Corona 10/11 - Corona Render Assets loading very slow

[Peter A.]

Hello,

When opening scenes with Corona Renderer 10 Hotfix 1 in 3ds max 2023/2024, the scene is loading extremely slow with the message "Loading Corona assets". It takes several minutes to load relatively simple scene with few Corona materials. And it basically freezes 3ds max window.

This did not happen with version 9.

Anybody having the same issue?

Update: the same issue is with Corona 11 HotFix 1 under 3ds max 2024.2

Peter

[Alexandre Besson]

+1

[jms.lwly]

+1

Have recently had to re-open a scene from 2021 (old client project which was paused but now re-started), it has a number of Corona Proxy objects and the 'Loading Corona assets' phase of scene opening is a killer.

[Tom]

+1

When loading a scene I have a "loading Corona assets" message that didn't appear previously with Corona 9, or if it appeared and I didn't notice it, it didn't last that long before disappearing (I'm on Corona 10 now, no Hotfix installed yet).

[dj_buckley]

+1

[maru]

Hi all, thanks for reporting this. Currently, we are not aware of any similar reports, and we haven't noticed such slowdowns in our internal scenes. If possible, please send us any problematic scenes over at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
It would be great if you could attach a scene saved with Corona 9 so that we could compare the V9 and V10 times.

I have some additional questions/considerations:
- Are you using iToo plugins in your scenes? (we had some similar reports in the past which were related to iToo)
- Are you loading your scenes and all assets from local drivers or from network drives/gdrive/dropbox?
- Are there many hi-res textures in your scenes? (for example 100 x 8k textures)
- Does lowering all textures resolutions under Viewports Configuration to a super low value like 128px make any difference?

[Frood]

Hi Maru,

we are not aware of any similar reports

we had some similar reports in the past which were related to iToo

:)

I can confirm (equal or) longer loading times with Corona 10, depending on the scene. Tested with 3 standard scenes, mixed results:

Scene A (Some CBitbaps in the scene that I missed to eliminate or have been in Xreffed scenes/objects)
3:18 - Corona 9
5:09 - Corona 10

Scene A (Cbitmaps converted to std Bitmaps)
2:45 - Corona 9
3:12 - Corona 10

Scene B
2:41 - Corona 9
2:51 - Corona 10

Scene C
2:51 - Corona 9
2:53 - Corona 10

Out of core cache has been off, there are Xreffed scenes/objects in all scenes and yes - Itoo stuff as well. Everything loaded via network/UNC, using Max 2023.

Viewport settings should not make any difference since all viewport stuff starts after loading the scene. The time values are those reported by Max in the log, that is: the difference between the #filePreOpen and the #filePostOpen event.

Btw: And again CoronaBitmap making things worse.

Btw2: That more or less persistent "loading Corona assets" message is just some UI issue imho: Corona seems to use the "TempPrompt" of Max (I use it in scripts as well) and it just does not get cleared by some new message, in this case the last queued string just stays there.


Good Luck

[Peter A.]

Hi Maru,

Thank you for your reply.

To your notes:
1/ This slowdown is happening with every scene previously saved and rendered with Corona 9 engine.
2/ iTools plugin: No
3/ Scenes and assets loading: Local SSD drive
4/ Textures: less than 100 textures, below 4K resolution
5/ Lowering texture resolution did not help.

Hi all, thanks for reporting this. Currently, we are not aware of any similar reports, and we haven't noticed such slowdowns in our internal scenes. If possible, please send us any problematic scenes over at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
It would be great if you could attach a scene saved with Corona 9 so that we could compare the V9 and V10 times.

I have some additional questions/considerations:
- Are you using iToo plugins in your scenes? (we had some similar reports in the past which were related to iToo)
- Are you loading your scenes and all assets from local drivers or from network drives/gdrive/dropbox?
- Are there many hi-res textures in your scenes? (for example 100 x 8k textures)
- Does lowering all textures resolutions under Viewports Configuration to a super low value like 128px make any difference?

[maru]

Hi Maru,

we are not aware of any similar reports

we had some similar reports in the past which were related to iToo

:)

Correction: I am not aware of any similar reports regarding Corona 9 vs Corona 10. We did have some reports of slow loading and they were related to iToo, but it was long ago and it was fixed by better Corona<>iToo compatibility.

Hi Maru,

Thank you for your reply.

