Messages

1

Gallery / Re: Chalets animation

« on: Today at 13:18:00 »

Yeah, it was impressive - to say the least - how long you guys stuck with Rhino.

I was a massive Rhino fan going back to 2005, considered myself a Rhino expert and found a lot of job opportunities in the Architecture business thanks to it.

I even started my professional archViz career in Rhino+Vray...So I was very familiar with you guys and your offerings.

I made the switch, out of necessity and for the same reasons you stated in about 2018 and although the first month or two were painful it was the smartest decision I ever made in my business/workflow.

Funnily enough, recently I've got back into Rhino life after 7 or so years barely touching it. Thanks for chatGPT helping me build me a ton of custom scripts I'm finding new ways to speed up my workflow reverting back to Rhino for the painful modelling stuff, with some GH help, and exporting + importing it cleanly and cleverly into Max... so I'm falling in love with Rhino all over again recently :)

2

[Max] I need help! / Create a material not affected by light?

« on: Yesterday at 20:58:55 »

Hi all,

I have a bit of a strange situation: I need to create a material (as part of a multi-sub AND a layered material) which does not receive shadows/light.

Or, at least as little as possible.

I can't simply put the material on an object which doesn't receive light/cast shadows etc, as the material will be part of a multi-sub object where the rest of the materials possess normal lighting behavior.

I'm baking a unwrapped texture - one portion of the texture should appear to be without physical light interacting on it.

Making the material self-emissive isn't working quite right either.

The best result so far has been to give it the properties as shown below.

If this is the best I can do, so be it, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I'm missing?

Many thanks!

3

Gallery / Re: Chalets animation

« on: Yesterday at 20:12:18 »

You guys were my knights in shining armor for sticking with Rhino + Vray for such a long time... shocked to see you here. Do you now use Corona too?

Nice work!

4

General CG Discussion / Re: Help with Max scripting

« on: Yesterday at 17:00:06 »

Any idea how I can change the "randomSeed" value of a CoronaMultiMap (or any node) with a script?

Ideally I can +1 the existing value, or toggle between 0/1.

Any help MUCH appreciated :)

5

[Max] Previews (Daily Builds) / Re: Chaos Corona 14 for 3ds Max - Previews (Daily Builds) Discussion

« on: 2025-08-28, 20:56:58 »

Something odd is happening when using CIE;

- Render a scene (with latest daily)
- Open the *.cxr file
- Load a *.conf file for LightMix (the conf file was saved from a Corona 13 version of CIE)
- Save the image
- Image lighting is saved wrong (in my case, too bright).

If I copy the image from CIE and paste it into photoshop, the image/lighting looks correct.

Not sure if this is replicable or not, but figured I should share my experience today after installing the daily.

P.S. Amazing work with the new features thus far. Absolutely thrilled to have splats in Corona (hoping the color fix is coming soon).

Cheers!

6

General CG Discussion / Re: Help with Max scripting

« on: 2025-08-27, 19:58:53 »

Hi clemens_at

That seems to have helped enormously! Thanks mate, really appreciate it :)

7

General CG Discussion / Re: Help with Max scripting

« on: 2025-08-25, 17:50:26 »

Hello all again,

I'm wondering if someone smarter than me can help figure this one out...

I'm trying to automate 'Unwrap UVW' to a default "Flatten: Custom" workflow. (See the picture)

I got a pretty good result with vibe coding (chatGPT) but it can't quite figure out the final, and most important component. It does everything right but doesn't get the right result (or at least not the same result as if I manually press that button).

Please see the code below and offer a suggestion if possible. Many, many thanks!

Code: [Select]

/* ===========================================================
   HELPER – unwrap one object, set channel, run Pack-Custom
   =========================================================== */
fn addUnwrapPackSingle obj mapChannel:2 =
(
    local prevSel = selection as array
    select obj

    -- Add temporary Edit Poly modifier to force full poly selection
    local epMod = Edit_Poly()
    addModifier obj epMod
    epMod.SetSelection #Face #{1..(getNumFaces obj)}
   
    -- Add the unwrap modifier
    local uMod = Unwrap_UVW()
    addModifier obj uMod
    uMod.unwrap.setMapChannel mapChannel
   
