Messages

1

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to have a shadow when multiple lights are cancelling each other?

« on: 2025-06-08, 01:50:20 »

Thanks, I'll give those methods a try!

2

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to have a shadow when multiple lights are cancelling each other?

« on: 2025-06-07, 00:31:20 »

Corona bitmap has transform from object option, you can assign to each HDRI a different object which would you would animate to make that HDRI rotate as you want.

If I understood correctly, I can assign different HDRIs to different cameras, and rotate each HDRI independently (even if is really the same HDRI)?

3

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to have a shadow when multiple lights are cancelling each other?

« on: 2025-06-04, 19:06:06 »

Hi,

Your lighting setup is too dense, and yes, they cancel each other if placed so.
You can try placing the lights further away from the furniture.

I believe, nevertheless, that a uniformly lit environment light (aka HDRI or a solid color), optionally with some lights, will do the job.

Thank you for your help. I deleted all the lights, added a HDRI and a single plane light above and the results are night and day.

With the addition of a HDRI, a question arises: I needed to rotate the HDRI at the same time I was rotating the camera, in order not to have pronounced shadows. This works for a camera; however, if I want a whole different rotation of the HDRI associated with another camera, what must I do? Is it even possible?

4

[Max] I need help! / How to have a shadow when multiple lights are cancelling each other?

« on: 2025-06-03, 19:23:46 »

Hi there!

I'm rendering a few animations of some pieces of furniture, and some of the cameras rotate around the subject 360 degrees. Due to this, the lighting needs to be uniform.
However, the concentric arrangment of these lights causes me and issue: they cancel each other and I barely end up with a shadow beneath the furniture.
Is there any way to retain the lights setup and, at the same time, have a defined shadow?

5

[Max] I need help! / Re: Shading artifacts when using sheen

« on: 2025-06-03, 15:57:45 »

Is it the same in IR and production render? Asking because sometimes such squares may appear in IR since the information about lighting is not re-calculated. It should go away if you run production render or restart IR.

If it happens in both IR and production render, I would suggest sending us the scene at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new so that we check what might be going on.

Yes, unfortunately I get the same results, even if I restart IR or run a production render.

6

[Max] I need help! / Shading artifacts when using sheen

« on: 2025-06-03, 13:13:29 »

Hi there!

I'm trying to use sheen in order to mimic velvet, but something strange is happening. The square artifacts appear regardless of the roughness of the sheen layer. The objects have correct normals and geometry.
When I disable reflections in the lights parameters, the artifacts become less apparent, but still there.

What's going on?

P.S.: I'm using 3ds Max 2024 and Corona 10 Hotfix 2

7

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to associate materials from chaos cosmos to corona library?

« on: 2025-05-12, 19:07:04 »

Thanks, that definitely solves my problem!

8

[Max] I need help! / How to associate materials from chaos cosmos to corona library?

« on: 2025-05-12, 19:00:37 »

Hi there!

I have a project that was developed in 3ds Max 2024 and Corona 10. Recently, I've had to upgrade to 3ds Max 2025 and Corona 12, and this caused me a problem. Most of my materials were sampled from the Corona Library in Corona 10. However, since Corona Library doesn't exist anymore in Corona 12, all these materials are missing.

Are these old materials from Corona Library still present in Chaos Cosmos? If so, is there a way to automatically associate them to the objects that have the Corona Materials?

9

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-03-06, 16:13:46 »

It worked. Thank you again for all your help!

10

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-03-03, 13:14:22 »

I tried with one of my models and it's exactly the solution that I was looking for.

Thank you again for your patience!

P.S.: I modified the material of my object to have a strong color, in order to see if the shadow would inherit the same color. The results were positive; I would like to have my shadows always in shades of grey - is it possible to have those without having to edit the render in Photoshop?

11

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-03-03, 11:07:09 »

Sorry for haven't had mentioned the Corona version in the first post. I merged the scene and then it worked, thanks.

I was playing with the scene, and the trick works great. However, in my scene I have several lights; should I exclude all of them from casting shadows on the plane, and create a new one just for the shadow?

12

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-02-28, 11:24:12 »

Thanks for your help!

I'm having an issue, though; when I try to open the file a popup appears that says "An error has ocurred and the application will now close. Do you want to attempt to save a copy of the current scene?"
I'm using 3ds Max 2024.2.5 Security Fix, with Corona 10 (Hotfix 2)

13

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-02-26, 15:47:10 »

Is there something I can do to minimize the shadow noise directly in Corona (without having to wait for it)?

Denoising? :)

The speed/noise difference may be exactly because of raySwitch (maybe no GI or other ray type is dismissed). There should be ways to have transparent shadows with rayswitch as well.
You can simply change the visibility (object properties) of the object. This should work in any case, with any material.

Yeah, I was waiting for the denoise answer ;)

I tried to change the Object Properties of the background, unchecking Visible to Camera, among others. However, as it's possible to see in the attachment, the shadow never appears in the alpha...all this with CoronaRaySwitcherMaterial as a shader for the background.

14

[Max] I need help! / Re: How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-02-26, 13:32:16 »

Hi,

You are doing everything correctly. If shadow amount does not do the trick for you, try changing the material for shadow catcher, making it brighter, or tweak it using raySwitch.
Ultimately you need to control the opacity for the shadow, so you need to tweak the Alpha value (given that shadows are not full white or black) - this can be easily done right in the alpha channel of the image. You can either save it, tweak and then apply to the image, or you can tweak it directly as a channel inside Photoshop, if that is were the final compositing is going to happen.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your insight. I was trying to avoid going to Photoshop, since there are times when I have to render dozens of furniture pieces, and doing it by hand is very time consuming. Maybe there's a way to record a macro in Photoshop?

Other think I noticed is the fact that, while the mesh looks good when the noise is roughly at 2,5%, the shadow often only cleans up at values close to 1% or even lower. If I try to select the noisy shadow in Photoshop to brighten it up, I almost always have to blur it, otherwise the discrepancy is too big.

However, if I use Corona Ray Switcher Material for the background, the shadow is light and not noisy at all, even in the first seconds of preview (unfortunately, this method doesn't give me transparency). Is there something I can do to minimize the shadow noise directly in Corona (without having to wait for it)?

15

[Max] I need help! / How to brighten shadows in a white scenery?

« on: 2025-02-25, 19:55:34 »

Hi there!

Me and my colleagues have been trying to create the "perfect" white background for pieces of furniture. This set must be transparent (in order for the renders to blend in with the website background) and the objects must cast shadow on the floor.

With the first setting (diffuse lounge - corona shadow catcher material with enviro/backplate set to black), I am able to have a transparent background when saving with the alpha checked in PNG, but the shadow doesn't appear
With the second setting (cadeirão transparente - corona shadow catcher material with enviro/backplate set to grey) I am able to have a transparent background when saving with the alpha checked in PNG, and the shadow appears, but it's often too dark.
When I apply a Corona Ray Switcher Material to the background, the environment is uniformly white and the shadow is light, but I don't have a transparent background.

What can I do to achieve a transparent background, with light shadows (or at least the ability to lighten the shadows without going to Photoshop?)