Messages

46

[Max] I need help! / Re: Soften Volume Material edges?

« on: 2017-06-02, 16:28:20 »

Went back to my old scene and applied this method. It will not solve the hard edges that might appear "inside" the object, but it will take care of outer edge.
Attaching the volumetrics element for comparison.

A bit cumbersome, but worth it if you're working on a still image, I guess.

47

[Max] I need help! / Re: Soften Volume Material edges?

« on: 2017-06-02, 14:50:21 »

Tried that CRAZY idea, and it works as long as the mesh doesn't "self intersect" (from the camera POV). If it does, you get all these weird artefacts. (See attachment 1).

HOWEVER another totally crasy idea, is to use any map and set it to "Environ" instead "Texture". Then set the mapping to "Screen". In the example I used a gradient ramp, but I guess you could select a bitmap and in Photoshop, paint in the areas you wanted softened.

Actually, I had to try it out, so I added the one more pic. Smileyface indicates it works. :)

48

[Max] I need help! / Re: Soften Volume Material edges?

« on: 2017-05-30, 18:30:59 »

Ah great! Looking forward to the update, then.

49

[Max] I need help! / Soften Volume Material edges?

« on: 2017-05-30, 01:13:19 »

Been trying to make some nice mist with the volume material. For the most part, it works the way I want it to. (Comparing the reference photo to my mockup scene. Pretty close.)

There is however one thing that is bugging me, and that is the hard edge of the vol mat that seems impossible to get rid of. (Look at the volumetrics element.)
The Boundary published this blog post where they use a displaced mesh to get a more blurred, or rather jagged, edge. That is one way of doing it, but a rather unpractical one for large scenes.
I have tried using falloff- and other maps. It works on simple objects, but not obejcts like the one in my scene. 

Is there some other way I have overlooked?

It would be great if the material had a "soften edges" checkbox - either tied to a distance from the edge, or a as value of pixels in the render.

And while we're on this topic: Do you think it would be possible to add a "clip fog object at camera position"-checkbox, so you'd never have to worry about your camera entering the volume object? (Either that, or just make it work even if the camera is inside the object.) :)

50

Gallery / Re: A Corona Sketchbook

« on: 2017-05-15, 22:08:01 »

Impressive! Great work. Will follow your Artstation for more.

51

Gallery / Re: Beautiful Computer Generated Images II. - Tropical Garden

« on: 2017-04-05, 21:17:35 »

Very nice. Love your work. Also love how you give some of it away for free!

52

Gallery / Re: Material tests with corona

« on: 2017-03-24, 11:45:00 »

Outstanding shaders! Great work.

53

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Override Unsupported Material slot

« on: 2017-03-02, 16:53:32 »

That is of course the most obvious solution. However, I often just need to output something very quickly, and then later go back and set the materials properly. Having converted the materials isn't always the most practical thing in those cases.

Also, we work a lot with linked FBX models, and then do an "Xref Scene" into the scene where we have cameras, lights and other additions. In these cases I have to open the linked scene, edit the materials and reload the model in my render scene. A bit cumbersome, and therefore having the feature I requested would help. 

I just thought I should give some further insight to the problem. When working with Revit, you get these pesky unsupported materials. What I do is that I have a matlib which replaces the revit materials. This works as long as the architects stick to the default materials, but ever so often, they import some 3rd party geometry, which has new materials. When updating, they slip through unnoticed - until you render. So, having a possibility to just override all unsupported materials would be great.

54

[Max] Feature Requests / Override Unsupported Material slot

« on: 2017-03-02, 14:32:22 »

I think the way Corona handles unsupported materials is very good - displaying that error message text directly in the render.

However, sometimes I don't have the need nor the time to track down the unsupported material. I would therefore like to see an "Unsupported Mtl. Override" option in the Render Overrides box.

Thanks in advance! 8)

55

[Max] I need help! / Re: Corona DR issue

« on: 2016-12-09, 23:26:34 »

I experienced the exact same thing this week. 3dsmax 2016 and Corona Hotfix2. Some nodes were rendering, but some got stuck just the way sumeetgupta's. 
Didn't have time to check for solutions / restart render farm due to deadline. Will see if the problem persists, or if I can find some solution next week.

56

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Vray 3.4 vs Corona 1.5

« on: 2016-12-08, 14:58:33 »

After using Vray since beta, I moved to Corona a few months ago.

I work solely in archiviz, and since moving to Corona I've spent zero amount of time fiddling with render settings, figuring out optimizations, editing out splotches in post - and instead I've spent time creating better shaders than ever, making better lit renders and generally just had a good time. For me Corona just... works. The whole workflow just fits me better.

I started by trying the free 45 day trial on a project, and it worked so well I decided to completely skip vray. I hear Chaos have a lot of improvements coming for the next version, but if the core mechanics of GI and image sampling don't change radically, Corona will still be my choice.

57

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Addition to CoronaWire

« on: 2016-11-14, 14:38:39 »

One feature - maybe small, but possibly very useful - would be to have the option to soften the edges of the CoronaWire map. Even better would be to be able to control the falloff curve, and to have it work properly as a bump map.

Very useful when making tiles and such, since you can completely skip UVW mapping.

58

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: The most wanted feature?

« on: 2016-11-14, 14:34:54 »

Agreed! Definitely great news.

59

[Max] I need help! / Re: Multiple views - elements naming problem

« on: 2016-11-12, 00:24:15 »

Been using Vray/Max2016 since max2016 was realeased, and never had that problem. With Corona, I have the same problem on two completely separate machines. Same Max/Corona versions on both machines.
I just looked into Vray, and they use their own "save-file" dialogue, so the render elements never have an output path attached to them. They completely bypass the 3dsmax dialogue. Maybe this is why it also always worked?

But yes, removing and re-adding the elements seem to work atm. Only a little tedious having to set up Z element range, Masking properties etc every time. It may also cause problems when submitting multi-frame jobs, when you can't manually reset the elements.

60

[Max] I need help! / Re: Multiple views - elements naming problem

« on: 2016-11-11, 15:56:14 »

I have the same problem. And it's a very odd behaviour, to say the least, beacuse it's not easy to reproduce.

If I make a new scene, and add elements, it works correctly - the names update.
If I open an old scene, and add elements, it works correctly.
If I, in a scene where the problem exists, remove all the elements, and then create new ones, it works correctly.

Seems that somehow, sometimes the naming just gets stuck, and remains stuck unless you make new elements.
Removing the element name alltogether, fixes the problem for the current session, but the faulty names are reinstated as soon as you open that scene.

I have no clue how to fix it, other than creating new elements when the problem appears.