Messages

1

Gallery / Re: Relaxing Shed in the woods

« on: 2017-02-15, 14:22:34 »

If you rework night shot you should avoid bare bulbs and prefer soft shadows (using lamp shades, or multiple small light sources to break the sharp shadow effect)

Also pay attention to the color temperature, which is too red here and should be more orange IMO.

But you probably know all that ;)

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Gallery / Re: Relaxing Shed in the woods

« on: 2017-02-15, 13:32:32 »

Very nice images.

Only the night shot looks a bit creepy / uninviting

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Gallery / Re: Contemporary bathroom

« on: 2017-02-14, 14:59:26 »

Very nice, miss a bit of contrast imo

O_o oh the camera on the tripod ;)

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Gallery / Re: Nut-o-grammetry

« on: 2017-01-20, 11:57:10 »

Thanks for the captures !

I am curious about your insights on cross polarised setup as I had to abort some shots due to strong speculars because I don't have yet polarising filter.

I will write a post on my blog as soon as the technique is in perfect running order. I'm trying to reproduce (more or less) the setup here : http://pixellighteffects.com/2016/05/cross-polarized-prop-scanning/

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Gallery / Re: Nut-o-grammetry

« on: 2017-01-19, 11:56:46 »

Great results !! I'm amazed by the level of detail you manage to extract. I'm exploring photogrammerty myself and I'm trying to setup a cross polarized setup. Disappointed also by Reality caputre, buggy, laggy, maybe fast but the interface looks completely unfinished and crashing a lot for a rather expensive product.

Funny because I wasn't convinced at all by BBB3 viz workflow, too much speculars, cumbersome "2 sets" workflow, etc... and everywhere I see mind blowing results (mostly fruits & nuts) with his technique. I guess I've not failed and given up enough ;)

Out of curiosity, how much pictures do you take for one object ?

6

Gallery / Re: Crematorium. Kahlenberg, Vienna

« on: 2017-01-16, 18:19:14 »

Absolutely mind-blowing indeed !!

7

Gallery / Re: 365 DAY CHALLENGE – 2017 (Updating)

« on: 2017-01-16, 11:08:52 »

It might be an interesting thread to follow, but c'mon, 2K PNGs, both, linked externally and attached through forum in each post? Even on fibre internet it takes a while to load. Please resave your renders as JPEG and choose single method to upload. Have mercy on visitors.

Exactly. 1280 wide and jpg please :)

Create a free blog with all the image and link to it in your signature with HD versions

8

General CG Discussion / Re: 3D People Meet Up 16/02/2017 Antwerp/Belgium

« on: 2017-01-12, 15:10:53 »

 Great idea, and even better to actually do it !!

It's been 10 years we've been dicussing something like that in Brussels and never took time to organize it ;)

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[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Corona Workflow for a new user (coming from VRay) [update : path conflicts]

« on: 2017-01-12, 15:10:33 »

I am familiar with Arion FX :-)
Oh, if you save your render from the framebuffer, use Tiff 16 bit with no alpha channel as an extension. If you would use EXR or PNG (8bit) it will take you almost 5 minutes for a 4K render, where Tiff will take 20 sec.

And you are welcome here https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,14548.0.html

Thanks for the tip ! We'll try to make it for the meetup.

10

[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Way to archieve Clean and (very) sharp renderings

« on: 2017-01-12, 13:17:06 »

Its too sharp for my tastes, but it'll be a combination of those things. Noise below 1% sounds unnecessary to me, but a larger rendering scaled down for the web will look sharper. Plus its probably been sharpened in post. Try this:, get an image of yours in photoshop, duplicate the layer and put it above the original. On this new layer run Filter>Other>High pass> radius of 2-4 - something like that. Then set this new layer to soft light or hard light and adjust the opacity.

Haha, we answered with the same workflow in photoshop at the same time ;)

Try values as high as 40 / 50 or even 100 on 4k renders, it sometimes yields intresting results.

11

[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Way to archieve Clean and (very) sharp renderings

« on: 2017-01-12, 13:15:57 »

As far as I can tell, there is :

- Chromatic aberration (not really shaprening)
- Some sort of shapening filter (or bad AA, but I don't think so because the grain is really limited), you see that mostly on highlights
- Very low noise indeed - long render time or a big farm... depends ofc on the resolution, if it's pro work, it's minimumm 4k renders

That being said, a noisy 4k render (80/100 passes) resampled in 1200 pixels wide will be more or less noiseless. A lot of images looks nice in small resolution but hurt the eyes in bigger size.

