Chaos Corona Forum
General Category => Gallery => Work in Progress/Tests => Topic started by: chilombiano on 2017-03-08, 20:58:27
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Hey guys. It's been a while i don't post anything here. Actually i have never posted any work images until now.
Because Vfx content is tricky on the ownership side of things i only showed these to Keymaster privately but heck..is been a while now and we have something called fair use :).
I also hope my fellow vfx corona users could contribute, discuss and push with more impetu on this threat and on the feautures threat for things that Corona might be missing for vfx work.
These images are the result combination of multiple corona passes and ps work in a nuke setup of mutiple camera projections. in some cases is a final frame before comp and in others a wide cam rendered out of nuke before cropping or adding fx, characters and stuff like that.
Using Corona in these type of work wasn't as easy as it might look. Generally there is no support for tools that fall so far from the established pipeline but sometimes there is no other choice that to go for it. Corona did excel in the times i could use it despite its shorcomings. Once proven useful we actually managed to pull many many shots out in no time and that was having zero render nodes.
Images belong to:
Dawn of the planet of the Apes / 2014
Godzilla /2014
The hobbit trilogy / 2012-2014 ( changing from vray to Corona at the time )
Star trek beyond / 2016
In the future i'll try to post from newer shows :)
Cheers
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Didnt think corona was used on any big film!! Really nice works :)
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Hypnotising landscape :- ) Any chance of small gif from that ?
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... Vfx content is tricky on the ownership side of things i only showed these to Keymaster privately but heck..is been a while now and we have something called fair use :).
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Images belong to:
Dawn of the planet of the Apes / 2014
Godzilla /2014
The hobbit trilogy / 2012-2014 ( changing from vray to Corona at the time )
Star trek beyond / 2016
wow, that's cool! congrats for you and Ondra :D
never knew that corona has been used in movies since 2014? or am I misunderstood something?
upload the animation views please :)
just curious, please tell us more what about the tricky side of vfx contents ownership from movies?
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Great well done!
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Thank you chilombiano! This means a lot for us, really!
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Hi,
there's currently general consensus that the last few major features Corona is missing for VFX are Non-homogenous volumetrics, such as clouds or fire/smoke simulations, hair rendering, skin shader and out-of-core rendering (rendering over RAM limit). Aside from these, what else do you think Corona is missing to be VFX ready?
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Beautiful work! Thanks for sharing these.
Really inspiring!
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Amazing Works.. congratz :O
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Whell, I'll be damned. Not surprising to be honest, Corona was always destined for greatness :)
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Hey guys. thank you for the kind comments!.
I don't know if i could post animations but will post soon snapshots of the final shots as they were realeased. don't know about anim gifs :)
Christa. The thing about content ownership is that whatever you produce in house for film generally belongs to the Studio ( like FOX ) and they allow vfx houses to use the content for marketing and all but for us mere mortals is not so easy even if you actually did the work. but as long as you are not profiting with the images ( like selling postards :) ) its not an issue. For a professional gathering like this forum i would asumme its ok ( hence "fair use" ).
Ravalanche!
Well that's the juicy question right there. I just got my licence for 1.5 and have been very happy since. ( all the stuff i posted we used A5 and A6! ). But not a day had passed and i find myself forced to pick Arnold because there is a Client doing a sequence that involves multiple types of work like fx sims, lighting and so on. I do environments and generally doesn't matter what i use as they plug into the comp end parallel to everything but clients require sometimes a consistent solution across diferent fields. For example this case i mention has a big sim done in houdini and there is lighting work done in maya i think ( diferent freelancers, etc whatever ) and the sims in this particular case interact with the environment in a way that makes it no so easy to just comp resulting renders from difrent packages. So the client wants to see his sims and all looking awesome and consistent with other env work we have done using Corona and Pumm!. no can't do. No openVDB support and then everything goes downhill from there and i have to start using Arnold which is an amazing tool but damn is so far from ''rendering is magic'' and figure out now how to do without my lovely corona scatter and to make a simple material ..hehe, you get the idea.
