Topics

166

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona 1.6 Release Candidate 2 is out now!

« on: 2017-04-10, 23:48:11 »

Corona 1.6 Release Candidate 2 is out now!

Everyone with an active FairSaaS or Box with Subscription license has access, and the download is in the usual location: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mswauuv1afec8am/AAA5OKrd_QujokDM3mxQ7S40a

We welcome your testing and feedback to catch any remaining bugs or other issues. The Release Candidate should be stable, but we need your testing in the real world to confirm any remaining issues - 1.6 final should be out in around 2 weeks, to allow time for that testing.

Changes from RC1:

- Fixed unnecessary CPU usage after render when bloom&glare is used with render elements.

- Implemented “Force PT” checkbox for Interactive Rendering (using PT in place of the UHD cache during IR allows faster interactive rendering by removing the time needed to calculate the UHD cache; this checkbox allows IR to use PT, while final renders still use the UHD Cache)

- Vignette now properly works with 2D pan/zoom mode.

- Fixed possible artifacts with refraction environment override.

- Reset all hidden UHD cache parameters that may be still set incorrectly in old scenes due to some previous bugs - there are no longer any hidden parameters in the UHD cache.

- Fixed IR starting with old global renderer settings (e.g. if displacement was disabled in the Common tab in the Render Setup dialog, IR would still show displacement)

- Fixed Corona bitmap not refreshing in the viewport after the file is modified on the HDD.

- Fixed bug causing slower parsing and memory usage for displacement - displacement can now take 10 times less memory, and 3 times less time

DR:
- DR reverted back to rendering whole passes on slaves to fix the “slaves sending too many passes” bug. Rendering smaller strips can be optionally enabled, but is considered “experimental, may break some things” until further bugfixes.

- Fixed: bug where search lan would return only first 10 nodes

Corona Standalone:
Improved error messages on duplicate materials.

Corona Image Editor:
- User is now asked for confirmation when resetting post-processing settings.

- The functionality of opening a single image and merging multiple images has been separated; now each has its own button.

- Fixed not updating zoom level within the title bar.

- Editor asks for confirmation to discard changes when another image is dragged and dropped.

Thanks!
   Tom

167

[C4D] Resolved Bugs / Denoising progress bar and cancellation

« on: 2017-04-10, 21:59:03 »

- If I let a render run to a set number of passes, the Denoising progress bar does not show up during the denoising phase (denoising appears to work though as I get a working Denoise amount, so looks like it does process, just without the progress bar)

- If I cancel the render before it reaches the set number of passes, the Denoising progress bar does then show up. If I click on Cancel the denoising progress bar, and then hit render again without making any changes to the scene, the VFB continues to show "Denoising was cancelled" with the Denoise amount spinner greyed out, even after the render completes fully. (No denoising progress bar was seen).

- If after the above steps I then render again without any changes, I get the message "Document was closed, values won't be synchronized" in the VFB, and the Denoise amount becomes active again.

Let me know if a video grab would be useful :)

Thanks!
   Tom

168

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona 1.6 Release Candidate 1 is out now!

« on: 2017-04-07, 21:32:58 »

Corona 1.6 Release Candidate 1 is out now!

Everyone with an active FairSaaS or Box with Subscription license has access, and the download is in the usual location: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mswauuv1afec8am/AAA5OKrd_QujokDM3mxQ7S40a

We welcome your testing and feedback to catch any remaining bugs or other issues. The Release Candidate should be stable, but we need your testing in the real world to confirm any remaining issues - 1.6 final should be out in around 2 weeks, to allow time for that testing.

Here's a taste of some of what is new:
- Up to 200% speed boost in scenes where direct lighting from HDRI is dominant
- New stratified random sampler provides significant noise reduction for the same render time
- The terminator fix
- Subsampling for even faster Interactive Rendering
- Corona Image Editor for denoising, LightMix, post-production, outside of any 3D software; can also apply Corona post-production effects such as tone-mapping, bloom & glare etc to any image in EXR format, not just Corona renders
- Baking LightMix into scene
- Checkboxes to easily turn LightSelects on and off in LightMix
- New automatic LightMix creation allows LightSelects to be created by instances, groups or individual lights, reports memory requirements for each option, and allows enabling of Denoising on all LightSelects automatically if desired
- Improved scattering - on splines, in regular patterns, scatter lister button, and other improvements
- Reworked DR - assets sent automatically where required, noise limit and adaptivity works, 3ds Max prestarted on slaves, improved information on status and memory use on master and slave machines, and more
- Curves, and Sharpening/Blurring in the VFB
- VFB UI overhaul (collapsible groups, re-arrangeable tabs, LUT selection from the VFB, customizable title bar)
- IR zooming now focuses processing only on that area (Interactive Rendering ONLY)
- Render region improvements: fuzzy render regions, render regions saved with the scene, and more
- Triplanar mapping
- Corona MultiMap improvements: Frequency spinners and gamma randomization
- Corona Lights with directionality no longer render as black
- RoundEdges gives improved results
- RTT Projection Modifier support, and RTT rendering can have denoising applied
- Memory optimizations
- View rendering progress on the Windows taskbar
- Non-360 stereo rendering
- Bloom and glare now work on 360 VR renders
- Support for 3ds Max 2D pan and zoom
- Support for 3ds Max lens distortion
- And much more!


Thanks!
   Tom

169

[C4D] Resolved Bugs / LightMix in C4D DB Apr 5th

« on: 2017-04-05, 21:09:41 »

- The >Scene button is not working in my test scene (but this may be expected, not sure if that functionality is there or just the button :) )

- If I adjust colours or intensities in the LightMix, then start a new render, the LightMix images returns to the scene lighting, even though the LightMix controls show the changed colours and intensities. If I adjust a colour or intensity in the LightMix controls, they all snap back to 1.0 and White (which is what the rendered image is showing).

