Author Topic: With all due respect to the Corona team  (Read 46773 times)

2016-10-27, 13:50:25
Reply #15

denisgo22

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possible of course add to each menu button tab:
Noob/Professional/Genius
same in Vray, which will greatly facilitate the task of finding the right tick and solves all problems  :)))
« Last Edit: 2016-10-27, 14:07:55 by denisgo22 »

2016-10-27, 14:27:06
Reply #16

GabaCGStudio

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I don't like ponies.

i don't like this:

2016-10-27, 14:58:24
Reply #17

vhector

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Simple,.... go use the ac6 version if you think the new features ar to complecated...... And it's free..

Because, I don't want to go back... interactive lightmixure and stuff... Me lika play.....

2016-10-27, 15:16:07
Reply #18

sebastian___

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I think Corona user interface elements are simple enough. I know there is a help article explaining with pics what LSM and GI vs AA is, but is there a video tutorial too with some practical examples and maybe rare cases when you would want to increase/decrease LSM ?
Perhaps for faster preview purposes, when you don't care about AA, but care for the overall picture quality.

Or you could just make the interface like this :

Perhaps with a little mario like character or mr clippy, running and slapping the mouse cursor if you touch something you shouldn't.


2016-10-27, 15:29:16
Reply #19

TomG

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Splitting off some things as actionable items, let us know about which parameters or tooltips you find hardest to understand. Feel free to keep the general conversation here going of course, but nice to have specific information distilled out in one place, in this case to help with tooltip improvements or see where new tutorials might be beneficial.

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,13645.msg87896

Thanks!
  Tom
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2016-10-27, 15:54:19
Reply #20

Sintel

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2016-10-27, 16:17:05
Reply #21

aldola

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i remember the days of learning advanced irrandiance map parameters to avoid splotches, antialiasing settings, and all kind of optimizations to not have huge render times..

now with corona this is gone..  sincerely i don´t understand people that want it simpler than it is

2016-10-27, 16:37:25
Reply #22

Ludvik Koutny

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There is one very common misconception that flexibility always equals to complexity. I remember it especially from my Mental Ray days, when whenever I would mention that something in Mental Ray is unnecessarily complicated, a mob of die hard users would storm me with arguments like "But look how flexible it is, it needs to have all these controls and wonky workflows because in the real production you often need to supersample the quantum waveform subsampler!"

In reality, settings can be easily divided into three groups: Visual (Scene look), Performance and Utility (System) and you can see how Corona render settings UI follows this division philosophy. While Corona team works at adding more Visual and Performance settings to make sure Corona can withstand all sorts of production requirements, they at the same time keep working on the smarter mechanism that allows them to remove Performance settings, and handle them automatically under the hood, to lift the burden of tweaking from users' backs.

If you need to render hair and skin, and Corona does not support hair and skin, then there is no question that hair and skin should sooner or later be added, because it becomes a matter of "I can vs I can not do the task with my renderer". Where as performance settings usually only balance output between speed or quality, they do not affect your image in artistic way. You never say "I want to keep my displacement less detailed because it looks better" or "I want to keep my render noisy/flickering because I like that style". So those can be removed without issues.

Then there is an issue of the amount of artistic settings. You will have to face the truth here, and realize you can't have your own renderer with exact feature set cut out just for you. If you do archviz, and don't use shadowcatcher or rayswitcher or hair or skin, that doesn't mean those things should be absent. On the contrary, they may save you migration to different renderer one day, when some more unexpected requirement comes from your client.

Now, it doesn't mean Corona will have to become as complex as V-Ray for example in order to become fully featured renderer. If you compare main features of Corona to for example V-Ray, you will realize there's not really that much more catching up to do. In general, it's just Hair, Skin shader and 3D volumetrics. Hair will be in form of a modifier and one new material, skin shader will be another new material, and 3D volumetric will be atmospheric effects. None of these need to have a single knob in render settings. If you are archviz user and will never use these, they will be out of your way.

Again, to clarify, the preconception that if Corona catches up with V-Ray, it will be equally as complicated is simply wrong. Corona team is already 80% there, and if anything, they are actually cleaning the UI up. You can see the effort for example in the clean up of several settings inside of the separate system-wide settings window, where settings that are not often accessed got out of your way.

Now, there is a proposal on the table to do even bigger cleanup in one of the future version. Basically, right now, render settings acts as a centralized dashboard of the entire scene, while there are other renderers that adopted arguably better solution of putting most of the settings into appropriate scene elements. This is how it would look in practice:


And this is how render settings could potentially look after the cleanup.


If everything went well, we could eventually achieve a state where you would need to open render settings only in some rare cases, where you would need to do advanced things, such as setup material override, distributed rendering, etc... but if you were just after look development and scene building, you could stay completely away from them.
« Last Edit: 2016-10-27, 16:42:09 by Rawalanche »

2016-10-27, 16:45:57
Reply #23

astudio

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Quote
Simple,.... go use the ac6 version if you think the new features ar to complecated...... And it's free..

