Render Legion and Corona Join Forces with Chaos Group

[Noah45]

Vlado,I'm  not being a big deal in CGI. However, somewhat in Arch Viz for Retail, internationally.  My concern is that VRay is not friendly to non-programmers, Corona came along and friendly'd up a whole new base of users ...artists and designers... pls acknowledge their compassion with new releases of Corona.

[vlado]

pls acknowledge their compassion with new releases of Corona.

That's exactly what we plan to do. You have seen Corona's roadmap; it will happen.

Best regards,
Vlado

[blank...]

It's somewhat disapponting to read all these responses. Guys like Ondra and the rest of the Corona team are extremely rare, and they chose to work (very hard) for you. They can do many amazing things for you in the future as well. Still somehow you turned from loyal supporters to pure hatred in a single day. Hate me all you like, however those guys have been nothing but good to you.

I've worked on V-Ray really hard for 15 years, long days and many nights including weekends, with very few vacations, and no sick leaves to get where I am today (no matter how much you despise my work). It's a tough road to walk. Is it so bad that those guys want a short cut? I think you will like the results. Corona will continue to serve you well.

Best regards,
Vlado

Well, consider this.
You are a proud owner of one of these.



It's beautiful, new, different, fast and so easy to drive, it doesn't even have a gear box! Everything you ever wanted from an electric car. A dream come true. And you've been using it since it was just a small 0.4 alpha that couldn't even get over bumps properly.

Then, one day the company is sold to guys that make these:



Yes, it's a vehicle that will get you from point A to point B, it can even carry a lot more load. But it's big, and ugly, and old, and the company that makes them never cared for EV-s. They are huge, and they make only their huge ugly trucks.
Naturally you are concerned, you are sure that the new big trucking company will ruin your beloved EV. They don't care about it, they just want the competition gone, they're in trucking business. We don't care how long they've been making trucks, we hate trucks.
At this point we are certain they will kill the production of our beloved EV, or leave it as it is but wit their big ugly truck price tag, or at best stick an electric motor in their big ugly truck and say "see, we're in EV business now".

[Benny]

First I would like to commend Vlado for speaking out here, can't be easy. At the end of the day, the emotional outpour is obviously a reflection of people's passion and in the heat of the moment. Hopefully no one hates nobody, we're all enthusiasts of the industry and Vray is what everybody compares themselves to.

I do feel that the previous poster, matsu, makes some valid points though but there is another aspect in terms of competition. Competition is important, but I think both Vray and Corona has more to worry about products like Unreal and Redshift/Fstorm than each other, since they approach the problem differently. Being so similar, joining forces is perhaps the smartest they can do. The difference with Autodesk is that they don't have dedicated visionary founders at the helm (the day Ondra leaves it is another matter) and have shareholders etc. Max and Maya is just a portion of a huge machine.

I also share the pessimistic/optimistic sentiments of Matsu, but at the same time I really do think Vlado together with Ondra realizes that Corona fills a gap in the market and that they in an ideal world reach different users. I switched to Corona because I wanted less complexity and I like stuff like the material preview, ease with IPR, no hdri dome, etc. Just easier for me. These things may not matter at all to someone following Grant Warwick's tutorials and wants full control and maybe integrate into a vfx pipeline. The day they reach feature parity, i.e. Corona has hair and whatever and Vray has bloom and glare in VFB and whatever, is the day it will be interesting to see what the users prefer. Not that I expect Chaos to share license percentage, but if they can share technology while having different user interface approaches I think we could get the best of two worlds, and it may not matter to Chaos which version the majority picks as long as it is one of them. Vray may for example cater to a more demanding market in terms of control, and Corona may offer the same functionality but less 'tweakability', which ultimately warrants a higher price for Vray as it is a smaller market that demands that kind of control.

Fair enough?

[blank...]

Initially, the talk is all sunshine, and dev teams will go on, and that no product will be sacrificed etc...then fastforward 2 years, and the story is very different.

This reminded me when master Zapp switched to Autodesk and promised to make MR usable, only never to be heard from ever again.

[vlado]

At this point we are certain they will kill the production of our beloved EV, or leave it as it is but wit their big ugly truck price tag, or at best stick an electric motor in their big ugly truck and say "see, we're in EV business now".

That would be a pretty stupid thing for us to do, don't you think? Besides, one company can make many different models of cars (and they do!) at different price points with different characteristics and with different users.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Cinemike]

I just hope the Corona team will keep developing the bridge to Cinema4D by themselves.

