Chaos Corona Forum
Chaos Corona for 3ds Max => [Max] General Discussion => Topic started by: hairston630 on 2014-03-25, 20:12:56
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Hi all!
I have been lurking on the forum for a few days now and wanted to finally drop in and say hello to all. To the developer, thank you so much for your work in regards to this renderer. I have a slight obsession with renderers, although I only have about 1 year of training in the 3d world. This renderer; however, has impressed me so thoroughly that I am on the verge of abandoning my vray training and jumping ship.
To all,
As my subject states, is making that jump a good idea for someone who is wanting to do professional freelance architectural and vehicle visualization? I am still inexperienced with materials, shaders, and some lights (other than basic) and I noticed that there aren't many tutorials pertaining to just the corona renderer and its shaders. Would my continuing education, using this renderer, be advisable or would I be better off learning something with more tutorials? Feel free to speak your mind, i have thick skin! :)
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If you want to do freelance work in Archviz / vehicle stuff it's very likely that you will have to work with vray sooner or later. Corona is indeed a very good renderer but you will have to use whatever is requested by the client - and that's in most cases Vray.
Corona Materials and Vray materials are not so different, you won't have problems to switch between these two renderers. Apart from that, the basics are the same everywhere, lighting and shading doesn't differ so much between all the engines.
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Most excellent. Thank you for the prompt and honest response. I think I will continue vray training and work with corona on the side so that it stays familiar with me. Hopefully one day this renderer will take the throne as it looks so promising. Thank you again!!
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Well I made a (nearly) total swich to Corona from being a Mental Ray (arch viz)user. First the interior shots triggered me, but now I've started using it on exteriors as well with good results.
I still have to figure out a clever way of a proper render workflow by using render elements and the other nifty features that are available in A6, but the ease of use is kinda addictive. I'm glad I didn't spend time and money on Vray 3.0 as I don't see real benefits for my workflow with Corona.
My main concern with Mental Ray was the ridiculous amount of increase in rendertimes when using certain render elements (adding one element could add twice the amount of rendertime). Autodesk never seemed to bother since it's been that way along time and I'm glad to use this powerful feature with this tremendous piece of software.
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Ultimately they are almost identical in workflow and material system. I won't do a comparison as it's against my beliefs, but you're not making any radical decision that would
complicate your life in freelance.
Regarding universal spread of Vray across industry, this actually won't matter to you if you freelance in Archviz in regard to end-clients. If by freelance you mean also sub-working for other CGI studios remotely,
that's not true freelancing but yes, that it would matter to learn industry standard, which is Vray. Your end-clients (those only worthy of having outside of quality agencies ) don't care and in 95perc. of case don't know what software you even use,
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Regarding universal spread of Vray across industry, this actually won't matter to you if you freelance in Archviz in regard to end-clients. If by freelance you mean also sub-working for other CGI studios remotely,
that's not true freelancing but yes, that it would matter to learn industry standard, which is Vray
(I knew you would write something to this thread :D)
Sure, for completely independent freelancers it doesn't matter which software they use. But from my experience the last couple of years I would really recommend to spend some time in a studio doing 3d/archviz to learn it. I don't think it's possible to learn all those important production things by yourself, at least if you want to achieve a certain amount of quality.
About automotive, I know some people working in this industry for clients like audi, mercedes, bmw etc (and done a little bit myself). Those corporations normally work with very few studios doing extremely high quality visualizations (with measurements of different carpaints and what not). They almost never switch their suppliers because there's so much research in there. So automotive may not be easy to do as a freelancer.
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True and I agree. I almost always only regard "archviz" (although I dislike to use the term and even consider it unified industry), which is bastard child of CGI and ultimately, the easiest discipline among all, both from technical and bussiness standpoint.
