Topics

91

[Max] I need help! / DR Node Drops Out

« on: 2019-02-06, 21:42:19 »

So I've got one master pc and one dr node, i can be rendering happily using DR, then the next time I press render, the node doesn't connect.  If I press 'Search on LAN' it doesn't find the node.  This is then the case in every file I open.  The only way to get it back is to restart the Master PC.

The weird part is the fact that machines can still communicate with each other through the network.  I can remote login to them from each other, they can both access the network drives etc.

Any ideas - it happens randomly but very frequently

92

[Max] I need help! / Bump Map, Filter Blur, Bump Strength, Corona Bitmap

« on: 2019-01-17, 09:34:16 »

Confusing subject title I know, because I'm confused.

I'm trying to get a bump map working correctly.  It's a very fine grain pattern.

I'm finding if I leave the strength of the bump at 0.5 for example, I can increase/decrease the effect or how 'aggressive' it is just by adjusting the filter blur value.  So I find myself constantly tweaking bump strength and filter blur to achieve the desired look.  Admittedly the standard bump isn't great and I'm struggling to achieve what I want.  If I make the bump to strong it just scatters the light so much that the whole object just gets brighter.

If I use the Corona Bitmap blur, it seems quite unpredicatable.  I'm finding if I use the Corona Bitmap I have to increase the strength of the bump to get the same effect as not using the Corona Bitmap and a lower strength.

I'm going to render off some examples, but if anyone has a similar experiences or 'best practices' i'd be keen to hear them

93

[Max] Feature Requests / Directionality changing light appearance non-linearly

« on: 2019-01-16, 00:04:42 »

What's up with the values in Corona, specifically directionality on lights/light materials.  If you gradually increase the value i.e. 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 you get a nice gradual change of direction of the light.

BUT ... as soon as you get to around 4.5, 5 - the change is drastic.

As a side note, this also happens with the Vignetting in the Frame Buffer.

94

[Max] I need help! / Occlude other lights

« on: 2019-01-15, 21:38:23 »

I'm currently getting a really strange effect, where it seems like my 'Occlude other lights' checkbox is working the wrong way round.

If I leave it unticked, i'm getting shadow from what appears to be the light cone, if I tick it, the light works as expected.

See screenshots - the lights are 3 disc lights next to each other with an IES file

95

[Max] I need help! / 32 BIT EXR ISSUE

« on: 2018-11-22, 14:56:53 »

Having an issue currently where some of my saved EXR's aren't opening in Photoshop.  If I save them as 16 BIT Exr's they work fine?

96

[Max] I need help! / Overexposed RawReflect

« on: 2018-11-15, 13:30:56 »

I'm not even sure this question makes any sense but ....

If my main render looks good in terms of lighting/exposure/materials/tonemapping BUT my Raw Reflect pass is horrendously overexposed - what (if anything) does that tell me about my lighting/exposure/materials?

97

[Max] I need help! / Bump Converter Proper Usage

« on: 2018-11-14, 23:13:17 »

What is the correct way to use the bump converter in terms of the strength and blur values?

To change the strength do I use the Native Max value in the Maps rollout?

What about blur?  Do I do that in the bitmap or in the blur value of the bump converter?  For example I have a CG Source multitexture map in a bump converter in the bump slot.  In the multitexture I've specified a blur of 0.01 for my wooden boards.  If I leave the bump converter blur at 1 - what blur value is being applied to my textures?

98

[Max] I need help! / Fireflies with HDRI

« on: 2018-10-02, 14:23:20 »

As the title suggest, I just can't seem to get rid of fireflies when using an HDRI - never had this issue before, seems to be a Corona 2 issue.  Using 1714 from Peter Guthrie.

The material isn't too reflective and blurring stuff isn't an option.

Anyone else experiencing the same thing - it's almost making HDRI's unusable for me on exteriors

99

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Rendering stops before reaching the desired noise level

« on: 2018-08-29, 08:52:27 »

So I left a huge render going over night.

Just came in this morning and it looks pretty noisy but it's stopped rendering.