Because, I don't want to go back... interactive lightmixure and stuff... Me lika play.....

As I understand this type of users - they sure that they are pretty familar with current options.

Try to explain me why in color picker with sRGB "on" I have RGB values in sRGB and HSB in RGB.

The reason for this post was announced PBR and compatibility with Megascans. I spent 2 days in trying to use this and can't.

You need to use Glossy in linear space but albedo and specularity map in sRGB.
I made a standart material with this maps and converted it into Corona.
If you use specular map in specular map slot in standart - Corona just dismiss it.
If you use specular map in specular level slot - Corona translate it as reflection.
But if you use it in sRGB mode you get reflectivity 4%.
And so on.

Dear user. Are you sure that you understand differents between specularity in megascans terms and reflectivity in Corona terms? And how to translate one to another. I don't.

I vote for all new Corona options. But explain please when and how to use them.

If you give Pinlight blending mode - explain what is use case? Even in Photoshop it's not cleare ;)
If you announce Megascans - explain please how to translate it.

Videotutorials - it's great but take a lot of time for you to prepare them. And take in mind that they are more for beginers. Other way you spend a lot of time to listen for all this things, that you always know in hope to find what you are really need. 

Simple help file will be great here:
1. Choose map...
2. Change Gamma override to 1.
3. Put in reflection glossy slot ...
and so on...


When we talk about PBR - explain please how to use all this that it will be PBR.

 

2016-10-27, 17:17:29
Reply #24

Frood

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It is just pretty hard to do. So... ideas? ;)

Without showing up with the large scale concept but almost only reading comments about showing/hiding stuff (UI discussion) here´s a small mixed snack. Meanwhile Rawa posted the maximum thinkable UI cleanup and there are overlaps, posting it anyway as is.

A) Adaptivity/Noise level/stop condition handling

- try to establish noise level to generally control image quality and as primary stop condition, hide passes/pass limit (-> dev stuff)
- make recalc interval TIME dependend and/or
- make adaptivity working on slaves again, while their results contribute to the calculated noise level and recalc interval just like rendering a pass locally

B) Camera handling / override confusion

- try to remove Camera tab completely from render setup, call it "Post" as in cVFB, remove all DOF/photographic stuff from there to lower those camera override confusions, then:

- split cCameraMod into cCameraMod ("Basic Settings", "Camera Projection", add motion blur overrides here and finally change DOF force off to real DOF override there, see mantis issue #1360) and another mod called maybe "cPostMod" with "Tone Mapping", "Bloom and Glare", "Vignette", add "LUT opacity" and "Denoise amount" there with potential to get extended.

- create a live link from/to cVFB to cCameraMod/physicalCamera

C) Defaults that work fine usually but need to be in users grasp

- move MSI, ray depth, LSM and GI/AA and Image Filter (maybe not including highlight clamping) to dev stuff sandbox (which is de facto the "advanced users menu" for parameters which may stay or will get automated)


Good Luck



Never underestimate the power of a well placed level one spell.

2016-10-27, 17:33:26
Reply #25

burnin

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It is OK to be sorry for being ignorant. I personally appreciate modesty VS arrogance.
As it just looks like many have skipped learning in school. Really, something so common for 70-80% of population.
With sources nowadays available all over... you could employ yourself to learn or find another who already knows his shit & consult with.
Any way you look at it, it takes time, effort, resources - it is complex & that's why quality and well balanced works are rare and valued accordingly. But as ignorant ppl are being ignorant, everything to them is simple magic = lazy cheap.
So please, don't complain for being careless or negligent.
Remember (if there's some knowledge, experience within you to memorize from), the house is built from the ground up, so base your foundations well. 

2016-10-27, 17:39:36
Reply #26

astudio

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2 Rawalanche.

This is a very good example.
You show a lot of settings and we are really need all of them.
But!  You are absolutely right in your conception only if I would understand your logic and your language. I mean Corona language.
How will I know where to look for that moved settings without help file? To search in forum?
You spent a lot of time with programmers and 3d Guru - so you don't meet somebody that doesn't know about sRGB or translucency. Help him.

Imagine for a second a new user which downloaded the trial version. He doesn't know your Corona language. Rayswitch and CoronaVolume is clear for you, but not for him.
He is ready to learn but where? There is a lot information now comparing to alpha version.

I know how much work you need to do for keep things clear.
When I bought 3dsMax version 3, I got 3 books of user guide about 1000 pages everyone. But I had no question.
With Corona I have only not-friendly Q&A, not friendly search in this forum and sometimes answers of other users, that 70% of them are just wrong.
That's a problem.

Here is my point: I sure that for your business (all of us just need that your business will be good) good documentation at this point much more important then Hair-Fur and moving settings from one window to another.

And yes, I really respect your work with or without pony. And yes, I like this yellow smile at the bottom...