I personaly dont need VDB support and all that stuff. but not having it gives to situations where you might end ditching Corona out of the pipeline even if Corona was already the best tool for the bulk of the work. So that's one.
The other big one is not having EXR 2.0 supported. Its a similar problem. Is not something you might need much in many cases ( i personally can get away old school for comping elements ) but there are cases deep data is requeried due the way a pipeline is built. and it is a powerfull tool when you are dealing not with a super good looking single image but with hundreds of shots.
I think those two can be considered basic pipeline compatibility tools.
The ones you mention are of course key things as core rendering /shading elements. Heterogeneous volumetrics absolutely. I would add a Thin layer shader into the list and maybe get some ideas from Arnold's SSS shader and they way is implemented.
And if Ondra can bring back the ReflOcl pass that would be swell :).
I think the rest are just little day to day goodies that make using the tool a pleasure or that overcomes Max own pretty much dead development like interface things and the sort. Is not missing much there really.
Zdepth pass could have separate X Y Z controls. that's handy.
Being able to lock to camera certain Corona scatter values like rotation.
A killer multi camera projection shader maybe.
Little stuff like that :)
Anyway. I do think Corona can maintain its elegance and fit much better in a vfx pipeline with very few key additions. i don't think it needs to go overboard and be like Arnold to be widely embraced in Vfx but it could easily blow out of the water some mayor tools for medium size projects, specific types of sequences, comercials, etc. by adressing those additions.
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damn, another vote for OpenVDB... it is starting to look inevitable for 1.7 ;)
doing the old reflection occlusion would be easy, we can actually squeeze that into 1.6.
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just curious, where were you working when you did these? just surprised and assumed the VFX houses that worked on those films where using maya and other renderers. i know star trek had some max/vray but the others i didn't know.
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damn, another vote for OpenVDB... it is starting to look inevitable for 1.7 ;)
(https://lh3.ggpht.com/SiR7h7X53jAU8N_fuDefBhcJGfjYUQ3QFhJD4OIg6Hvqjq_kq72wiR1e1k1dPB9E098=w300)
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Hats off, sir, that's some amazing work!
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just curious, where were you working when you did these? just surprised and assumed the VFX houses that worked on those films where using maya and other renderers. i know star trek had some max/vray but the others i didn't know.
Generally that would be true. But these are backgrounds/matte paintings. And those guys are generally allows to do whatever they need to get the background out. Paint it, render it in whatever, Photoshop and Nuke it until you get thumbs up. It is quite often one-man-job as most things cannot be reused (the mountain backdrop can't be in that many shots.. the monkey would) so there is much more flexibility in their tool of choice.
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OP, some crazy good work! Glad to see Corona being used on big films.
On another note, can someone explain to me like I'm 5 what Open VDB is?
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Expected results from Corona Renderer Lovely conceptuals.
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On another note, can someone explain to me like I'm 5 what Open VDB is?
VDB is how we store Volumetric Data - as Blocks "Voxels"
VDB describes a grid in 3D, how big it is, how high the resolution (number of block in that size) is and how the voxels change over time.
OpenVDB (http://www.openvdb.org)is a standard, which is free and has no licence cost, which provides a clever way to store and manipulate the data.
Simulation programs use openVDB to create, manipulate and store the Volumetric simulation and renderers implement the openVDB library, so the data is read and input into the rendering environment.
Most of the industry uses openVDB for volumetrics, which is why there is such a fuss about it. If you implement openVDB, you automatically support most volumetric simulation plugins and programs.
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VDB is how we store Volumetric Data - as Blocks "Voxels"
VDB describes a grid in 3D, how big it is, how high the resolution (number of block in that size) is and how the voxels change over time.
OpenVDB (http://www.openvdb.org)is a standard, which is free and has no licence cost, which provides a clever way to store and manipulate the data.
