Messages

4201

News / Re: Pricing and release date announced

« on: 2014-10-08, 15:43:01 »

Do you think hobbies should be free ? I am asking in good faith :- ) It's one of the more interesting topics I picked up here, not wish to sideline discussion, just interests me a bit. Cheers

I was hoping there would be a version that hobbyists could use, as hobbyists often tend to turn into paying customers later. I was guessing there would be a version with limited size output, no access to dailys, etc. Perhaps I'll enroll in a college so I can get the edu version! (although I'm far too old for a college)

I remember similar discussion when Unreal4 and CryEngine went to SaaS while no longer providing free version of the 'same' soft. But they kept the original (UDK3 & CE3) in free limbo (no support, no update, no commercial use, but functioning ).
Maybe this is some middle solution that works for all. But it does need limitations as no can can policy if you're actually using that for commercial purpose which isn't exactly fair to the team.

I don't really understand why so many hobbyists are complaining about Corona pricing if they can afford 3ds Max.. (or can they..?)

Very good point :- ) Not only 3dsMax, but supposedly even 5-10 nodes purely for 'hobby' work. It's just dishonest.

4202

News / Re: Pricing and release date announced

« on: 2014-10-08, 15:04:07 »

I really hope Corona team will have some similar offer, otherwise i'll have to go back to A6, because i can't justify to pay such money for hobby alone.

Aren't all alphas scheduled to stop working by the end of the year? I guess us hobbyists will have to say goodbye to Corona.

Do you think hobbies should be free ? I am asking in good faith :- ) It's one of the more interesting topics I picked up here, not wish to sideline discussion, just interests me a bit. Cheers

4203

[C4D] General Discussion / Re: optimization and AA BUGS

« on: 2014-10-08, 14:36:15 »

On contrary, there is very good AA, outside of superbright pixels, which is general rendering issue, not renderer.
By default, you're looking at linear, non-downsampled result, and those pixels thus can't be smoothed next to each other.

Solutions:

Glow(like VrayLensEffects): Not integrated yet, it's post effect, so it can also be done in PS (MagicBullet, ArionFX for PS,manual masking,etc..)
Tonemapping and Downsampling: Corona Internal resolution=2 (used to be default, but it's obviously memory hungry and people with small amount of ram (8GB) had issues. But you can still use it.
What this does, is clamps the highlights, and makes it possible to smooth the edges. You need Highlight compression >2 (not default 1.0=linear)


Regarding noise, that is more complicated I don't know how your scene is setup, your materials, and I only use Max :- ). But why did you switch to PT+PT for interior ?

4204

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: Juraj's WIPS/Theory/Questions //Update with few PDFs from my recent presentation

« on: 2014-10-07, 20:15:53 »

Not my design but it is very modernist to certain point. It's Ipes house by Marcio Kogan.

4205

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: Juraj's WIPS/Theory/Questions //Update with few PDFs from my recent presentation

« on: 2014-10-07, 18:49:24 »

Sure, thanks :- ) They are from very early, quickly done WIPs though. I do hope to publish it as much more polished and coherent series later.

4206

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona- Surface details and glosiness??

« on: 2014-10-07, 17:55:16 »

Thanks for sharing some of ur knowledge. just checked out ur portfolio work.They are very very good. Hope u wouldn't mind if I ask u some technical questions from time to time.
I think I would be using normal maps from now on.I noticed ur fabrics look very rough texturewise. So u use a fall off node with a darker and lighter version of the same texture for the diffuse slot?

Yes. I plan to show tutorial on describing the various curves you can use on that but I don't have time right now, and I need to finish big project but after that I'll get to it.

4207

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona- Surface details and glosiness??

« on: 2014-10-07, 17:37:10 »

Not completely, rough surface 'scatters' light instead of reflecting it back in specular direction, up to point where it's pure diffuse reflection (completely rough-matt surface---)lambertian shader).

But effectively in rendering unless the shading model is built to rely completely on 'roughness' parameter it just doesn't behave....that well. So what you do, in Corona (or similar renderers) you manually lower the reflection the rougher (lower glossiness) it is,
but you can't do it sufficiently through bump/normal/disp.