To your notes:
1/ This slowdown is happening with every scene previously saved and rendered with Corona 9 engine.
2/ iTools plugin: No
3/ Scenes and assets loading: Local SSD drive
4/ Textures: less than 100 textures, below 4K resolution
5/ Lowering texture resolution did not help.

Thanks for all the details. Could you please send us a support ticket at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new and attach a scene if possible?

[3dboomerang]

Can we revert a scene back to corona 9 from 10 for the time being? I'm getting extreme waiting times for opening files.

[TomG]

Depends on whether you used anything that was new or changed in Corona 10, and then saved the scene. That kind of compatibility is never guaranteed though. All you can do is try and see what happens :) PS as noted in the message above, a ticket and example scene would be very useful from our side, for investigating.

[Jacolath]

+1 for this issue. Loading Corona assets seems long across all scenes.

I dont know if it is related but I have extremely low refresh rate for IR specially if there was an autosave. 20 mins+ for 13900k 128gb system autosaving to a high end SSD. Granted they are big files but we are used to working with big files and this is excessive.

[3dboomerang]

Hi Maru,

we are not aware of any similar reports

we had some similar reports in the past which were related to iToo

:)

Correction: I am not aware of any similar reports regarding Corona 9 vs Corona 10. We did have some reports of slow loading and they were related to iToo, but it was long ago and it was fixed by better Corona<>iToo compatibility.

Hi Maru,

Thank you for your reply.

To your notes:
1/ This slowdown is happening with every scene previously saved and rendered with Corona 9 engine.
2/ iTools plugin: No
3/ Scenes and assets loading: Local SSD drive
4/ Textures: less than 100 textures, below 4K resolution
5/ Lowering texture resolution did not help.

Thanks for all the details. Could you please send us a support ticket at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new and attach a scene if possible?

Will you let us know in this thread when a fix is available in a hotfix version or something?... That way i'll bookmark this page - seems like a priority ..

[maru]

Hi all, we did some tests here and the same scenes appear to be opening slower in V10 compared to V9, however we were not able to reproduce such drastic slowdowns as "20+ minutes". It's only ~10 seconds slower in case of larger scenes with many objects, xrefs, textures, 3rd party plugins, etc (we are not using a teapot scene for this). The files were loaded locally from an M2 drive in 3ds Max 2024 and the time was measured between pressing "open" and being able to move in the viewport.

The issue is logged and our developers will investigate further, but if you are experiencing this, please send us any scene where this happens: https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
This will greatly help us and will also speed up the fixing process if something is indeed wrong here.

Will you let us know in this thread when a fix is available in a hotfix version or something?... That way i'll bookmark this page - seems like a priority ..

Yes. You can also use the "notify" button at the top of the page to get an email every time there is a new message in this thread.

(Internal ID=1187364205)

[Ink Visual]

Hi all, we did some tests here and the same scenes appear to be opening slower in V10 compared to V9, however we were not able to reproduce such drastic slowdowns as "20+ minutes". It's only ~10 seconds slower in case of larger scenes with many objects, xrefs, textures, 3rd party plugins, etc (we are not using a teapot scene for this). The files were loaded locally from an M2 drive in 3ds Max 2024 and the time was measured between pressing "open" and being able to move in the viewport.

I assume these tests are being done on the archived scenes that all link to the assets stored in one folder?
The real life scenraio is often that assets are spread across various network locations. Max was always taking longer time to load such scenes, but maybe there's even bigger difference in such scenario between Corona 9 and 10?

[3dboomerang]

ye doesn't need to be 2024 either, working in 2023 here, on a NAS server (HDD) for all the scene files and local for plugin files (Forest Pack Pro, etc..)

I think this has more to do with network related loading, although: Were there even any changes on that between v9 & v10?...

[3dboomerang]

can someone comfirm that creating proxies on a network NAS is also showing slowdown?

I have the point cloud generating instantly, but the actual loading of it takes a while? Feels like a "freeze" or "hang" ... Also taking longer compared to before, related?

[zules]

Hello, I got exactly the same lagging while opening a C9 scene from before summer on C10Hf1, it took 24min exactly to open it.
Lots of forest pack in it but it's almost crashing other open software or other 3dsmax instances.

[3dboomerang]

when u make a render, do you notice the unloading proces is extremely slower as well? Checking for Forest Pack, trying to see if this is (again) related.