To try custom sharpening, you can use in photoshop

- duplicate layer
- high pass (play with the numbers/ low values = sharpening/ high values are more like "clarity" tool in lightroom)
- put this layer on soft light blending and play with opacity

This tends to accentuate existing grain so working on a noisless image is better (you could always add grain afterwards for "artistic" reasons)

Best would be to have a word from the artist who made the image ;)

12

[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Corona Workflow for a new user (coming from VRay) [update : path conflicts]

« on: 2017-01-12, 11:37:03 »

The workflow I described is not "the workflow" you have to follow or is told by Corona you have to do. We are a small studio and for us this pipeline is excellent for stills.
I made a Max template file so I just have to change the render in the material editor, fill in the correct resolution of the image, push render (just one pass) and play around with the post production settings.
Whenever we have to rerender an existing render due to small changes, we rerender the image with the saved config file and can go straight to Photoshop for the last small adjustments.
But ofcourse if you just have to open the file in an app it wil be quicker. But for now I am staisfied.

You might be surprised how slow photoshop + ArionFX is for opening, post processing, and saving an image from a RAW. I did it multiple times and it bacame a tedious task.

I'll try your workflow, mostly because I find Corona really fast and pleasant to use for this task. OFC, a simpler way to do it with Corona would be a big plus.

thanks for your insight :)

13

[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Corona Workflow for a new user (coming from VRay) [update : path conflicts]

« on: 2017-01-11, 18:26:24 »

...as long as corona trusts 3dsmax for saving files...

Are you kidding? ;)

I don't get it ? I hope I don't sound arrogant / unpleasant but so far, saving elements with Corona has been a mess for me. Naming, randomly overwriting, blank elements saved.

Corona should really benefit from a dedicated saving function, to allow saving the elements altogether without the risky busniess of trusting 3dsmax. Having the frame number appended to the filename would also be a big plus, allowing multiple workarounds, and a lots of worflow with animated parameters to match different cameras. And also being able to use batch rendering efficiently.

For example, I removed the path in the Asset tracking, and now no element is saved... I'm a bit lost...

Also, the "visible in masks" is a nice idea but refraction affecting the mask is way more useful (to have RGB superimposed masks... again like in VRay ;) )

Thanks for your workflow explanation !
How does the post work in Corona when you reload an EXR ? Are you able to change the exposure, bloom/glare, LUt (I don't use it but might try) afterwards ? And eventually lightmix ?

I based this workflow on Dubcat's post see reply #10 https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=13341.0.
You can change all the settings in the Post Tab (except of Denoising). Normally with the release of 1.6 there will be a stand alone app for Post processing and Denoising. I hope then file saving will be handeld by Corona.

Thanks for pointing me directly to the source !

So the workflow is basically to render the image to get the image in the buffer ??? that's some far fetch workaround for a missing "open" function :)

I guess I'll wait for a standalone (or a simple "open file" function in the VFB) because this workflow is unusable in a team /production environnement.

Eagerly waiting the futures improvements of 1.6 ! :p

14

[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Corona Workflow for a new user (coming from VRay) [update : path conflicts]

« on: 2017-01-10, 18:11:02 »

In our case we do the post processing in Corona. We render as EXR once they are rendered, we load them back in the corona framebuffer and do most of post processing there. Once done, we save a config file of the settings per camera (for later re-use). Save the file and do some small corrections in Photoshop and soon in Photo Affinity.

cheers

Thanks for your workflow explanation !

How does the post work in Corona when you reload an EXR ? Are you able to change the exposure, bloom/glare, LUt (I don't use it but might try) afterwards ? And eventually lightmix ?

It is almost certain that the problem with elements losing their paths is a 3ds Max thing. If you believe it's Corona - we need proof (e.g. that it works flawlessly with other renderers).
One "solution" to this is removing all render elements from the list, and then re-adding them back. It sometimes fixes the problem completely. It is also possible to update render element paths using the Asset Tracker (Shift+T).

Thanks for the explanation !

VRay ignores the element path, empty or not. but elements are saved by VRay and not 3dmax. As long as corona trusts 3dsmax for saving files, we're stuck with max bugs (those are never solved) :)

Looks like emptying the path via the Asset tracking might be a quick workaround (I guess "strip path" is the way to go)

15

[Max] I need help! / Re: Best Corona Workflow for a new user (coming from VRay) [update : path conflicts]

« on: 2017-01-10, 11:14:58 »

We send them straight to backburner and render them as EXR's. But I presume you are doing this to. All the render elements are saved within your EXR file.
So you avoid your problem with the regular Max path.

Thanks Belly for you answer! Actually, I moved to corona on small projects especially to avoid EXR workflow. EXR is really nice, but once in photoshop it's a nightmare (slow, unstable, etc.) The idea is to have 95% of the post done by Corona, but still have the masks to do quick modifications afterwards.

Meanwhile, I remembered what I was looking for. You have to empty the path in render elements. It's quite obscure and honestly, file management/ saving could be improved in Corona (and VRay has his problem too)