instead of Intel’s thermal throttling, there might be a apple imposed performance throttle.
   
While the M1max was about 14% faster in the grapes c4d physical scene, it was about 56% slower in Corona native M1.
Not sure what this all means, but might be helpful info for the corona team.

Out of curiosity, I TR’ed this scene with 2x 10c/20t + 1x 8c/16t (closest I can get to your 32c/64t) set to your rippers 403 passes.
Took 8:52. This result makes sense.

102

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-02-27, 17:03:35 »

Hi Philw,
Thanks for running this test.
I ran the test again set to your 4.2% noise level. Strangely it finished in 3:30
I assumed the M1max is faster than my 10850K.
Did you have any demanding things running in the background?
The only difference I can see from your screenshot, your build is Feb. 16 and I’m on Feb. 1
Any idea what’s going on?

Don't worry about Team Render. That brings with it too many other variables to be useful as a "how good is my CPU at rendering a real job?" question.

You’re definitely right about “too many variables”, but still can help deciding if replacing cheap render nodes with a ripper is worth it.

103

[C4D] General Discussion / Render nodes as a separate purchase starting in V8

« on: 2022-02-26, 21:54:02 »

First off, let me say that I understand that Corona needs to raise prices since everything else around us is getting more expensive.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game!
I also understand that for current license holders “everything” will stay the same in regard to render nodes.
In this blog post from last year https://blog.corona-renderer.com/corona-in-2022-new-features-visuals-licensing-and-more/ you talk about node usage data and how small players subsidizing big players that heavily use render nodes.
While I do have a 3 node license and won’t be effected (for now…), I think leaving a small tier 3 nodes or 2 or heck, even 1 node would be very helpful for the “small players”. 
According to the yearly 3 and 5 node price difference, you valued 1 render node at €30 that will jump 233% to €100.
3 render nodes will then cost more than a full license. 
When it comes to “subsidizing big players”, one could argue that c4d users have for years subsidized Corona Scatter and the Corona DR solution for max users, while we used the c4d build-in tools like the fragile team render framework and mograph, etc.

I honestly believe that this move will hurt the “small players” the most, that already struggle with pricing their renderings in this economy.
I also have the feeling that it’s probably just a matter of time that “grandfathered” licenses will loose their nodes too.

So how about, every license comes with 3 nodes included and after that €100 per node? Win/Win for all?!
Thank you, Chaos-rona!!! 

104

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-02-26, 19:06:58 »

This scene was also my first contact with Corona and blew my mind back then…
“The only concern, is it challenging enough for a real test?”
I know exactly what you mean and of course you don't care about 1.5 sec, but if 50% faster means 2 hrs instead of 4 I'm sure you do care.
I ran the scene again with a 2% noise level and it rendered in 16:22. That might be a bit long for the casual tester.
If Philw is up for it and wants to test this on his M1 and Threadripper and establish a noise level  on the M1 around the 8 min mark… Maybe that’s a good compromise?
Unfortunately this scene doesn’t render in TR as is, need to remove
“WhiteGlass” > vray comp tag.
Would love to see how fast M1 + ripper renders this scene to 2% noise

I mostly render 6-8K stills to 3% noise and 4-6hrs is "normal" for me. If I can get this down 50% for a reasonable price, I'd be more than happy.

105

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: Corona for Apple Silicon M1?

« on: 2022-02-25, 20:31:09 »

@Philw's render time of 3:07 is good, but barely faster than my 2017 iMac Pro. Granted, this thing cost a lot back then. Maybe $,8000. Can't remember.

Let’s not forget we are talking about a laptop here. I still think it’s pretty impressive.
I’m also waiting for that Mac Pro (mini) with several SOC’s glued together, and knowing how well this scales from a M1max or how it compares to a threadripper in corona is useful info.
All my intel macs are currently heating my workspace, which I can also clearly see on my electric bill. So, yes please give me something less power hungry.
Just for reference, that i9-10850k/64GB was a $1k build (no gpu - only render node)

There is this very old free scene on the blog https://blog.corona-renderer.com/corona-c4d-a1-1/ that might be useful.
It popped up a missing plugin warning but strangely didn’t ask to convert any corona assets to new core.
- delete vray bridge and GI from render settings
- changed the pass limit 9999 to 5% noise
- turn off bloom and glare in corona/ camera tab!!!
Could this be good scene for testing?