Author Topic: Support for Cinema's Node System  (Read 2085 times)

2022-06-09, 18:00:11

Shawn Astrom

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Now that Cinema's NEW node system is fully developed and has become the standard way to build materials in Arnold, Vray and Redshift I'm just wondering / hoping, when will Corona support the NEW node system? Considering Corona's stellar C4D integration I would imagine that this is a high priority now that it is fully possible.

The currently implementation of nodes in Corona is great and very clever but I see this as the main drawback of using Corona in C4D since under the hood it is still using Cinema's legacy layer based shading system and I still find it very difficult and buggy to use. Particularly I have issues with the very old layer shader, it never seems to work correctly for me. Not to mention the way undo's are handled seems to not work that well either.

Seems that many of these issues could be solved by supporting the NEW node system that has been implemented across the entire application now. Just waiting for updated xpresso nodes I suppose or maybe they will start to intergrade xpresso functionality inside of Scene Nodes.

Anyhow, would love to know if there will be any developments in this area of Corona for C4D. Either way Corona is still the best looking renderer on the market IMO.

2022-06-09, 21:04:50
Reply #1

burnin

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All good points, since these also seem to be ones that keep CoronaForC4D from utilizing its full potential.
+1

2022-06-09, 22:11:53
Reply #2

Cinemike

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I am not sure the native node editor could do that:


2022-06-09, 22:47:06
Reply #3

Shawn Astrom

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Arnold does this just fine using the reference node. I'm sure this would be possible for the Corona developers to implement under the NEW node system. Seems like pretty basic functionality, although for me I don't really like my materials sharing the same data.

2022-06-10, 19:04:09
Reply #4

burnin

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Yup, only when one needs to, then it simply "points" or "refers" to that data. ;)
Still, depends on how well all this is documented and open for 3rd parties.
« Last Edit: 2022-06-10, 19:08:04 by burnin »

2022-06-23, 01:27:17
Reply #5

John_Do

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Don't expect much in this regard, Node Editor was developped at a time when C4D's Node Editor didn't exist and the only alternative was XPresso nodes, which Redshift was using by default up until very recently. It's using the new editor in S26.
Since then (v3), no much progress on this side. I guess devs are busy following as closely as possible Corona for Max development and in this regard, it's a success since we almost get every new release at the same time as 3ds Max users. But between this and fixing specific C4D bugs, I suspect that very little time remains for a Node Editor overhaul, especially to get at the same level as the C4D one which is now quite mature and pleasant to use.

And porting Corona shaders and materials to Cinema Nodes ? V-Ray 5 was introduced in December 2020, they've just released UVW nodes few weeks ago, just saying.

I am not sure the native node editor could do that:

It's possible now, this argument is no longer relevant. If you have access to S26 you can try the latest version of the Material Node Editor with the CPU version of Redshift, which is native to Cinema 4D now ( and very very slow right now )
But even if it wasn't working it would'nt be a big deal, I would gladly exchange it for the current nodal editor to get some nice features : solo node, nice viewport preview, native shader linking which doesn't f*ck up your materials with "Shared shaders" and duplicates of each material sub-tree, access to mapping context, and the ability to build node groups / reusable node assets.


2022-06-23, 13:22:42
Reply #6

TomG

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The Corona Node Editor still does things that the native one does not - the whole "same map can be plugged into multiple slots, and even into totally different shaders" is still something I can't imagine living without, but is still not the way the native editor works. That is very much a "drill down into a node material", as Redshift nodes always were, but that material is still in isolation, you can't have the same noise map or bitmap driving different effects in different places so you only need to change it once. As for whether our one gets improved, we shall have to see - but I'd still be using it over the native one even if it doesn't, it's more important to me to be able to have one place to change parameters that affects loads of different places at once rather than have to edit "Noise Scale" to match in 6 different places ;)
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2022-06-24, 10:09:35
Reply #7

John_Do

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The Corona Node Editor still does things that the native one does not - the whole "same map can be plugged into multiple slots, and even into totally different shaders" is still something I can't imagine living without, but is still not the way the native editor works. That is very much a "drill down into a node material", as Redshift nodes always were, but that material is still in isolation, you can't have the same noise map or bitmap driving different effects in different places so you only need to change it once. As for whether our one gets improved, we shall have to see - but I'd still be using it over the native one even if it doesn't, it's more important to me to be able to have one place to change parameters that affects loads of different places at once rather than have to edit "Noise Scale" to match in 6 different places ;)

Thanks for the example Tom !

I could agree if the node editor wasn't so broken sometimes. An example is attached with the Walnut Semigloss material from the Corona Mtl Library, you can try it on your side to see the result.
I wouldn't mind if this happened only with materials from the Library, but it happens with scene materials too, in a random way. It happens often when copy-pasting materials between scenes or whem importing them from Asset Browser.

2022-06-27, 10:28:45
Reply #8

Beanzvision

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Noted!
(Internal ID=911170743)
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2022-06-27, 22:49:30
Reply #9

burnin

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My biggest grudge is that nodes can't be Copy/Pasted.
Note: Ctrl+dragging ain't same, since it's not usable for simply dropping "X" on few "Y" (other materials).
Tho, I wonder, if such "flow" is even "allowed"?
« Last Edit: 2022-06-27, 22:53:15 by burnin »

2022-06-28, 07:28:22
Reply #10

ricky

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Arnold does this just fine using the reference node. I'm sure this would be possible for the Corona developers to implement under the NEW node system. Seems like pretty basic functionality, although for me I don't really like my materials sharing the same data.

cool
« Last Edit: 2022-06-28, 08:46:00 by ricky »