Team Renderer Issue with Corona Bitmap Shader in C4D 2025: Materials Not Display

[tuami]

When using corona bitmap shader and materials from the Asset Browser and rendering with the Team Renderer, the materials do not appear in the final render. When using the interactive renderer it works. However, if the native C4D bitmap shader with assets from assets browser  is used instead of the Corona bitmap shader, it works as expected with team rendering. Is this a known issue? It also seems related to C4D 2025, as the problem does not occur in C4D 2024.


c4d 2025.1.1
corona 13  latest daily

[bnji]

Hello @tuami,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Are you using custom-made assets and storing them in the C4D's built-in Asset Browser? Or are you using any of the available-for-download assets from the C4D Asset Browser?
On the other hand, could you please let me know if your rendering nodes are using the same C4D and Corona versions?
And, what C4D and Corona versions are you using?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards.

[tuami]

The issue is still present in the current Corona daily build. The assets are stored in the Asset Browser and were created by us there. As mentioned, the setup worked both locally and with older versions of Corona. However, with newer versions, it no longer works over the Team Renderer, only locally. So far, we've only encountered this issue with this specific material, though it’s possible that other materials could also cause problems when using Team Renderer.

There seems to be some issue with the native Corona Bitmap Shader, the Asset Browser, and the Team Renderer. This combination appears to be causing the problem, as it works locally but fails when using the Team Renderer with newer Corona versions.

The issue does not occur with the C4D Bitmap Shader, but we almost always use the Corona Bitmap Shader. It seems that the problem arises specifically when using the Corona Bitmap Shader in combination with the Asset Browser and Team Renderer.

[bnji]

Hello @tuami,



Thank you for your reply.
I've been trying to reproduce the issue, but I couldn't reproduce it.
Please see the attached images.
Could you please provide me with more details about your TeamRender setup for your main computer and rendering nodes? (C4D versions for each, Corona versions for each, wired or WiFi connection, local or NAS stored assets)
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Kind regards.

[tuami]

Hello bnji,

Thank you very much for your help in resolving the issue.

We are using Teamrender on Windows 11 machines with the latest version of Cinema 4D and the daily build, connected via a 10 Gbit Ethernet network, and the data is hosted on a separate server.

I've done some more testing, and in our case, we are using an opacity map. The issue occurs as long as no native Cinema 4D Bitmap shader with the same texture is loaded in the scene. Once the Cinema 4D Bitmap shader is loaded (it doesn't have to be connected to the material), it works fine. The problem seems to be specific to the Corona Bitmap shader (all paths are exactly the same). It appears that the Corona Bitmap shader has trouble when using Teamrender, with the data located on a server and loaded through the Asset Browser.

I'll try to provide a scene in the coming days.

tuami

[tuami]

Hi @bnji,

I’ve discovered something interesting:
As long as the native Cinema 4D Bitmap shader is still loaded in the Node Editor (but not connected to anything), the scene works correctly with Team Render.
However, as soon as the C4D Bitmap shader is completely removed, it no longer works.

Could you please set up your scene like this:

1. Add the black & white opacity map to the Asset Browser.
2. Create a Corona Bitmap shader (make sure no C4D Bitmap shader is active in the Node Editor).
3. Drag the image from step 1 into the Node Editor and copy the asset path (IT HAVE TO BEGIN WITH assetdb:///) and paste it into the corona bitmap shader
4. Important: Delete the image you just dragged into the Node Editor, so that only the Corona Bitmap shader remains.
5. Connect the Corona shader to the Opacity input of the Physical Material.

Run a local test and a Team Render test.

Thanks!

Best regards,
Tuami

[metanerd]

I’m following up on this again. Just like with Tuami, we can reproduce the same behavior here.
Everything works as expected up to version Cinema Version 2025.0.2.
Starting with version 2025.1 and up to the current version 2025.2.1, files imported from the Asset Browser that either use the Bitmap Shader or are set up as Shared Materials no longer work in Team Render. Both V12-Hotfix 1 and V12-Update 2 work correctly under version 2025.0.2, but not from version 2025.1 onwards.
For us, this means we can no longer install any C4D updates, which is extremely inconvenient.

[BigAl3D]

Interesting. I had reported this Team Render issues a long time ago, maybe 4 or 5 years. Team Render behaves similar to Save with Assets. In my case, textures, at least from third party materials sets, when collected would change the name of the texture file to some random numeric name, but not the inside the path so they would all be missing from the render. In my case it was a material set from The Pixel Lab. I will try your workaround with a C4D node sitting in there.

For me, I haven't used Team Render in a long time, but this issue would be a problem if you want to use a render farm too.

[maru]

Reproduced and logged (Report ID=CC4D-1028). It looks like Corona Bitmap doesn't render through Team Render at all, not only when used as opacity.

[jojorender]

Reproduced and logged (Report ID=CC4D-1028). It looks like Corona Bitmap doesn't render through Team Render at all, not only when used as opacity.

Oh cool, we have been here before!
The corona team acknowledging one single Corona Bitmap problem, maybe even saying they'll fix that one, while totally blowing off all the other headaches that shader causes.
So, honestly, my gut feeling is the same old story this time around: nothing's gonna change.