Topics

61

[C4D] Resolved Bugs / AO direction offset working?

« on: 2016-09-14, 16:41:01 »

No matter what I do I cant seem to make any difference to the AO direction offset. Inverted normals or no. Going positive and negative numbers in the direction offset coordinates doesnt seem to make any effect on the rendered image. Its always a uniform spread.

Same goes for max distance texture slot. Makes no difference what you put in there.

62

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / Proxys like Vray?

« on: 2016-09-02, 16:16:05 »

Just been trying out the vrayforc4d 3.4 Beta which is many times better than the older style vray but I still prefer the light quality, workflow and results of corona. I need to keep both engines though and vray is moving closer to corona in its ease of use which is definitely a plus.

One area Vray really excels in though is its proxys. Firstly the system for creating them is pretty much one click and they also save material tag info which corona currently doesnt do so you have to split all objects for each material used and then save the proxy for each and recombine. The display quality for the proxy has to be specified in the vray export which is a slight drawback where corona you can change on the imported object. But the benefits of this are really light weight files that load in a couple of seconds and are really easy to handle with no lag. As far as I can tell even with the 'load into ram' option unchecked corona still has to work pretty hard to load a 2mb scene of trees up into the viewport which makes me think its having to read the full geometry first to then create the pointcloud display as its relatively quick to switch to 'full mesh'. Finally the hit and miss polygon display style of the vray proxy gives much better clarity of shape than the point cloud option (which in itself is much better than any other method aside from full mesh).

Like I said I much prefer the output of corona but is it at all possible to get these proxy features into corona? I think the baking in the LOD display option on export helps them out here as only the low poly mesh is loaded in the viewport and loads as quick as a 2mb file should.   

Thanks

63

General CG Discussion / Substance Designer - any good for realistic textures and practical workflow?

« on: 2016-07-27, 11:27:59 »

I often struggle away making tileable brick and paving textures eventually arriving at a reasonable result but when I come back to them I usually think I could have done better. More recently I had a license of Mighty Tiles for Photoshop which really helped distribute individual bricks and pavers over a large texture and it also generated masks for grout and spec that I could manipulate further in photoshop. But alas this is no longer and my license expired. I'm really annoyed that the developer just pulled the plug with no way of keeping the existing software. I'm on C4D so no Omni tiles for me.

So im looking for a new tileable solution for arch viz materials and have noted substance designer from afar which seems to have rapidly progressed in a very short time! When I looked at it originally it was very nice but the results did look a bit procedural CG rather than photoreal. However, googling stuff now and watching some videos, some of the results are looking very impressive but I have a few questions for anyone else that uses it...

1. Many of the examples I've seen only seem to show a small sample area / cube which if exported out for use in Corona for example just wouldnt be enough area. Is the workflow for this just to work on a smaller area and then generate out large maps at the end when you have got the look right? Is it easy to scale the working preview up and down as your working on it to see it as a larger map?

2. Do the results stand up to scrutiny once used in Corona? I know there is the ongoing debate about the PBR material which sounds like its being implemented in Corona, but in general is it possible to get excellent tileable results that are indistinguishable to real materials in Corona? Certainly some of the best examples I've seen online are really terrific - if a little small on the area size but I suppose it gives a good close up of the detail.

3. Some of the resulting node graphs are monumental!! But once you get into the workflow does this become less challenging and easier to understand?

4. Can you specify a random pattern of three fixed sized pavers? or can you only have either regular or completely random sizes (ranged)? This would be critical for some paving systems.

5. Did you guys just teach yourselves or purchase some of these video tuts that are touted about - any recomendations?

Thanks for any input you might have on this,
Rob

64

[Max] I need help! / Matte Shadow

« on: 2016-07-20, 13:31:03 »

Firstly im using the C4D version so maybe this is just a current limitation in the implementation....

With vray I have the option of Matte shadow in the multipass options. When in photoshop I can switch it to normal blending mode, invert it and then switch to multiply and I have a nice clean shadow pass overlay that I can use to either paint in stronger areas of shadow or have shadows over comped objects.

The shadow pass in the corona file has all sorts of colour information in it and when I do the same thing it looks strange and adding odd colour hues to objects. In the Max version is there the option for a matte shadow pass or is there only the shadow pass which includes these saturated colours?

Thanks

65

[Max] I need help! / Water reflections for montage?

