Daily Builds 1.0 - 1.4

[alexyork]

Hey Maru and co, I know that VR support has taken a bit of a back-seat in recent weeks as you guys focus on denoise/adaptive/scatter etc. but I wondered if you had any plans to continue improving this soon. We're running the latest daily (8th) and so far getting great results but the process is very time-consuming and fiddly. Particularly with GearVR support. I hope you guys will start looking into streamlining the process for real-world commercial use with GearVR/Oculus/Vive (which we are trying to push as a studio).

Currently we're doing this:

1) render out from corona
2) open in PS and double res, split out and save each eye to a JPG (we've made an Action that does this)
3) use Pano2VR to convert each one to cubic maps named f.jpg, d.jpg etc.
4) we then use GearShift to convert the whole lot into a single strip and save out as a single JPG
5) drop into ORBX Viewer and enjoy

Works perfectly well, but I reckon if you guys can build in stages 2,3 and 4 directly into Corona it would be fantastic. I think Corona needs to catch up with Octane in this respect, as they have all this down in an automated process.

We've not yet figured out a way to get a full panoramic tour to work on the Gear VR, with or without stereo, but that's the next big hurdle...

Cheers,

[JulioCayetano]

Hi,

I always use internal resolution mult.=2 for all my projects, as I always obtain too jagged edges when using =1, even when I add bloom and glare in post.
Maybe I´m doing something wrong, I´m still quite new to Corona, but in case Internal resolution multiplier is going to be removed permanently, I would really need to know how to fix this issue, if there is a workaround to get smooth edges in Corona.

I have read the changelog and it states:

"removed internal resolution multiplier (to be replaced with bloom filter)". Is that refering to a PS effect? or is bloom effect going to be a Corona feature in the near future?
I´d like to add that some clients don´t want bloom&glare effect at all, so I would like to have smooth edges without depending on bloom effects if possible.


I´m attaching a cropped example of a current project. Rendered in Corona 1.3 with I.R.M.=2 a couple of weeks ago, and re-rendered  today with latest daily with I.R.M.=1. With & without slight bloom in post.



Thanks

Julio

Edit: That image was rendered with AA filter set to "Parabolic" and "2,0px" Width value.

[Nekrobul]

Do you use highlight compression?

[JulioCayetano]

Hi Nekrobul,

Not for final render, I use it only for previews. For the final render I save a 32bit EXR (Highlights=1.0 and contrast=1.0) and do post in PS, there I compress the highlights as needed.

Julio

[Nekrobul]

Well i belive you should.

https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000515615-i-can-see-jagged-edges-in-my-rendering-

[Juraj]

Hi Nekrobul,

Not for final render, I use it only for previews. For the final render I save a 32bit EXR (Highlights=1.0 and contrast=1.0) and do post in PS, there I compress the highlights as needed.

Julio

And the Internal resolution does work in that case ?

I asked Ondra some time ago if IR applies even at 1.0 hl/linear output, and he said that it doesn't. (and I remember previously that the mechanism under which it works, is basically downsampling from higher res, but also tonemapped image)

[PROH]

Well, that's not solving this problem in all situations. I too are having major problems with the removal of "Internal Res". Yesterday I re-rendered an old scene that used Internal Res 2 combined with rather aggressive Highlight Compression to get rid of jagged edges directly in the render.

Unfortunately the removal of Internal Res parameter has now made it impossible to get rid of jagged edges in the renderer, and I'm now forced to post process just to make it "viewable" (viewing without "WFT is that?" comments).

All in all it means that the time gained via denoising, is now spend on post processing. That's why I'm seriously considering going back to an older build/version.

Will any solution to this be coming up soon, or should I (and others with this problem) simply settle with an older version of Corona?

[cecofuli]

Maybe I'm wrong, but you can obtain the same Int res = 2  by double the render size. Then, you reduce 1/2x in post. But, I don't know about the noise /quality. You need to make some test.

[PROH]

Yes, but double render size would approximately mean 4 x render times. So for fast internals this won't be an option.

[pokoy]

I don't know but... if the internal resolution setting has to go, why not hardcode it to 2 and hide from the UI then? I always set it to 2 because it's really not looking good at 1, I guess this is the case for all users. I'd rather sacrifice some RAM than image quality.

[JulioCayetano]

I´m a bit confused now. I have just checked a couple of perspspectives, OLDvsNEW raw renders (linear 32bit EXR) in PS, and now I can´t really tell which is smoothest...

Maybe I was fooled when testing Int.Res.Mult in my first tests with Corona and I wrongly assumed that I needed that value to be always =2.

Or maybe when I open now an old scene, Corona is not changing Internal Resolution Multiplier value, so It is in fact rendering as =2, even when I can´t see the option in IU?

Cecofuli: Not sure about that too... I have never tried that way, but I will give a try when I have extremelly contrasted borders that look really jagged. I understand that I could render at 2x the size but with 1/4x of passes, so the render time should be the same, and when down-scaling the image I should obtain a similar noise level, right?

Julio

[romullus]

I don't know but... if the internal resolution setting has to go, why not hardcode it to 2 and hide from the UI then? I always set it to 2 because it's really not looking good at 1, I guess this is the case for all users. I'd rather sacrifice some RAM than image quality.

Well, that's definitely not the case with all users. I almost never used int resolution set to anything other than 1, because i have only 16 GB of RAM and bigger res means that RAM usage would hit the ceiling more often than i would like to. My usual solution is to save to linear format and fix jagged edges with ArionFX in PS. I won't miss internal resolution at all, and if there will be bloom filter inside Corona, it's even better.

[Nekrobul]

I don't know but... if the internal resolution setting has to go, why not hardcode it to 2 and hide from the UI then? I always set it to 2 because it's really not looking good at 1, I guess this is the case for all users. I'd rather sacrifice some RAM than image quality.

Well, that's definitely not the case with all users. I almost never used int resolution set to anything other than 1, because i have only 16 GB of RAM and bigger res means that RAM usage would hit the ceiling more often than i would like to. My usual solution is to save to linear format and fix jagged edges with ArionFX in PS. I won't miss internal resolution at all, and if there will be bloom filter inside Corona, it's even better.

I agree here with romullus. I work mostly with insane exterior scenes wich mostly are eating more than 28-30 gigs of ram and in this case every gb ram consumed by unneded stuf is worth some usefull stuf.

[Ondra]

- when doing the double resolution thing, you can get the same render time by lowering passes 4*.

- Reason for removing internal resolution is that it complicated our code too much, and had insane requirements (quadruple memory, viewport redraw time, and denoise/adaptivity computation time)

- Using highlight compression can help with the jaggies, but in some cases it is not enought and it would be necessary to use the internal resolution (or bloom filter).

- Another very simple option if you do not require full HDR output would be for us to add something as "VFB MSI" - max value to be written into the VFB. It would get rid of all the jaggies, while also clamping HDR (for example to maximum intensity 5 instead of whatever the light has)

[romullus]

- Another very simple option if you do not require full HDR output would be for us to add something as "VFB MSI" - max value to be written into the VFB. It would get rid of all the jaggies, while also clamping HDR (for example to maximum intensity 5 instead of whatever the light has)

That would be very nice feature to have!