2016-10-27, 17:55:46
Reply #27

burnin

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So you rather go to the mcdonald's restaurant instead of a good local one or even better buy locally grown and make your own dish.
In such case sickness serves you right.

Another point is what you see & feel now, momentarily as simple is then again complex for another, inexperienced you.
Be reasonable, contemplate on many different perspectives. Even 2D has two sides at least.

2016-10-27, 17:58:52
Reply #28

Ludvik Koutny

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2 Rawalanche.

This is a very good example.
You show a lot of settings and we are really need all of them.
But!  You are absolutely right in your conception only if I would understand your logic and your language. I mean Corona language.
How will I know where to look for that moved settings without help file? To search in forum?
You spent a lot of time with programmers and 3d Guru - so you don't meet somebody that doesn't know about sRGB or translucency. Help him.

Imagine for a second a new user which downloaded the trial version. He doesn't know your Corona language. Rayswitch and CoronaVolume is clear for you, but not for him.
He is ready to learn but where? There is a lot information now comparing to alpha version.

I know how much work you need to do for keep things clear.
When I bought 3dsMax version 3, I got 3 books of user guide about 1000 pages everyone. But I had no question.
With Corona I have only not-friendly Q&A, not friendly search in this forum and sometimes answers of other users, that 70% of them are just wrong.
That's a problem.

Here is my point: I sure that for your business (all of us just need that your business will be good) good documentation at this point much more important then Hair-Fur and moving settings from one window to another.

And yes, I really respect your work with or without pony. And yes, I like this yellow smile at the bottom...

Well, renderer should always suit the majority, but it will never suit everyone. You are one of the very few people who feel they do not understand Corona and who require manual. For majority of the users, Corona is so simple they can get around with just tooltips.

As for the rayswitcher, it actually seems not that many people use environment overrides, so those few who use them for advanced stuff would probably not have too much of a hard time switching to new workflow.

Although here's what I find confusing:

You said you bought Max 3, that you have read through all the manuals, and that you have 22 years of 3D experience. The thing is color management (sRGB vs Linear) is 3ds Max standard, not a Corona standard, Corona just honors 3ds Max standards, as pretty much every other renderer plugin for 3ds Max, including the most used one: V-Ray.

3ds Max comes with Mental Ray as default renderer. Mental Ray uses rayswitcher workflow for environment overrides, so that could be considered 3ds Max standard. Volume effects of all native 3ds Max renderers reside in Environment and Effects window. Not only in native renderers, but also most of the plugin renderers, again including the most used one: V-Ray. So if a V-Ray user or user of one of the native 3ds Max renderers comes to Corona with intention to setup global atmospheric volume, he would have it a lot easier if Corona had global volumes where they belong. In this case, Corona actually doesn't honor 3ds Max standards.

So you describe yourself as oldschool 3ds Max user with 22 years of experience, yet you seem struggle with basics of general computer graphics knowledge. Understanding what translucency is by no means requires "spending time with programmers" and can even be explained to a person with 0 CG knowledge in a few minutes.

Moreover, you struggle to differ which parts are Corona's responsibility and which parts are 3ds Max's responsibility. General color management (sRGB, etc...) is usually handled by DCC software, 3ds Max in this case, not a renderer. Yes, renderer can facilitate some of it from its side, but should never go too hard against convention of its host application.

There is not that much of a Corona language in Corona. There's mainly 3ds Max language, and there are general renderer conventions. Some renderers honor them more, such as Corona, V-Ray, Mental Ray, ART, etc... while others less, such as Fstorm, Indigo, Octane, and so on...

In General, CG will always require at least some level of expertise and skill, no matter how simple rendering tools get. That's why our salaries are not at janitor level...

2016-10-27, 17:59:06
Reply #29

astudio

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It is OK to be sorry for being ignorant. I personally appreciate modesty VS arrogance.
As it just looks like many have skipped learning in school. Really, something so common for 70-80% of population.
With sources nowadays available all over... you could employ yourself to learn or find another who already knows his shit & consult with.
Any way you look at it, it takes time, effort, resources - it is complex & that's why quality and well balanced works are rare and valued accordingly. But as ignorant ppl are being ignorant, everything to them is simple magic = lazy cheap.
So please, don't complain for being careless or negligent.
Remember (if there's some knowledge, experience within you to memorize from), the house is built from the ground up, so base your foundations well.

I don't talk personally about you, but this is common and biggest mistake.
Never google. Never. Only documentation.
There is so much different concepts. Every devloper and every user has his own.
And main problem:
1. Somebody, who knows to work, is working. He hasn't time.
2. Somebody, who doesn't know to work, goes to teach.
3. Somebody who doesn't know to teach, goes to teach how to teach.

There was a large contest at evermotion. 1-st - 3-rd places was for free downloading.
All of them made a basic mistakes, like water IOR=2.0 and so on, but renders was great. Do you know how much people learned from this and how much holly wars were after this?!
Never learn from internet, 0nly documentation.