I set it rendering with a noise limit of 3%.  And rendered with Corona 2 through DR.  One host, one node.

I've checked the stats tab and it reads 4.21% (3%).  So it appears the render has stopped once the node has reach 3%?

Seems odd?  Is this correct behaviour?

100

[Max] General Discussion / VR

« on: 2018-08-20, 12:59:49 »

So I've just been asked to do my first VR Project.  It's a simple setup.  2 different spaces, and the client wants to be able to view the 360's through the Samsung Gear VR with the ability to click through to each space to change the 360.

I just wondered what people are using and what workflow to get from Corona scene to the resulting 360 viewed on the headset.

I've just been looking at TheViewer and it seems a little pricey considering I only have to do these 2 spaces, and I have no idea if I'll ever be asked to do VR again.  So a monthly sub or annual fee seems a bit far fetched for me.

Has anybody used anything else simply to convert their Corona renders to 360 tour viewable through the Gear VR?

101

[Max] I need help! / [solved] CoronaMultiMap and Displacement

« on: 2018-07-18, 11:37:04 »

I'm having a hard time getting the MultiMap to work in the displacement slot.

I've got a wood grain pattern on a plank.  I then need to create multiple versions of that plank and offset the wood grain per plank.  I thought simply loading the wood grain displacement into a multimap and changing the offset/rotation for each would work.  It doesn't, all the planks are using ID2 in the Multimap?

102

[Max] I need help! / Hair and Fur Crash on Render Cancel

« on: 2018-06-19, 11:28:23 »

Hey guys

Whenever I render a scene with Hair and Fur, if I cancel the render, it always crashes.

Any ideas?

103

[Max] I need help! / Corona Sky Horizon Blur and Render Time

« on: 2018-06-06, 23:36:43 »

Can anyone explain why adjusting the Corona Sky Horizon Blur would affect rendertime?

This is what I've found.

Blur 1.0 Quickest
Blur 0.5 Slowest
Blur 0.1 Inbetween the two above

104

[Max] I need help! / Pink Plane Lights

« on: 2018-06-06, 22:49:42 »

So I'm just running some basic test with the Corona Sky compared with a just a plane light.

And I've noticed plane lights are tinted pink.

If you look at the image below the left side is Corona Sky/Portal and the right is Plane Light.

Both were set to 3% Noise Limit.

Tonemapping settings in frame buffer were the same for both setups (WB was at 6500).

The plane light was to set to Kelvin 6500.

The CoronaSky has been run through a Colour Correction Node with saturation set to -100.

The original idea behind the test was to see if I could get similar results to a plane at the window, using just the sky/portals and adjusting horizon blur/ground colour, and subsequently which would be quicker

With the two setups, I'd expect them to both be a shade of grey as they have an grey override material on.

But ... the plane lights are tinting pink even though everything is set to 6500 6500.

Why is this?  I tested it by opening them both in Photoshop and cracking saturation up to 100.

Also, although the results differ slightly, light levels are roughly the same, light falloffs etc look a bit different.  Why would the plane light be so much quicker? 3 times quicker?  And why are they pink?

I actually prefer the lighting from the Corona Sky/Portal method as it gives a nicer contrast, better falloff from light/dark and generally more definition to everything.  But does the difference really warrant a 3 fold increase in render time?  I'd rather suffer the slight drop in quality than such a huge render time increase.  I can only imagine this increases dramatically on a complex scene.

But first things first, why the magenta tint?

I should add, on numerous scenes in the past, lit with plane lights, I've found myself battling a magenta hue to renders, and always blamed my monitor or WB ....

105

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Corona Bitmap not loading TIF files correctly.

« on: 2018-04-24, 16:38:46 »

I've just converted all bitmaps in my scene to Corona bitmaps.  Only to find it's not acknowledging TIF files.  It's converted them, but if I click view image it just shows me a black preview.  If i load the image normally using standard bitmap it works fine.

THis happened with an opacity map and a displacement map, so both greyscale images.  I only noticed because the geometry with an opacity map wasn't in the render as it was a using a pure black image.