[zules]

Hi there,
I just tried to open and "old" scene from before summer with C10H1 & C9HF1 :

C10 : 19m05s
C9 : 7m08s

So there is a real problem here, I will downgrade to C9 the time for the team to solve it...

I can share the project if needed.

Jules

[alexyork]

This might or might not be related but a tip anyway: double check your max settings for bitmap loading resolution. + menu, configure viewports, then check that the textures resolutions are more or less default like 1024 pixels, 2048 pixels for viewport backgrounds. If you crank these up for any reason it can seriously mess up max file loading times.

Again, shouldn't be anything related to corona but best checked anyway to rule out as your issue.

[zules]

Thanks for the tips, but everything is as default in those menus...

[TC]

+1 here. 3Ds Max 2023, Corona 10 Hotfix 1
Extremely long loading times, stuck at "loading Corona assets". 10 m+ and counting, a 1.23 Gb scene that was quite zippy before. What gives?

[TC]

A quick update - the only workaround in my case was to revert to Corona 9, no issues whatsoever afterwards with the exact same scene
Something's not right with the 10-build in terms of loading assets - my experience was that the scene would not load at all (so not that there was a long wait, but the whole thing actually froze)

9 solved the issue for now.

[zules]

Yes the same, I reverted to C9Hf1 and all goes well... sad to not enjoy what I paid for but patience is the key !

[Ink Visual]

Loading times are our worst nightmare in Max+Corona scenes. They are already pretty high in our most complex files in v9, but they always have been in previous versions too.
But cannot imagine having to wait for file to load even longer.
Thanks for the reports guys, won't be updating to v10 until this is fixed I think.

[rowmanns]

+1 here. 3Ds Max 2023, Corona 10 Hotfix 1
Extremely long loading times, stuck at "loading Corona assets". 10 m+ and counting, a 1.23 Gb scene that was quite zippy before. What gives?

Hi,

Are you able to send the scene over to me?

Instructions on how to do this can be found in my signature.

Cheers,

Rowan

[Rhodesy]

+1 for this, glad I'm not the only one. Working on a few large files and they can take an hour to open. The current one is a particularly big 6GB file. Interesting that the Max log says the scene is loaded within 3 mins. Task manager is running at single thread speed and the RAM usage is idling around 20GB, so its slowly working on something but not building any RAM, there is zero disk activity, its been in this state for about 35mins and counting now. Eventually it usually opens after approx an hour. In other scenes I have put it down to lots of forestpack but only a few bits in this scene. I can try and archive it but I am guessing its going to be huge with all textures and assets.

I think we notice this loading corona assets more in Max 2024 with the loading bar feature which is useful.

EDIT: OK after 35-40 mins of idling around at 20GB ram and no disk activity, it bursts to life with loads of disk and cpu, ram quickly builds to 55GB and the viewport gets generated. Not sure what its chewing on. My guess would be material generating related. We were trouble shooting some crashes in another large scene and uninstalled corona to test and the scene geometry generated very quickly, just with all black materials.

[maru]

We should soon release a daily build with improved scene loading times. Once it's out, please test it with a problematic scene.

[rowmanns]

Hi,

This should be fixed in the latest v11 daily build. You can grab it here: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=40442.msg217369#msg217369

Please give it a test and let us know if you continue to have issues.

Rowan

[TC]

Just installed v11, the daily build. The scene that I had problems with initially still gets stuck at 98%, loading Corona assets.
As stated before, the workaround for me was downgrade to 9 but also merge the problematic scene into a new max-file. Same scene content, same assets - loading times quite alright this time, given the size of the file. Both 9 and 11 work fine with the merged file.

[Rhodesy]

Not done a closely compared time test but the latest one I'm sure is faster. Also the disk or RAM or CPU is always moving, unlike before where it was just hanging without activity for ages. Will keep an eye on load times next times with these large scenes. Good job!

[Rhodesy]

OK Loading an other scene and unfortunately, still getting the long wait on the loading corona assets phase with the CPU running one thread and very little RAM / Disk / Network activity. The scene will eventually load but not sure what corona is thinking about during this phase. Not a particuarly heavy forestpack scene.

[Aram Avetisyan]

OK Loading an other scene and unfortunately, still getting the long wait on the loading corona assets phase with the CPU running one thread and very little RAM / Disk / Network activity. The scene will eventually load but not sure what corona is thinking about during this phase. Not a particuarly heavy forestpack scene.

