Chaos Corona Forum

Chaos Corona for 3ds Max => [Max] I need help! => Topic started by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 13:16:47

Title: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 13:16:47
Hello
as we know, when we render an exterior project, with CoronaSun, we have the boring problem of the sun disk.
Often, we have a bright pixel. This effect can be neglected in still images, but it translates into an annoying flickering in animation =(
Ok, I can tick "visible in reflection", but we will lose a nice glossy effect on my car shader. See the images

(http://www.francescolegrenzi.com/Temp/Corona/0055_Specular.jpg)

What do you suggest to do?

Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: tomislavn on 2014-10-29, 13:19:12
Tried rendering with HDR instead of sun/sky?
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 13:22:37
Yes, I could an I'll try to do as you suggested. But I think Corona shouldn't have this problem.
As V-Ray, CoronaSun and CoronaLights need to separate REFLECTION vs SPECULARITY
   
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: maru on 2014-10-29, 14:20:59
How about changing sun size or sky settings?
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 14:52:21
Same problem:  more bright pixels. And soft shadow thanks to the new Sun-disk size.
But, some years ago, we had the same problem with V-Ray. And Chaosgroup added a "affect reflection" and "affect specular" option for the lights.
In attachment some frames.
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: Ludvik Koutny on 2014-10-29, 16:17:23
Path tracers can not differ between reflection and specular. I would try to lower GI/AA balance first, so fine geometry with reflection gets sampled better and highlights do not flicker. Once you get your highlight, it will look like bright sharp dot. You need to apply some glare on it so it looks realistic. That one firefly on the shadowed side of the car is weird though... did you change MSI?

Here's how a picture of a car on sunny day looks like (http://www.allfordmustangs.com/forums/attachments/2005-2010-mustang-talk/102081d1276915308-good-day-pictures-2010-gt-car-dogs-005.jpg)

You get these glares on places where fireflies are. The big problem here is that corona doesn't have any glare yet. And the problem has gotten a lot worse since internal res now defaults to 1.
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 16:23:48
No, everything is by default.  =)
Maybe Ondra can try to solve that problem.
It's very useful to have reflection and glossy separated. Not only in my scene, but also in Studio setup.
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: romullus on 2014-10-29, 16:27:39
How about to render separate reelements and then clamp brightest pixels in reflection pass?
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 16:38:31
Avalanche, I see =) But, often, in CG we try to be closer to reality, by giving up small effects =)
Romulus: interesting idea, but I would like to see if there is a possibility to get good beauty pass, without tricks =)
In V-Ray is possible ;-)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: Ludvik Koutny on 2014-10-29, 16:43:31
Try to save image in 32bit EXR, and apply glare it post, there are plugins that will generate glare of correct realistic intensity from those bright spots. If you need free software, then try lens blur node in Autodesk Composite. Or you can try http://www.randomcontrol.com/arionfx-for-photoshop ArionFX, which is plugin photoshop designed specifically for this. It's really great companion for physically based renderers, where you render physically correct image, and then apply secondary photographic effects (bloom, glare, vignette, camera response) in post. And 95EUR is very reasonable price :)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 16:46:44
Rawalanche: thanks a lot for the suggestion. Price isn't a big problem. But I'm working for animation ;-) So, I cannot use ArionFX. I hope Ondra will fix this problem )
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: Ludvik Koutny on 2014-10-29, 16:55:41
Rawalanche: thanks a lot for the suggestion. Price isn't a big problem. But I'm working for animation ;-) So, I cannot use ArionFX. I hope Ondra will fix this problem )

What do you use to postprocess your animations?
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-29, 16:59:47
AE with standard filter, noise reducer plugin + Magic Bullet Looks. Not so much =)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: Ludvik Koutny on 2014-10-30, 08:53:21
AE should have some glare effect. If not, you can make one yourself. Make sure you use 32bit workflow (set up in AE properly), then key out luma channel, duplicate it two or three times, and motion blur it in several different directions. That will give you glare streaks, then do one more, and just blur it, to get little bloom around the hotspot :)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-30, 11:09:35
Rawalanche, if you open my animation, you see how much the  bright pixels change position. With glow effect I will no solve that problem =(
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: Ricky Johnson on 2014-10-30, 13:02:49
Would the Dust & Scratches effect in AE work at all to solve this in your scene? If you see the attached it works pretty well to despeckle in this test and doesn't seem to alter the rest of the image if you can find a good threshold value (although my bright pixels in this test may be higher in contrast than those you're trying to eliminate). I don't know how it would perform in an animation unfortunately.

It's a shame that ArionFX plugin isn't available for After Effects. Looks great.


Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: Ludvik Koutny on 2014-10-30, 13:31:12
Rawalanche, if you open my animation, you see how much the  bright pixels change position. With glow effect I will no solve that problem =(

Yes, that's due to the low AA sampling, that's why i said it needs to be done in combination with lowering of GI/AA balance, so AA does not skip those pixels on some of the frames :)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-30, 14:06:35
Hi Ricky Johnson, thanks for the suggestion. I'll try and I'll tell you the result =)
But, as we know, this isn't the correct way so solve this problem.
It's only a "palliative" =)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: maru on 2014-10-30, 14:19:00
Here is a bit dirty method I thought of. Basically, you disable sun's visibility in reflections, duplicate CoronaSky map, put it into Color Correction map, put it into reflection override slot and tweak tweak tweak until you're happy. It's a dirty method and would require more tweaking but I think it has potential... This won't change shadows or lighting, only materials' appearance.
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-30, 14:21:02
^___^ eheh "funny" idea. But it's work well!
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-30, 15:15:08
Ok, but I'm not very satisfied.
As you can see, I lose a nice specularity in the carpaint shader.

(http://www.francescolegrenzi.com/Temp/Corona/0056_CoronaSun.jpg)

The only solution (without post to remove bright flickering caused by sun disk as Ricky Johnson said) is like in VRaySun (affect specular)

(http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/help/200R1/images/controls/VRaySun_create.png)
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: maru on 2014-10-30, 16:21:31
hmmm... maybe this would require some more tweaking but maybe it's impossible to make it look as good as without faking...
Title: Re: How can we Keep glossy reflection of the sun, by hiding the sun disc (car model)
Post by: cecofuli on 2014-10-30, 16:33:28
Yes, because the Sun disk is very small, compared to the bright area of CoronaSky. I tried to tweak it, but it not possible in my opinion.