Messages

1

General CG Discussion / Re: [Useful Scripts\Tools]

« on: 2020-06-26, 12:17:21 »

Does anyone know which is the best plugin for "cleaning the scene" something like cleaner, but for 2020. I am looking to try and remove standard materials, and unused maps. Thanks everyone!

I'd recommend SiNi Forensic and Relink Bitmaps - both free.

Yes, SiNi Forensic is the way to go.

Not free and not expensive but is doing a great job on relinking bitmaps, corona proxies, xrefs is Library Track / Relink by Pixamoon.
One of the great features it has is that you do not have to open the Max file.
https://www.pixamoon.com/shop/4587562584/library-track-relink-.../9337230

You can also do this with the Connecter app (asset browser) which is free. Just click 1 or more files files in the browser and click the "manage files" button. Here you can search, assign or remove bitmaps as the relink bitmaps script without having to open the files.

2

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2020-06-04, 10:44:12 »

Hello. Daily_28_05_2020. There is no CoronaSun in the CoronaLightList

It has never been there.

Would love to see it show up there too so we can easily turn on and off the suns and get correct render elements when using lightmix.

Unless you are working on a way to have lightmix settings apply to all render elements and not just the "lightmix" one? :)

3

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Corona Proxy Exporter

« on: 2020-05-28, 16:12:07 »

Would love to have the option of canceling on a "global" level instead of just the 1 proxy currently being exported. If you have a couple of groups selected and choose the "Export as seperate" it usually goes okay, but if the model is just 100 leaves grouped into 1 plant, then you are f'ed and have to either wait for all 100 .geo to be exported of that model or force a max shutdown. Cancel the entire process would be nice to do in these cases :)

Regarding assets relink etc, I would suggest using the Connecter lib browser, you can set/search bitmaps etc via the app prior to importing and also import as a proxy.

Personally I don't have much need for the things you mention as per above app and that we create proxy folders on a per project basis if needed as you also say.

4

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Improved Sun & Sky model playground!

« on: 2020-05-01, 15:49:50 »

we will consider implementing this as the next step, the first change was due to internal rewrite how sun vs. sky is handled

ah okay, thanks for the reply Ondra. Would love to see this for ultimate flexibility - would I be wrong to assume that this could also lead to later implementation of getting correct results in i.e. the reflection pass etc when using lightmix w. multiple suns?

5

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Improved Sun & Sky model playground!

« on: 2020-05-01, 09:24:05 »

"Selection of the sun for the sky model computation has changed for scenes having multiple suns"

- how are we to understand this? I had hoped it would mean the sky would change and match the active sun in the lightmix, but I still get a static sky only matching the first sun. Only way to get correct sky with multiple suns seems to be if I manually turn off all other suns on each sun object in the scene (not via lightmix).
(This was in scene with prev. daily, but I have changed both sky model and ticked off the "legacy" texture in each sun object).

6

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2020-04-23, 13:44:11 »

I'm wondering if the corona proxy exporter can be looked at? Just a minor thing, but it annoys me. Normally it takes the object's name and uses that for the new proxy created (with a crp prefix). Seems like that is gone now and naming is set to: "combinedObjectName" everytime unless I manually change it.

Previously it was a little better at picking up the object's name automatically, but that would brake after first export.
- Select object -> right click -> corona proxy export = the object's name is used in the naming of the proxy that is to be exported.

On second export try on a new object in same scene, the previously exported objects name would still appear in the exporter window and I would have to manually change it. No matter if I had closed the exporter or not.

7

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2020-04-21, 09:14:36 »

Update, 3d connexion today's released driver 10.6.6 still causes unanted random shifting in max 2020 and 2021, all you need to do is draw a box, add camera, shift the lens, then select and inselect the box 3 or 4 times in the viewport and watch the camera shift on itself. Goodbye my NZD $1000 3d mouse :(

Seems to work better for me now (max 2020 sp3), but I can still fuck it up if I use the spacemouse on the camera when it has automatic tilt enabled, but I can't recreate it as you describe by just clicking in the viewport (I sure had  it on the older driver version, but more randomly. Will have to monitor this, but fingers crossed! Have you tried going back to v.10.6.0? Seemed more stable to me on this issue. Also now seems like you can undo these buggy vert tilt camera moves done with the spacemouse? - It's all off topic for the corona daily discussion, so I think you/we should continue this over on the 3dconnexion forum :)

8

[Max] Daily Builds / Re: Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2020-04-17, 16:02:53 »

you're lucky they responded to you. do you have the 3d connexion controller? I have the same camera problem plus it randomly lens incrementally shifts on it's own if you use lens shifting, for over a year. I had to uninstall the 3d connexion drivers and now I have a $1000 brick.