Simulation programs use openVDB to create, manipulate and store the Volumetric simulation and renderers implement the openVDB library, so the data is read and input into the rendering environment.
Most of the industry uses openVDB for volumetrics, which is why there is such a fuss about it. If you implement openVDB, you automatically support most volumetric simulation plugins and programs.
Oh right, sweet. Makes sense!
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the VDB reading is actually not the problem, the problem is that somebody needs to actually render the data. Which can get really tricky
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Thanks Ondra for the reflOcl :)
But i must confess i was so cheap i got my 1.5 licence minus the extra 1 year daily build acess :( .
VDB i guess will only make sense until the Volume shaders side gets fully developed. makes sense. Good to know you guys are aware of the need of those standards.
What about EXR 2.0. What would make it complicated to implement from the programing point of view?. i would imagine the data is there and you just need to add this output.. or is it more involved than that?
The more i have to work with Arnold the more convinced i am that you guys are doing the right thing with Corona in the sense of keeping things lean and getting rid of some cg legacy stuff. and integration to Max is flawless not to mention speed. But still there are really good things about Arnold worth looking at ( from a Vfx integration point of view ) like their diagnostics options, some utility shaders and so on.
i wont start listing features here. will take that to another thread :0 .
CompanionCube:
Tomas answered pretty well. but maybe is not so much like whatever tool we need to get the job done but rougly yes and not always, actually less and less these days, the shot is a simple background :p. There are still technical and political implications. Every case is diferent. And we still have to cover every angle as much as possible to avoid a conflict with other tools, processes.
In the one show we used Corona the most we were lucky that we were pretty much abandoned to our own devices as the prod support was focused mostly on huge character work and other fully CG ( pipeline cg )sequences.
In other cases the full might of an in house pipeline doesn't get the job done just because the more people you put into a task eventually makes the problem worst and those pipelines are designed for a huge subdivision of work. And in some cases there is a transition going on from one technology to another and the task can be so simple but somehow falls trough the cracks and you can't get it done with what used to work.
Still..it was always a thin rope to walk trought!.
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some questing please
i see all the awesome landscape and its fantastic
maybe you can talk little about the correct workflow and what we see here
i want to know in case of huge landscape... did you import the tree and rescale them so they small then real world scale?
i guess is not good to work on island with full real world scale... so did you need to scale down all for the shot?
second.. we see in the end of the frames some hand painted elements... so its not all 3d? can we get some info about this?
thanks!
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i want to know in case of huge landscape... did you import the tree and rescale them so they small then real world scale?
i guess is not good to work on island with full real world scale... so did you need to scale down all for the shot?
long time ago I heard that downscaling is a trick to make the scene not too heavy when dealing with super big scene. but I found that downscaling everything would gives a headache on resetting too many overscaled parameters like absorbtion, light, volumetric and etc. so imho, about downscaling trick... I don't think so... but who knows. let chilombiano share his opinions
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Hey guys,
Sure.
The scale thing. the absolute scale of a place ..yeahh, it kind of have to be respected but for big landscapes the farther sections can generally get cheated. There is a degree of flexibility depending on how the camera moves, type of shot or they way is gonna put together ( fully rendered, camera projections, etc ). A lock off cam shot is more forgiving as the end result might just be a projection on a big sphere. In the image i posted of the lake the situation was a bit diferent, it was a simple lock off cam with a 2d push it ( a POV shot ) but the show was Stereo.
And in Stereo scale is a bigger issue altough still forgiving at far far elements so lets say just for saying probably the first 40 km or so are correct and pass that its a bit more of a cheat. Now, as matter of annecdote that particular landscape had very especific topography and i actually had to use terrain elevation data as a starting point. someone higher up arbitrarily picked a piece of the real world and made it our middle earth ! :).
I do remember having some issues with big "real scale" scenes on the software once or twice. I think vray gave me once some sort of error in Maya. i don't think the scenes get heavier at all but i might be wrong. precision seems to go a bit nuts and a bit querky with the clipping planes but that's it.
