Corona 8 - environment, render, presets

[mgg.fnc]

Good morning everyone.
I have been taking a corona rendering course in 3dsmax using an older version (2), I have now upgraded to version 8 on free trial and have noticed several changes.
I have some presets created for launching renders and I can no longer import them within 3ds max, the program crashes when the operation is done.
Also, right now I have a grey background in the "Default Shading" mode when normally it would be black. Is this a problem related to the environment?
If I set a camera and try to render, the interactive render is always completely grey, I can't see the scene.

Does anyone know how to solve this problems?
Thank you in advance
F

[romullus]

Hi,

Regarding the crash, there's no guarantee that scenes, or custom scripts created in/for Corona 2 will work in recent versions, since it's very old version and there was way too many major changes to expect forward compatibility. It is advised to reset your render settings and/or merge the scene into the new file without keeping render settings.

As for the environment lighting, AFAIK nothing has changed here since Corona 2 and it should work as before. Make sure that you have any lights in your scene, either in form of supported light objects, or HDRI in environment, or Corona sky. If that does not solve your issues, please provide better explanation, preferably with some screenshots, or attach problematic scene to inspect.

P.S. if you're evaluating Corona in trial mode, it only makes sense to do that with the latest version, which at the moment is Corona 9 HF1 https://corona-renderer.com/download

[mgg.fnc]

Thank you for your kind reply regarding the presets.
As for the model, it was created with the previous version. I cannot find a solution for the environment and the virtual frame buffer is always black. I'll try to attach some screens for you to understand better. As you can see normally the background is grey if I select "use map" while it should be black. Maybe there is some problem with the environment. Do you know how to help me?
Thank you 

[romullus]

I cannot find a solution for the environment and the virtual frame buffer is always black. I'll try to attach some screens for you to understand better. As you can see normally the background is grey if I select "use map" while it should be black. Maybe there is some problem with the environment. Do you know how to help me?
Thank you

You have Corona sky assigned to environment, that means Corona will use it whenever "use map" checkbox is active. If you want pure black environment, then uncheck that checkbox, or clear the map from the slot. Mind you that you will have to add other light sources in the scene, otherwise it will render as pitch black.

[mgg.fnc]

Thank you! I'll try to see if it works.
Another question about the camera setting in general. I noticed that exposure is no longer present in the Corona Cam settings (screen4).
Now to change the exposure I have to change the Iso, zoom factor and F-stop settings in the photographic parameters or has it been moved to some other menu? (screen5)
Looking forward to your reply,
Thank you so much!
F

[romullus]

Simple exposure has been moved to Corona camera's tone mapping rollout, press the Edit.. button to access window with exposure and tone mapping controls.

[maru]

I think the easiest solution here might be setting up environment lighting from scratch and creating new cameras from scratch.

For example, in your screenshot with the Corona error messages I can see that you are rendering from an orthographic view. This can easily result in issues like "rendering only black/grey/solid color" instead of scene environment. Setting up a new camera and making sure you are rendering from it should resolve the issue.

[PROH]

You should also deactivate the exposure in 3ds Maxs environment panel, and use Coronas exposure only.

[mgg.fnc]

Everything works now! Thank you :)