Ya the 3dconnexion one with camera bugs are super frustrating. Same thing here, but here's some good news (next driver update in this month should fix it): https://www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=39103
I just posted in that thread to hear if it was still on track - things might get pushed due to "the other" corona, but it's nice to know they are working on a fix. Lets just hope it will not be the same time frame as "we are working a vray clipper function in Corona" haha

9

[Max] I need help! / Re: Converting to Corona V-Ray Trees and Leaves

« on: 2020-03-30, 13:14:12 »

Just to chime in on this: it does seem the material converter struggles when needed to convert 2 sided leaf materials w. translucency maps.

It completely removes the backside material and replaces the translucency map with a different map (a black and white map, which makes overall material way darker). So basically there is a lot of manual tweaking needed to be done. I do it like this:

Copy material of the vray object BEFORE converting.
Convert vray object to corona material via the corona tool.
Then I have to copy over the original translucency and backside bitmap from the org. vray material.
Create a corona 2 sided map
Plug it into the diffuse of leaf material and load in front+back map (since corona doesn't support 2 sided mats as vray).
Replace the b/w map in translucency slot with the org. translucency map.

A lot of extra steps to convert most vegetation assets. Would love if it could do the above automatically when hitting "convert" :)

10

General CG Discussion / Re: 3dsmax service packs

« on: 2020-02-03, 15:09:00 »

yes, they are cumulative. So you can just install the last one on fresh max installs. But still. Takes around 30mins or so which is insane! But I just try and time it for around lunch time so it can run while we eat ;) Was a thread on autodesk about it, but it turned into a nerd fight between some keyboard warriors and I stopped reading. Was also too technical for me to understand...

11

Hardware / Re: Black screen with Corona Renderer/3ds max/AMD 2990WX

« on: 2020-01-29, 09:45:20 »

First-generation X399 boards were never meant for 250W CPUs like 2990WX + lot's of memory (8 Slots when populated put quite some stress on memory controller on chip).

But not sure if I would bother swapping motherboard only if you can find for relatively cheap (300 dollars/euros) one of these two (and only those two): MSI MEG or Asus Zenith ALPHA (important, because there is also non-alpha).
You can run mem-test to see if the memory is still some issue.

I'm curious to why you wouldn't bother to swap the motherboard if these first gen x399 boards aren't meant to run a 250W CPU? Not to hijack another thread, but I'm wondering if we should take these 3 2990wx workstations we just got half a year ago and turn them into a render farm and then maybe go for something like 3950x workstations instead or if it would be better to keep these 2990wx as workstations, but swap motherboards for better stability and get a couple of other machines to build a tiny farm. We are 3-4 people rendering locally and would like a small farm to be able to send jobs to and continue working locally.

12

[Max] I need help! / Re: using the Pulze scene manager w. Corona. Lightmix script help?

« on: 2020-01-23, 15:34:13 »

hey Frood! Ha! I was just going through that thread and saw you were doing something with reverting back to prev lightmix so that got my hopes up! My max script knowledge is however more or less 0, but the nice support guy from pulze offered to cooperate on a script. Is it ok I send him your script and what you just stated? That may get the ball rolling :)

13

Hardware / Re: Threadripper 2990 Performance Issues

« on: 2020-01-23, 13:16:00 »

Changing the virtual mem back didn't help. Kept crashing at this resolution and even 4k. Started to optimize scene more and hide stuff not in view (does that actually do anything?). Same result. Bumped displacement screen size to 6 and now it renders fine with like 20gb less ram used for that scene. Wonder how big an effect the new 2.5D displacement actually has. Will try and render without it later if time allows.

14

[Max] I need help! / using the Pulze scene manager w. Corona. Lightmix script help?

« on: 2020-01-23, 12:05:08 »

Hi guys

I'm trying out the Scene Manager from Pulze aka Brick. So far so good. It's a nice way to set up multiple views in the same file. I was wondering if it would be possible to do a script that will load a specified postprocess and lightmix conf file? Then I could setup each view to load that on a per camera basis. Instead of having to go in and browse and load manually.

Anyone tried that or could help w. a script for it? Pulze support says they don't have access to the VFB and are talking w. Corona devs. But I wonder if this also applies for scripts?

Also, how are you guys using lightmix for scenes where you have more than one view? Here I'm thinking of renderpasses getting messed up if you don't apply lightmix settings to scene and rerender. That is however not a possibility when doing multiple views w. different light in a scene.

15

Hardware / Re: Threadripper 2990 Performance Issues

« on: 2020-01-23, 10:53:28 »

hehe yeah lots of FP in this masterplan scene. Thought I was covered ram wise though. Will enable the paging again and see if that allows me to render. Really looking forward to the day I don't have to optimize anything :)