But there is also relative scale ( that one be barely respect :p ). I could have a tree asset that measures 10mt high and scatter it into a field but maybe it looks like crap in the far distance. then i would just up its scale or whatever makes it look good. i guess we all cheat like that, right?. As far as the final image looks good!.
The paint question. Yes, there is a lot of paint work, in all of them, sometimes just some details here and there and sometimes there is nothing left of any cg elements. In the one area you point out there was a foreground line of moving trees. most likely i had alpha holes from my base renders and quickly filled them with the brush just in case or for presentation. You can see some of the other examples having huge holes which are generally covered by the plate anyways. There is a balance there of how much you can spend building up a 3d scene and where can you take a shortcut. If you are interested i'll be happy to answer about the many sub-processes and gags we do. just let me know.
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chilombiano!
you are great!
thanks for all the good answers!
i have so many questions about the big screen field but i guess i will do it slow step by step :)
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Big vote for Open VDB here! This in my opinion would complete Corona! Dispersion as well would be rad ;)
Keep it up guys, Corona still is my fav!
- Shawn
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Some new VFX work done using Corona:
The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One Official Trailer #1
These are some of the ones i did ( snapshots from the trailer ). Will try to post the high res renders when the movie is out.
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Incredible!
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wowwww
these are 3d renders that painted over them more details in post?
for camera projection?
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That's exactly what I dream about doing with Corona !! Without words! Great!!
Some new VFX work done using Corona:
The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One Official Trailer #1
These are some of the ones i did ( snapshots from the trailer ). Will try to post the high res renders when the movie is out.
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Thank you guys!.
Yes Oren. Few renders with a bunch of extra passes and then lots of detail added in photoshop for later projection in Nuke. In the case of the spaceship i did two versions ( no highlights and highlights ) multiplied by several projections for diferent sections of the asset plus several masks for lights and so on.
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That sunset! Mother of God....
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Hi,
have you seen our roadmap for 1.7? ;)
Cheers,
Ondra
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Hey Yes. Just saw it!. Impressive indeed that you guys are gonna be able to package so much so soon. Really great stuff for Vfx and games. My deep appreciation!
I have to ask you, though.. Why isn't EXR2 in there? :( . Could you maybe shed some light into its implementation. Is it something complicated to add? or is it so simple that is not even worth mentioning it as a new feature and it's already there :) ?.
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Why isn't EXR2 in there? :(
Could you please elaborate which EXR2 features you find important and how would you like to use them in Corona? My imagination kinda fails on this one :)
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Why isn't EXR2 in there? :(
Could you please elaborate which EXR2 features you find important and how would you like to use them in Corona? My imagination kinda fails on this one :)
EXR2 has deep data capability - basically storing each pixel in multiple layers separeated by z-depth. Useful for postproduction DOF and masking. Complicated to add.
also: now I feel nothing we do is good enough ;)
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You're doing helluva job, but you can't please everybody. The more you'll add to existing features, the more users will demand for moarrr! :]
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Thanks for the answer Ondra. didn't know it is actually complicated to add. i really was crossing fingers it was some simple output thingy ..
But please. What you guys are doing for roadmap for 1.7 is, i say again, impressive!. didn't wanna sound ungreateful at all :
The thing is Deep data is now pretty much a cornerstone for the way a renderer plugs into a pipeline. The whole compositing workflow for many studios is now deep comp so not being able to provide them with that gets Corona out of the equation from the get go in many instances. which..well, sucks :( as then there is no chance to play with all those awesome 1.7 features. ( is not just asking for moarr! :).
I personally try to avoid using it due the file size nor i would get the best of it as im not a comper myself. Just pushing you guys to put that one toe at the VFX door. And because i hate supervisors asking "but where is deep channel ..blalbla "! :). you know..dogma is a powerfull thing.
For Ryuu
https://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-art-of-deep-compositing/