Of my "whole" (well, it's just less than 3 years) career I spent in studio 5 days, after which I was kicked out and kickstarted my own way. While the beginnings were funky I think I managed to learn purely by self and built a rather petit bussiness model,
currently centered around 3 people at most times, but with rather high margins, something I am proud of. So I am very much aware my advice is almost never universal. (I've noticed just now he asked about architecture and
and vehicles...so my fault missing that)
It doesn't mean though that I don't in fact, miss the experience. I so much long for it, but I am just past the point at which I can do it. I would pay generously to experience, maybe just walk around and talk to directors in companies like Hayes Davison and D-Box. I absolutely agree it would facilitate lot of things, importantly production values as you write, but I also believe it's possible to do without. After all, so many others have done it that way, across various fields.
Hey, if you ever want to discuss that automotive viz industry, hit me up somewhere, like on FB, or I'll come for beer visit, I have long time fascination towards it (but not intention to do it outside of maybe one hobby project in lifetime.
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My main concern with Mental Ray was the ridiculous amount of increase in rendertimes when using certain render elements (adding one element could add twice the amount of rendertime)
Risking to get kicked out of the forum for explaining things about different renderer, but here it goes :D
Vray has something called "include in anti-aliasing" (probably not in those words, i don't know...), and mental ray has "contrast all Buffers". The thing is, one renderer has this thing off by default, the other doesn't. And to make things worse, it's not exposed in GUI.
Solution is "mental ray render optimizer" which exposes many MR options for user to take advantage of. Google it and use it (if you plan on rendering anything with MR ever again).
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My main concern with Mental Ray was the ridiculous amount of increase in rendertimes when using certain render elements (adding one element could add twice the amount of rendertime)
Risking to get kicked out of the forum for explaining things about different renderer, but here it goes :D
Vray has something called "include in anti-aliasing" (probably not in those words, i don't know...), and mental ray has "contrast all Buffers". The thing is, one renderer has this thing off by default, the other doesn't. And to make things worse, it's not exposed in GUI.
Solution is "mental ray render optimizer" which exposes many MR options for user to take advantage of. Google it and use it (if you plan on rendering anything with MR ever again).
It would be wise to keep this thread on-topic, so we both don't risk getting kicked out :) Anyway, I spoke with MasterZap about this and he also mentioned about this and complained that it wasn't in the GUI. Fact that they know it but don't "fix" it tells me enough about their priorities and keep neglecting customers opinion. Enough on that...
So back on topic: Corona perfectly suits my needs for arch viz and therefor I'm not planning to use MR anymore, expect for specific (toon) effects and animations where MR comes in handy from time to time. I'd like to hear if Corona is planning to do more with specific toon shading or texture baking (that would be awesome to try) for a more global approach of this renderer.
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You do not need to worry about discussing other renderers :) You wont get kicked... we're not like that :) I wanted to reply same thing someone was just faster. MR render elements in Max are indeed slow due to the idiotic decision from Autodesk, to make Contrast All Buffers option enabled by default. It is still possible to disable via string options though... I will try to find out the string and post it here once I have it :)
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Hey, if you ever want to discuss that automotive viz industry, hit me up somewhere, like on FB, or I'll come for beer visit, I have long time fascination towards it (but not intention to do it outside of maybe one hobby project in lifetime.
Thought you weren't reachable via fb ;) Added you there. But I fear I can't tell you anything you don't know already. I was just involved in some mercedes project for about a month - which was only used for their internal training.
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I come from an architecture background and am fairly new to viz within a professional setting myself, but I thought I'd drop in my two cents anyway.
Almost any rendering engine can get the job done, and the "best" software will vary from job to job depending on what is needed. I've had fine results with Revit's gimpy version of Mental Ray, 3DS Max Mental Ray, 3DS Max V-Ray, old versions of V-Ray with Rhino, cheesy but quick animations from Lumion, Keyshot for architecture, and of course, Corona.
I believe that once you really learn one or two engines (particularly materials) and really understand common workflows, that knowledge will translate to other engines. I find that things I've learned with even Revit rendering (or hell, even Accurender 3 rendering that I did as a student!) apply across the board in one way or another because the concepts are generally the same.
V-Ray material tutorials will still go a long way with understanding Corona's shaders; Bertrand Benoit's Materialism article is a great place to start if you haven't seen it already (http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/2012/04/15/materialism-1/). If you can get a hold of the second printing, Alex Roman's From Bits to the Lens book is also a great resource as far as rendering "theory" might go. Of course, the best way is to just play around and experiment!