Hi,

Can you please tell if Corona 11 daily build is slower or just as slow as Corona 10? And Corona 9 still loads faster than both?
Sharing the scene to test it on our end will be better of course.

[hrvojezg00]

Will this be incorporated into a new 10 hotfix?

[maru]

Will this be incorporated into a new 10 hotfix?

Does it work better for you in V11 dailies?
We won't be releasing any new V10 hotfixes as V11 is planned to be released in about 1 month. :)

[hrvojezg00]

Will this be incorporated into a new 10 hotfix?

Does it work better for you in V11 dailies?
We won't be releasing any new V10 hotfixes as V11 is planned to be released in about 1 month. :)

We can`t really test dailies due to current office workflow, but this is a major issue.

[brr]

Hello,

I recently updated to Corona 10 HF2 for a project that required the implementation of some new features.
Today, I needed to perform a simple task: extract measurements from a basic Google Maps model, but it's nearly impossible due to the lags in Corona 10.

I have attached the scene for your reference, and you can experiment with it to measure the time it takes for opening and merging materials.
Currently, I don't have the time to test it with Corona 11 daily build.

Here are my "scores":

[3ds max 2022]-Corona 10 HF2
- Scene loading time:  9 minutes and 50 seconds
- Picking multisub material:  10 minutes


After selecting the materials, I have to wait an additional 10 minutes due to 3ds Max freezing.

I have tested this on:
- 3ds Max 2022 and 2024
- AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
- 64GB of RAM
- SSD

Scene Information:
- 450,000 polygons
- 1 object
- 1 multisub material with 694 3ds Max Physical materials
- 692 small textures

I hope this information helps.

[maru]

Here is how it works for me - https://youtu.be/Lscohf5ga_Q
Corona 10 HF2
Max 2024
Ryzen 3900X
SSD
32 GB of RAM

I would suggest the following as the first troubleshooting steps:

1 - Click on the name of your viewport mode (e.g. "standard", in your case: "standard-faster") > viewports configuration > set all the "pixels" resolutions in that window to a low value like 256, then restart 3ds Max and try again
Sometimes the textures are loading extremely slowly when the texture resolutions are set to high values.

2 - Disable your antivirus/firewall (just to check if it has any effect).

3 - Reset your 3ds Max ENU folder (but beware - this removes all your custom settings so it's best to save a backup)
https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Resetting-3ds-Max-3ds-Max-Design.html#:~:text=You%20can%20reset%20the%203ds,each%20user%20profile%20in%20Windows.

[brr]

Here is how it works for me - https://youtu.be/Lscohf5ga_Q
Corona 10 HF2
Max 2024
Ryzen 3900X
SSD
32 GB of RAM

Hello Maru,

Thank you very much for your video and advice. There is definitely something wrong with my machine.
However, before going through these steps, I reverted to Corona 9, and I also have some interesting time scores:

[3ds max 2022]- old settings (display performance - all 4096)
- Scene loading time: 10 minutes (Corona 9 HF3) VS  9 minutes and 50 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)
- Picking multisub material:  1 minute and 5 seconds (Corona 9 HF3) VS 10 minutes (Corona 10 HF2)

[3ds max 2022] - fresh ENU folder (display performance default)
- Scene loading time: 40 seconds (Corona 9 HF3) VS 1 minute and 20 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)
- Picking multisub material: 1 minute and 15 seconds (Corona 9 HF3) VS  1 minute and 45 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)

[3ds max 2024] - fresh ENU folder (display performance default)
- Scene loading time: 45 seconds (Corona 9 HF3) VS 47 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)
- Picking multisub material: 1 minute and 30 seconds (Corona 9 HF3) VS 45 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)

[3ds max 2022] - fresh ENU folder (display performance lowered all to 256)
- Scene loading time: 14 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)
- Picking multisub material: 55 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)

[3ds max 2024] - fresh ENU folder (display performance lowered all to 256)
- Scene loading time: 11 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)
- Picking multisub material: 46 seconds (Corona 10 HF2)



Can you please tell me which resolutions you had in your 3ds Max when you recorded the video?

[gmh_2001]

+1

[maru]

As explained above, please send us a sample scene and a description of the exact problem you are having: https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[2nuts]

I have the same problem on 3Ds max 2023....I uninstalled it then I installed 3Ds max 2024 , corona , vray & phoenix  from scratch. Keep getting the same problem....
Loading Corona assets
It sais 100% but its frozen.....In task manager sais that 3Dsmax is running... I did a factory reset but nothing!!!
Any ideas????