Thanks!
   Tom

170

[C4D] Resolved Bugs / Sharpening/Blurring in C4D DB 5th Apr

« on: 2017-04-05, 20:59:35 »

- Adjusting the Blur radius does not update in the image, until something else is changed (e.g. adjust the Sharpen amount and the image will update, or enable / disable bloom and glare, and the image will update).

- Disabling Sharpening/Blurring with the checkbox does not actually disable the effect (and doesn't update any changes made to the Blur) - though adjusting something else, e.g. enabling / distabling Bloom and Glare, will then update whether the Sharpening/Blurring is enabled or disabled.

All tests above in the Corona VFB only.

Thanks!
   Tom

171

[Max] General Discussion / Corona Image Editor for photography / older renders

« on: 2017-03-30, 15:27:37 »

While brilliant for denoising and using LightMix on Corona EXRs, don't forget that the CIE can also process any image saved to EXR - so older renders not saved to Corona EXR at the time, or even photography. While those don't have the info needed to use LightMix and Denoising, it does mean you can use the familiar Corona tone mapping, vignette, bloom & glare etc on any image once in EXR format. Attaching a couple of photographs where I used it in this way while the CIE was in internal testing, as possible inspiration for others to give it a go too. So much easier than loading up Photoshop to tweak things - will be awesome once curves are added to the CIE too!

And you can save and load your settings to configs, handy when you get an effect you like (and can load those into the regular Corona VFB, and vice versa, as well).

172

General CG Discussion / Hum3D video game character contest launched

« on: 2017-03-21, 12:22:04 »

Hi all,

Hum3D have launched their latest challenge - create your favourite video game character for a chance at some great prizes, including Corona of course :)

https://hum3d.com/game-superstar

173

General CG Discussion / Can't rename render elements (any renderer) Max 2017

« on: 2017-03-16, 13:32:55 »

Hey all, anyone else experiencing this? Max 2017 did some sort of "security update" last night for me, and I now find I can't rename render elements (for any render engine).

174

General CG Discussion / 3D Allusions contest

« on: 2017-03-10, 18:50:30 »

3D Allusions is running a contest, 'The Butterfly Cabin' - this one we are sponsoring, so there's a chance to win Corona prizes :)

http://www.3dallusions.com/news/3590-tbc-challenge-18.html

175

[C4D] General Discussion / Evermotion "Secret Garden" challenge winner

« on: 2017-02-07, 18:29:26 »

Congratulations to Leandro Oliveira from Slashcube on their win, using Corona for C4D! Also congratulations to Mark Selga Nesperos with the 2nd place using Corona for Max - and there are many more Corona renders in the results.

Looks like almost half of the winning images used Corona just going on where software was mentioned in the WIP threads - some don't say what they used, but 5 threads say Corona, and the 3rd place winner says "will probably use Corona" but didn't say if they did in the end :) If they did, then all 3 winners would have used Corona, and that would be 6 placed images out of 14.

http://www.evermotion.org/articles/show/10549/evermotion-challenge-2016-winners-announcement-

176

[C4D] General Discussion / Corona for C4D A6 hotfix 1 released!

« on: 2017-02-01, 18:11:10 »

Corona for C4D A6 hotfix 1 released!

Primarily this fixes crashes of some other renderers when Corona for C4D is installed alongside them on macOS, plus should fix some reported UI issues such as "VFB can't be closed" and "VFB or Picture Viewer freeze" (mainly on macOS).

Download from the usual location! https://corona-renderer.com/download/

177

[Max] General Discussion / Interview with Recent Spaces, part 1 out now

« on: 2017-01-26, 16:43:08 »

Hi all!

Last year we conducted some interviews with leaders in the architectural visualization industry, and today part 1 of the interview with Recent Spaces is out:

Thanks!
   Tom

178

[C4D] General Discussion / Upcoming Maxon "Realistic Rendering" webinar

« on: 2017-01-20, 15:40:11 »

Maxon are running a webinar on Wed Jan 25th on "Realistic Rendering", presented by Dominik Dammelhart, and will cover using Corona for C4D. Full details and registration at:

https://www.maxon.net/en/news/maxon-news/article/free-webinar-in-january-realistic-rendering/

Thanks!
   Tom

179

Chaos Corona for Blender / Quick-start video guide to using Corona Standalone with Blender

« on: 2017-01-20, 15:38:01 »

Thanks to the excellent Blender to Corona exporter, it's easy to use the free Corona Standalone with Blender. Here's a video guide on how to get it set up and running (plus a quick test with a free scene from Chocofur):

Exporter (plus link to Corona Standalone): https://bitbucket.org/coronablender/render_corona/overview

Free scene from Chocofur:
http://store.chocofur.com/house-breukelen-3d-scene

180

[Max] General Discussion / Last few seats for State of Art Academy's Corona ArchViz course

« on: 2017-01-13, 15:35:21 »

Hi all!

Just to let you know that there aren't many seats left for SOA's Corona Renderer for ArchViz course - this is the first course by instructors with Corona Academy certification, if you want to attend you can sign up here:
http://www.stateofartacademy.com/calendario/eng-corona-renderer-for-archviz/?lang=en

They also shared their look back on Corona in 2016 and a look at what is to come in 2017 at http://www.stateofartacademy.com/2017-release-corona-renderer-1-6/?lang=en

Thanks!
   Tom