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Thank you all so much for the valuable input (and a big thank you to anthonyyue for that materials guide!!!). Yes, I would like to do independent freelance, however, I want to be realistic. I dont want to just assume that im going to jump right into it. If going into a production environment and working for another company will make me a better artist then I will go that route.
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I dont want to just assume that im going to jump right into it.
You will ;)
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In ArchViz you have some freedom, especially when it comes to workflows and the tools you use in your practice. In most cases Visualizers don't offer their client the files that produce the renderings, mainly because of the complexities of the render setups plus the staging that we go through create them. Also, in most 3d visualizations, elements like materials, objects, backdrops, landscape and even lighting is proprietary of the artist who is creating it. So ArchViz is a democracy in that sense.
For a renderer choose wisely...choose a renderer with good support, widely distributed, and one that you rock on.
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I dont want to just assume that im going to jump right into it.
You will ;)
In rendering, absolutely! In Arch-Viz, not a chance. I am completely aware of the insurmountable talent in this field and that I have a snowball's chance in hell of making it to the level of say Peter Guthrie, but this is something I want to be in for the long haul. I want to learn as much as I can and am in no rush to get to the destination. The journey is everything. Plus, I realize that the actual work itself is 20% of the work, while the 80% is business acumen.
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In ArchViz you have some freedom, especially when it comes to workflows and the tools you use in your practice. In most cases Visualizers don't offer their client the files that produce the renderings, mainly because of the complexities of the render setups plus the staging that we go through create them. Also, in most 3d visualizations, elements like materials, objects, backdrops, landscape and even lighting is proprietary of the artist who is creating it. So ArchViz is a democracy in that sense.
For a renderer choose wisely...choose a renderer with good support, widely distributed, and one that you rock on.
Thank you for those insights, Alex. I am definitely enjoying Corona and its workflow; however, I realize that there is more training (of course) available for other production renderers. I must say, I enjoy the results of Corona more so than I do Vray or MR. It just seems to produce more realistic renders, although its negligible in contrast to vray.
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Plus, I realize that the actual work itself is 20% of the work, while the 80% is business acumen.
You would be surprised, but I would say 90perc. of people in archviz and many predomintantly freelance oriented industries do not.
But you got the percentage correct :- ) So you're already on good way.
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In terms of arch vis, it all depends on what part of the production line you are in, meaning, either in the 2d or 3d team. 2d, to create the super quick images ( half a day - 1 day - few days and the amount of changes are super annoying ), and 3d you guessed it ( Time, maybe a day to months, regarding super realism or animation ).
However as visualisation is becoming easier, there is a merge of both requirements regarding the Artist to now be versed in both 2d and 3d. Only a few can do this. If you work for an Arch firm, once again depending on its size and projects, you will be producing super fast imaging and probably no realism at all to images such as - Mir - Luxigon - Dbox - but even these are considered the end result of imaging - Final advertising imaging. So a project could go through 20 internal images over a period of a year to then be eligible for few final advertising shots, which is then given to the named companies.
If Freelancing, no one cares as long as you can show what you can produce, but even then as you mentioned, you need a business model, how are you going to beat all the other super good freelancers?. Considering, the new trend where companies are creating their own teams, as its probably half the price in terms of wages per staff.
I used to use vray and now switched to corona. The senior partners or architects do not care what I am using, all they care is whether what they envisaged is what they can show the client.
Better to learn both, and I still don't even know Max or Vray in and out, but the work is always produced.
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Most excellent, Dervish. After about a week of really digging into both renderers, I don't even know if I can make myself break away from Corona after getting it off the ground. So it looks like ill be learning both! Its just so much easier to be creative with it. I can; however, say that, by studying Vray, its making Corona that much easier to manipulate (as one mentioned earlier in the thread). That was another internal mulling which brought me to the topic of this thread (using concepts of other renderers to understand Corona). It is also encouraging to hear that clients are less concerned with renderers (as freelancers).