In practical terms I use it like this:

Micro-level= Only Glossiness slot, for metals, I even rarely use bumps, and when I do, it's just for heavier scratches, not the tiny fractures.
1-2mm= Bump map---) Carpets,Fabrics,etc.. Some of these materials are so rough that their specular component is like non-existent so you might as well simulate it purely through 0 reflection and only diffuse with fallof for some self-shading.
1-10mm=Normal map---)Foliage, rocks,etc... Basically when it is impractical (like always...) to use displacement, but I still want 3D/Relief feel for reflection. It basically just alters the appearance of the large part of geometry, you still have to use glossiness/reflection to set your specularity.
1cm+ = Displacement---) For whatever else.

Each of them can simulate roughness slightly to some point but that microdetail is mostly filtered away so the concept doesn't work that way.

4208

General CG Discussion / Re: Unreal Engine 4 for ArchViz - Thoughts?

« on: 2014-10-07, 14:46:18 »

Just to confirm it is possible to generate a user exe file that you can distribute to clients right? Previously you had to have the unreal game installed to run it.

Absolutely, and very easy to do.

4209

[Max] General Discussion / Re: New Frame Buffer icons

« on: 2014-10-07, 12:53:12 »

I like it a lot too, esp. the vertical tabs on right, which is much cleaner and easier to look at, also more logical as you can navigate more tabs there.
I have same issue as Maru, the very top line (File/Edit,etc..) is unncecessary for Framebuffer, and makes it beefy again. I would love to framebuffer be as lean as possible, features and design wise.

I like it though :- ) Finally something that moves away from the overly...ehm, Win95/Indiesoft view.

4210

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona- Surface details and glosiness??

« on: 2014-10-07, 12:05:24 »

Well it comes more to the fact that bumpmap just doesn't simulate that kind of microscopic detail that would affect the roughness but his concept isn't wrong in theory. But in practice it won't work correctly for most renderers :- )

{for example CryEngine integrated very different kind of PBR compared to Unreal4/Disney, and paired roughness map to normal map (it resides in alpha channel and thus shares same resolution and detail)}

Bump is best kept to "small" detail, like 1-2mm, beyond that it's normal map/displace and bellow glossiness slot.

4211

General CG Discussion / Re: Unreal Engine 4 for ArchViz - Thoughts?

« on: 2014-10-07, 11:27:46 »

The shader tree is not complicated :- ) You don't need to setup such flexible and robust shaders as they have in demos, you can do your materials just like in Corona or Vray. Just input Diffuse, Roughness, Bump, and you're ready to go :- ).
The material editor is beautiful thing and so is the shader system, it's just amazing.

But same thing you and Headoff said: There is no time. For anything.

4212

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: My corona random stuff.

« on: 2014-10-07, 00:25:59 »

Time for some really sexy caustics.
+1 for a way to isolate just those to compose later!!!...
I compared them with the real glass and as usual, corona kicks all kind of asses. (minor firefly cleaning required).

And i came up with a workflow to produce this in a comfortable way.

Mind sharing said workflow?

Yep, what's that ? I suck at caustics and can never get them to look good in pool.

4213

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Daily builds

« on: 2014-10-07, 00:24:46 »

I tested it only at 2.am before speech but for me it worked quite great, was almost surprising as I expected very little ( :- D .. sorry, VrayRT experience) , was decently large scene (Icelandic house) too. Lot's of fun, will keep using this from now on.

4214

Gallery / Re: Forest way

« on: 2014-10-07, 00:14:42 »

Great trees Spike !

4215

Work in Progress/Tests / Re: Juraj's WIPS/Theory/Questions //Update with few PDFs from my recent presentation

« on: 2014-10-06, 23:59:25 »

As I wrote in FB, I won't post the full project any soon, or not even the wip 8 renders I showed in SOA, but plan to complete it after I finish some commercial work I have right now and then soon (like next month some time maybe ?), post it together with more detailed blog post describing in better detail some stuff I talked about in SOA AD but had to rush through :- ). Happy Corona-ing to everyone ! The real-time kicks ass ! I tested it at like 2a.m., but man it's bomb.

2 of the quick WIPs (rendered super fast the morning before falling asleep in car due to not sleeping for 26 hours). I am so thankful for all Veronika's support through all this..