Topics

1

[Max] Feature Requests / CoronaLayeredMtl Number of Inputs

« on: 2023-08-24, 11:35:20 »

Hi there, I'd like to request a tiny quality of life improvement to the CoronaLayeredMtl to bring it more in line with other nodes:
Add the option to increase/decrease the number of layers/masks on the CoronaLayeredMtl
The default of 10 is a nice big number, but in most cases this ends up being a giant node that I barely use half of the inputs on, cluttering my material graph until I hit the inevitable "-" to minimize.

2

[Max] General Discussion / Roughness implementation correct?

« on: 2023-08-10, 13:45:08 »

Hi there

I've recently converted my material library to the new PhysicalMtl and noticed an effect I hadn't really thought about before:
When a material has a high roughness value it makes the material appear darker when looking at it towards the sun, and brighter when you have the sun at your back.

To recreate:
It seems to be an effect that starts at around 0,5 roughness, and easiest to see when using a cube/plane and a simple corona sun and sky setup. Look at the cube at gracing angles in RT and rotate between having the sun at your back or when looking towards the sun. As you increase the roughness value the materials noticeably darkens when you rotate to look towards the sun.

Is this physically correct?

I've just never seen this effect in real life, and so I started digging online

--Commence rambling--

Is it because the material BRDF(?) tries to emulate a masking and shadowing of microfacets?

This led me to try and check the energy preservation of the material by using what I've learned is called a "white furnace" that is a "a uniform lighting environment set to pure white, to validate the energy preservation property of a BRDF. When energy preservation is achieved, a purely reflective metallic surface (f0=1) should be indistinguishable from the background, no matter the roughness of said surface."

Increasing the roughness of a white(255) material in a white(255) environment is clearly showing a darkening at gracing angles with the PhysicalMtl, but not on the LegacyMtl

If I'm understanding things correctly this is mainly because these different BRDF's(?) all try and emulate a proper physical reaction to light and all fail in different ways. None of these BRDF's are perfect.

This might be entirely unrelated and is a bit out of my area of expertise so excuse my ignorance on the subject.

--Rambling over--

Anyway, if this darkening is indeed wrong, I would like to know how to deal with it.
Maybe one should try and keep roughness below 0,5 or even use the legacy material for very rough surfaces? I noticed the legacy material staying completely invisible in the "white furnace", but it probably has other issues, I'm sure I've read some old complaints about it.

If on the other hand this effect is physically accurate, what materials can have this effect? I would be interested in fine tuning my materials even further and would like to check this out in real life.

3

[Max] General Discussion / Caching rendered previews - how does it work?

« on: 2023-06-29, 14:12:03 »

Can we get some more information about this new functionality listed in Corona 10?

"Significantly speeding up material editor by caching rendered previews. Full material editor is up to 22 times faster."

When will it generate, where is it saved, is the cache saved so that you can close and open max and not having to generate it again, in what cases did the preview generate when not needed and now saves us time, does it affect the previews of material libraries so these now also are cached between sessions, etc

Any info into the inner workings would be great :)

4

[Max] Resolved Bugs / CoronaLayeredMtl + bump = Weird RawComponent pass

« on: 2021-09-09, 15:04:52 »

Hi, like the title says I'm having some issues with the RawComponent pass.

How to reproduce:

Create 2 materials and link them into Base and Layer1 in a LayeredMaterial
Mask these two materials with noise, falloff, and possibly other ways.

Render this and check RawComponent(Diffuse) pass. No problem visible.
Add bump to either of the materials and you can see the RawComponent get some weird artifacts on the part of the material with the bump.
This behavior is not visible if either of the materials are applied to the object outside of the LayeredMaterial. Bump or no bump.

Is this fixed in a newer version of Corona or is this still the case?
I'm using Corona 6 Hotfix 1

I use RawComponent to compose shadows in photoshop, since this seems to be the only pass who has no color difference between dark or light materials, but still contain light information. Easy to use in multiply or similar blending modes

5

Gallery / Nesa Nord - Concept project

« on: 2021-01-27, 18:35:50 »

Hi folks, thought I'd start sharing some work as well!

This project was pretty cool to work with, as the only thing I had was the location in the real world, and the mission to "make something cool".
Hopefully I did! I'm pretty happy with the main image at least :)

Anyway, hope you like it!

PS: Please feel free to give me some constructive criticism on the work. I'm currently working solo so I don't have too many technical/artistic oriented people to throw ideas around with.

Social media links:
www.artstation.com/squareish
www.behance.net/Squareish
www.instagram.com/phiiilj

6

[Max] Resolved Feature Requests / Alternative to Path Tracer?

« on: 2020-10-20, 10:29:48 »

Hi, didn't quite know where to post this but here goes.
I stumbled over this Youtube video two weeks ago and wanted to see if this is of any interest to the devs of Corona:

Seems like a huge upgrade to how to handle caustics/speculars, even if it might be inaccurate

I do not know the inner workings of Corona so I'm not even sure if this is possible, or if you're already using something similar.

Anyway, keep up the good work!