Thinks for the kind feedback everyone. That's what I call a warm welcome!
Now, you seem to have answered a lot of my questions already.
- The AO map as a substitute for dirt sounds good. I will give it a try.
- Camera modifier: I think my version of it did not have all these settings. Would that be in the dailies? If yes, how can I get access to these? Having something like a physical cam would make a huge difference to me.
- Forest: I had read about it supporting Corona, but i meant something slightly different. On the Itoo website, they mention the fact that Forest has a special way of instancing, which is available only in V-Ray and MR and not in the other supported renderers and which greatly increases the amount of instances one can render. Maybe it has little practical significance. I guess the only way to know is to stress-test it. RailClone would be a nice one to have as I've been using more and more lately...
- Good to know MightyTiles works fine. I should check these things properly before making baseless allegations. MultiTexture definitely does not, though. I'll try some workarounds for it.
- it's funny that there seems to be some scepticism about how the blend material works in Corona. I actually thought it was giving me more predictable results than the V-RayBlendMat. I even had the impression that nested Blends worked, but maybe i got that wrong. In any case, it would be nice to have a Corona specific solution for layered materials.
- I guess this leaves SSS and the 2sided material, which are hard to do without in many situations, but I'm happy to wait for those