« on: 2016-06-30, 17:11:22 »

I am doing a montage of a bridge over a river and would like to show the reflections on the bridge in the water. Currently I have a plane in at water level that is reflective - with a slight roughness. What is the best way to extract that reflection in photoshop so I can blend it with the photo easily? Essentially I just want the reflection of the bridge and non of the rests of the plane which is bright and reflecting the sky. I dont think corona allows frontal mapping for projecting the background on to the plane which could have been an option. Im using the C4D version if that makes a difference. I am rendering out the reflection pass as part of my multipass.

thanks in advance

66

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / More options on light material

« on: 2016-06-17, 12:55:57 »

Just to bring the light material closer in line with the corona light object. Things like multiplier and temperature, along with the other options at the bottom.

Cheers

67

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / more efficient new material creation

« on: 2016-06-06, 00:37:57 »

Currently its a bit of a pain going to new material then across a couple of menus and down to get to 'standard' which 9 times out of 10 is the option required. I have recently downloaded the trial of indigo out of curiosity as its developed a stones throw from my office and I really liked the way they had integrated the new material creation into c4d. I'll not show any screen grabs but essentially there is an option for a new indigo material in the create menu directly below the c4d native material option. Then once that new material is created if you open it up there is a drop down at the top of the left menu below the shader ball to select the type of material - so in corona it could be light mat or portal etc. Its a much better way of doing things IMO. I couldnt get my head round indigo mats though, far too scientific for me.

68

[Max] I need help! / Killing fireflies in animation

« on: 2016-06-01, 12:56:26 »

Im on the C4D version so no denoising unfortunately. I have rendered out an animation and unfortunately the grass is going off like a load of flashbulbs with white fireflies. I read its to do with reflection and that hdri can be a problem but I'm only using sun and sky. Unfortunately I'm going to have to rerender quite a bit of it and let the client down. I have already dimmed the reflections on the grass but its still really bad. Is the only way to get rid of fireflies to switch it off all together? Anything I can do in after effects? I have tried denoiser2 but that just smudges everything into a blur.

69

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / variance shader

« on: 2016-05-06, 14:55:37 »

Like in the max version and Paul Everttes original ninja shader for C4D which doesn't really work properly with Corona. Its so useful for generating different looking trees from the same model for example or changes in repetitive building geometry.

70

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / Ctex map multipass implimentation

« on: 2016-04-30, 01:54:52 »

Can we have this in the next alpha? Really useful for adding an AO pass for painting in 'dirt' in post. Hopefully one of the easier ones to port from the max version. Thanks

71

[Max] I need help! / Corrrect absorbtion distance for swimming pool water?

« on: 2016-04-13, 18:06:08 »

Just if anyone knows what would be an appropriate distance of absorption for swimming pool water? Should I give it slightly dark blue/green colour for a pleasing result?

Thanks

72

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / C4D render 'options' disappear when switching to corona

« on: 2016-04-04, 14:30:20 »

On the drop down on the left where you chose your render engine there is the category 'options' listed below which includes the option to render active object only which is really handy. However when you select corona as the render engine this disappears. With Vray selected the 'options' menu stays and you can use the render only active object option so im hoping its a quick thing to add in the SDK. Thanks 

73

[Max] I need help! / Dancing displacement in animation

« on: 2016-03-14, 18:58:39 »

Im using displacement for an old brick wall that I will be getting close to in an animation. I would have liked to have just used bump but for some reason the C4D version has a barely visible bump effect with bitmaps, not sure if the Max version works better?

Anyway on testing the displacement on the brick wall seems to dance a bit like its sampling the displacement slightly different each frame. I have tried locking the noise pattern but im not sure if that is related. Is there a way for corona to lock in a displacement solution for a static object and just use that solution for all frames rather than generating a new displacement solution each frame that is slightly different from the last?

I havent got a tight subD on the wall but the effect is good with 1px screen resultuion. Generation time is also surprisingly not bad either.

Many thanks

74

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / Viewport rendering to respect frame output proportion

« on: 2016-03-14, 02:53:39 »

Essentially render the camera extents to get the same image as what you would see in the picture viewer - rather than the whole viewport which is usually not the same proportion. Its gives a better idea of the final output composition and also doesnt waste time rendering the borders which aren't going to be visible in the final composition. Vray does this so it should be possible in the SDK. That would be great - or at least a tick box option in the settings for those that would rather it the way it is. Thanks.

75

[C4D] Resolved Feature Requests / smart corona proxy creation

« on: 2016-03-07, 00:01:43 »

When we get full corona proxy support will there be a way to export an object group or single object with multiple poly selection tags as a proxy file in a simple click? Or is the only way going to be exporting each individual mesh and then reassembling them to form the original group again - which is quite time consuming, especially if changes are needed? Thanks