[vlado]

I just hope the Corona team will keep developing the bridge to Cinema4D by themselves.

Of course! Why would we want to change that?

Best regards,
Vlado

[steyin]

Hopefully this will allow Corona to spread to more software. My office is dedicating itself to vray now because we can use it in revit, rhino and max. I pushed for Corona but lost out.


That aside, I'm not sure how to feel about this. My office also had a sit down with one of the vray vps, and what we were told about what's coming made me nervous about Corona's future. I can only hope that this benefits Corona now, and that it stays affordable for my personal use in the future, cause I'm sure as hell never going to be able to afford vray on my own.

[denisgo22]

I just hope the Corona team will keep developing the bridge to Cinema4D by themselves.

Of course! Why would we want to change that?

Best regards,
Vlado

I hope also in Vray  will be new opportunities that should have been there for a long time, etc. as a normal scattering system, that in the Corona appeared in the first place :)))

[Siahpoosh]

It's somewhat disapponting to read all these responses. Guys like Ondra and the rest of the Corona team are extremely rare, and they chose to work (very hard) for you. They can do many amazing things for you in the future as well. Still somehow you turned from loyal supporters to pure hatred in a single day. Hate me all you like, however those guys have been nothing but good to you.

I've worked on V-Ray really hard for 15 years, long days and many nights including weekends, with very few vacations, and no sick leaves to get where I am today (no matter how much you despise my work). It's a tough road to walk. Is it so bad that those guys want a short cut? I think you will like the results. Corona will continue to serve you well.

Best regards,
Vlado

you guys are who decided to use shortcut by destroy your competitor. this is a shortcut for chaos group , not corona team.

[JoachimArt]

Since the corona team insists that it is in their best interest to continue on the same path and keep the prices around the current level, this could be a very positive thing for us all with a lot of really cool things closer on the horizon. And I think it's worth giving them a fair chance to prove it. I think the FAQ and news page lacked a bit of proper information that is important for the corona customers, leaving us all in a bit of shocked state.

That said, my initial reaction was the same as everyone else. I became a fairsaas subscriber to corona mainly because of the pricing and how easy the renderer gives you good results. I'm mainly a 2d illustrator and 3D is just a fraction of what I do. It wouldn't make sense for me to pay the price of v-ray for something I use maybe one day a week in average. And I think a lot of the corona customers has similar thoughts. They have found a renderer which was different than the usual ones, better default values and less complex but with awesome results (and don't forget the nice pricepoint). This is probably the core of all this frustration, being afraid to loose what we love or see it being swallowed into v-ray. Which is why an ignorant investor that only would poor money into corona would have seemed less intimidating.
This line of thought is based on so many similar acquisitions in this same industry.

Vlado, it's important to understand that all this frustration (or call it hate if you like) comes from strong emotions about something we LOVE... and now being afraid we will loose. It's a natural over-reaction if you feel strongly about something.

As long as Chaos group let corona live on, in its own way, I'll stick around a happy camper. :) - and probably everyone else will too.

Just my two cents.

[Noah45]

Vlado, thanks for your response...

My thoughts for the day..." Speed rendering of retail has no time to be troubleshooting through a plethora of variables (VRay), that's what I love (d) about Corona "

Make rendering great again! :)

[vlado]

you guys are who decided to use shortcut by destroy your competitor. this is a shortcut for chaos group , not corona team.

Nothing is being destroyed. There are two sides to each deal; it's not like we forced the guys at gunpoint, right? We've had very long discussions together about how to make this work and we are confident that we can make it happen. Corona will continue its development. I know you trust me only as far as you can throw me; it only means that we'll have to work hard to prove it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[blank...]

That would be a pretty stupid thing for us to do, don't you think? Besides, one company can make many different models of cars (and they do!) at different price points with different characteristics and with different users.

Best regards,
Vlado

All true, but MANY people here actually used to be truckers. They drove the big ugly truck, struggled with its size, hated rev matching, had leg cramps from heavy clutch.
Then they switched to a beautiful EV and life was beautiful, it allowed them to just enjoy the ride, which is all they ever wanted.
And now, out of the blue, their beloved EV is owned by the very trucking company that made them hate driving?! Hell no!
Being emotional and impulsive many are thinking no way I'm supporting them ever again, I'll rather switch to this, especially not knowing what the future brings, and seeing other mergers like this go south.