[Avi]

I have the same problem on 3Ds max 2023....I uninstalled it then I installed 3Ds max 2024 , corona , vray & phoenix  from scratch. Keep getting the same problem....
Loading Corona assets
It sais 100% but its frozen.....In task manager sais that 3Dsmax is running... I did a factory reset but nothing!!!
Any ideas????

Can you confirm if you are using 3ds Max 2024.2 and Corona 11 HF 1?

[Avi]

A user who had the same problem fixed it by reinstalling 3ds Max and all its plugins. They made sure to delete any files that were left behind.

According to user, these were the steps that he took:

1. Uninstall 3ds Max and Plugins: Everything related to 3ds Max, and its plugins was completely uninstalled.
2. All folders related to 3ds Max, including any residual files, were deleted.
3. Delete the Corona Folder in Program Files.
4. Re-install 3ds Max and Corona. (Latest version)

[cpvisual]

We are having extremely slow load times too in version 10.

[moosp]

This is still an issue. It's extremely frustrating to have to wait forever for our scenes to open and the only fix out there is to downgrade to corona 9. We are on newest version of Corona and max 2023. It takes around 10 seconds to save and 3:20 to open getting stuck at "loading corona assets" in the dialogue for around 2 minutes of the loading time. Some complex scenes takes more than 30 min to open and it's the biggest frustration we have in the office, which are seriously making us consider to go back to Vray. It's not ok that it takes more than half a year to fix an enormous issue like this.

[maru]

This is still an issue. It's extremely frustrating to have to wait forever for our scenes to open and the only fix out there is to downgrade to corona 9. We are on newest version of Corona and max 2023. It takes around 10 seconds to save and 3:20 to open getting stuck at "loading corona assets" in the dialogue for around 2 minutes of the loading time. Some complex scenes takes more than 30 min to open and it's the biggest frustration we have in the office, which are seriously making us consider to go back to Vray. It's not ok that it takes more than half a year to fix an enormous issue like this.

Hi, have you contacted us about this? I could not find any support tickets under your email address. If you already have a ticket with us, please send me its number.
We need a sample scene which is loading slowly attached to a support ticket at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
We won't be able to find the culprit unless we reproduce the issue. Otherwise, we can only troubleshoot (see Avi's message above).
So far, I am not aware of any scene which would load unexpectedly slowly (and loading for 30 minutes definitely doesn't sound right).

[Peter A.]

I will also do my best to post sample scene for further investigation.

[Bjoershol]

I have the same issue with Corona 11, 3Ds Max 2024.2

Loading hangs up when "loading corona assets" at 100% for a few minutes.

[Aram Avetisyan]

I have the same issue with Corona 11, 3Ds Max 2024.2

Loading hangs up when "loading corona assets" at 100% for a few minutes.

Hi,

We already have a "long scene loading and viewport lag afterwards" fix internally, and it was related to Scatter.
To check if this is your case, you can:
• Try installing Corona 10 HF3 and opening the scene with it.
• Try saving the scene without scatter objects, then opening it.

If in any of the cases the scene loads faster, then we will be sure that it is already fixed.
This and other NaN related issues will probably make to a hotfix.

[Bjoershol]

I have the same issue with Corona 11, 3Ds Max 2024.2

Loading hangs up when "loading corona assets" at 100% for a few minutes.

Hi,

We already have a "long scene loading and viewport lag afterwards" fix internally, and it was related to Scatter.
To check if this is your case, you can:
• Try installing Corona 10 HF3 and opening the scene with it.
• Try saving the scene without scatter objects, then opening it.

If in any of the cases the scene loads faster, then we will be sure that it is already fixed.
This and other NaN related issues will probably make to a hotfix.

Thank you, I tried deleting all scatters and saving - still hangs for about 7 minutes after reaching 100% before the viewport appears, then another 30 seconds until it finishes loading.

Should I still try it in Corona 10 HF3?

[Aram Avetisyan]

Yes, please, if possible.

You can simply open the original (or modified) scene with Corona 10 HF3.

[Bjoershol]

Yes, please, if possible.

You can simply open the original (or modified) scene with Corona 10 HF3.

Can confirm that the issue doesn't appear with Corona 10 HF3!

[Aram Avetisyan]

Thanks for trying out and confirming!