    -- Ensure full polygon selection for Unwrap as well
    uMod.unwrap.selectPolygons #{1..(uMod.unwrap.numberPolygons())}

   
    -- Set current modifier to Unwrap
    modPanel.setCurrentObject uMod
   
    -- Run Pack ► Custom
    if isProperty uMod #packNoParams then
    (
        uMod.packNoParams()
    )
    else if isProperty uMod.unwrap #packNoParams then
    (
        uMod.unwrap.packNoParams()
    )
   
    -- Optionally remove the Edit Poly modifier to clean up
    -- deleteModifier obj epMod
   
    -- Restore selection
    select prevSel
)


/* ===========================================================
   BATCH – loop through initial selection one-by-one
   =========================================================== */
fn batchUnwrapPack mapChannel:2 =
(
    local workList = for o in selection where isKindOf o GeometryClass collect o
   
    if workList.count == 0 then
    (
        messageBox "Select one or more geometry objects first!"
        return undefined
    )
   
    with undo off
    (
        for o in workList do
        (
            format ">> Unwrapping & packing : %\n" o.name
            addUnwrapPackSingle o mapChannel:mapChannel
        )
    )
   
    format "=== Finished : processed % objects ===\n" workList.count
)

/* ===========================================================
   RUN   (change the channel if you like)
   =========================================================== */
batchUnwrapPack mapChannel:2


8

General CG Discussion / Re: Anima actors get invisible after re-opening the scene

« on: 2025-06-09, 11:48:25 »

Hi,

I try to avoid using Anima standalone at all costs, so I can't answer these questions sorry.

9

General CG Discussion / Re: Anima actors get invisible after re-opening the scene

« on: 2025-06-06, 20:40:53 »

I don't have a solution to your problem, unfortunately.

But I am also a big user of Anima.

I only come here to say that it is a horrible plug-in to ever try to do any debugging on. It has so many issues, performs so unpredictably, causes so many headaches, and yes, there is no community to speak of to turn to.

But it has become a completely necessary part of my workflow, unfortunately.

I was hopeful that Chaos would improve it, but it only seems to have got worse since.

Good luck with solving the issue!

10

[Max] Bug Reporting / Scatter edge trimming with texture baking

« on: 2025-06-04, 14:38:36 »

So I'm using Bake To Texture a lot lately, and I've just discovered a limitation on the scatter edge trimming;

I know this is a slightly odd use case, but let's say I have some grass scattered on a landscape plane with edge trimming selected, it all works fine.

But when I use bake to texture on a flat 100% transparent surface hovering above the landscape the edge trimming isn't applied and I can now see the 'rough' edges.

Any workarounds you can think of to force the trimming? Thanks

You can probably ignore this report. On closer inspection, multiple things seemed to have been going wrong to cause such an issue for me.

11

[Max] I need help! / Re: Corona Slicer

« on: 2025-05-27, 19:48:26 »

As far as I know, I don't think so.

Would be a great feature to have though!

12

Gallery / Re: Snow & Sand – Visual Storytelling with Corona Renderer

« on: 2025-05-18, 20:48:29 »

😂

You clearly got chatGPT to write this... I'm guessing on your own post ... because no one else commented. 👍

13

Gallery / Re: 森の鏡 | Echo of the Trees

« on: 2025-05-16, 12:20:45 »

Like many on this forum I see A LOT of renders...

These have to be the best renders I've ever seen.

Makes me want to quit my job and give up.

Well done. Congratulations! Keep up the good work.

14

[Max] I need help! / Vibe coding with maxscript

« on: 2025-04-22, 21:08:59 »

I've been doing a lot of 'vibe coding' (AI coding with chatGPT) lately and had great success.

But I have to say it's not very good at maxscript.

Does anyone have good tips on how best to or which service is best suited for AI writing of maxscript code?

Many thanks!

15

[Max] I need help! / Re: uv unwrap dilation

« on: 2025-04-16, 19:56:59 »

You didn't say where you are baking the maps, but assuming it's with Corona, then in 3ds Max this setting is called padding. Just be aware, that in Corona, unlike in any other render engine, more padding equals more render time, so it's not recommended to increase it much :]

Thanks

Yes, Corona... naturally!

Ah, I did see and play around with that padding setting in the bake t texture, but I must've glossed over the results.

Thanks again