Anyone else playing with Corona?

[Ky Lane]

Downloaded it, and 45min later, its producing stuff like this...

 

 

Very impressed. Anyone else?

[Corey Beaulieu]

I just downloaded it too. I think it's cool, but you have to admit that it is very limited.

 

Right now they have created only the essentials. I'd like to see much greater development in the cameras and the HDRI area as well as materials.

 

I'm actually very disappointed in the camera. I feel that it has almost nothing to do with standard DSLR's and that makes it nearly arbitrary to use.

 

I also found a very extreme difference in the bucket rendering versus the progressive. Bucket results much darker than progressive which works almost out of the box.

 

I like it and will keep experimenting, but the GI is over bright and I'm not sure that it is a physically accurate renderer albeit Brute Force. The resulting image may be to what is provided, but the default sun/sky is not correct as I see it. At least not to the very limited camera settings provided.

 

I think you can get results faster than Vray, but the result is much more artistic than real. It begs the question, at least in my mind, what we want from a renderer. Arbitrary, but speedy or realistic and timely?

Edited January 5, 2015 by CoreyMBeaulieu

[Corey Beaulieu]

I want to add that I think Corona did a better job solving the finer details. My test render was on a building that is clad in corrugated metal and when I rendered it in Vray I had trouble getting a crisp edge to the highs and lows of the metal. Corona seemed to handle it very cleanly and with zero need for attention given to it.

[Ky Lane]

I feels like its optimised to produce quick nice results.. I think the "Expert" level of fine tuning everything is lost, but its so damn fast...

[Francisco Penaloza]

I'm actually very disappointed in the camera. I feel that it has almost nothing to do with standard DSLR's and that makes it nearly arbitrary to use.

 

I also found a very extreme difference in the bucket rendering versus the progressive. Bucket results much darker than progressive which works almost out of the box.

 

I like it and will keep experimenting, but the GI is over bright and I'm not sure that it is a physically accurate renderer albeit Brute Force. The resulting image may be to what is provided, but the default sun/sky is not correct as I see it. At least not to the very limited camera settings provided.

 

I think you can get results faster than Vray, but the result is much more artistic than real. It begs the question, at least in my mind, what we want from a renderer. Arbitrary, but speedy or realistic and timely?

 

 

What you missing on the camera? the adjustment to do DOF? or exposure?

 

Materials wise yes there is some shaders missing but the first full version should have lot of them already resolved. But honestly it take almost no time to setup materials in Corona compared to V-Ray and result are great.

 

I am not sure if agree with you with the final looking of it, maybe is the exposure that you setup in your image that give you that look?

 

I feels like its optimised to produce quick nice results.. I think the "Expert" level of fine tuning everything is lost, but its so damn fast...

Regarding "options" that is what make Corona "different"

Coming from V-Ray and before that from Mental Ray I was very concerned regarding the "lack of options" but as the developer explained, if everything just work the way it should why you would need to fuss with those options. put the light the way they should go setup your materials and click render, do not worry about GI splotches or interpolations, or cheat to speed up glossy materials or strange reflections.

[Ky Lane]

I guess Im just a control freak The thought of there being less options making it less of a product probably isnt fair.. time will tell - but so far, Im very very impressed.

 

Having a play with some scattered grass and lighting systems... 20min later, Im rendering things out that would probably take me hours in Vray unless I had it already setup and ready to go!

 

[RyderSK]

I just downloaded it too. I think it's cool, but you have to admit that it is very limited.

 

Right now they have created only the essentials. I'd like to see much greater development in the cameras and the HDRI area as well as materials.

 

I'm actually very disappointed in the camera. I feel that it has almost nothing to do with standard DSLR's and that makes it nearly arbitrary to use.

 

I also found a very extreme difference in the bucket rendering versus the progressive. Bucket results much darker than progressive which works almost out of the box.

 

I like it and will keep experimenting, but the GI is over bright and I'm not sure that it is a physically accurate renderer albeit Brute Force. The resulting image may be to what is provided, but the default sun/sky is not correct as I see it. At least not to the very limited camera settings provided.

 

I think you can get results faster than Vray, but the result is much more artistic than real. It begs the question, at least in my mind, what we want from a renderer. Arbitrary, but speedy or realistic and timely?

 

 

I usually avoid these comparison threads because they always end up in poor taste, lack objective information and just...pointless.

 

Everything you write in above post is quite wrong though.

 

As someone who seamlessly work between both Vray (having latest 3.10.02) and Corona (daily build tester), and I can assure you, they're very similar in output and workflow that the fact people see completely different engines speaks of their ignorance of either.

 

So let's comment on assumptions with straight facts:

 

-Both engines are equally physically plausible in terms of light behavior. Neither is more "artistic". That is a non-term, almost every engine on market nowadays is physically plausible.

 

-GI algorithms account for sampling precision/bias, not physical plausibility. Both Vray and Corona offer various options between utter precision (Pure path tracing in Corona and BruteForce in Vray) and bias/interpolation (LighCache for Vray; HD Cache for Corona).

 

-Both GI behave very similarly when set to similar ray bounce. In fact, you can produce 99.9 identical image. Neither is brighter or darker when you minimase bias.

 

-Both offer similar control for bias through following:

1) primary and secondary GI algorithms and their respective ray bounce

2) Maximal ray/sample intensity (MRI in Vray, MIS in Corona, but ultimately....the same thing, same as in....Arnold, Disney PRMan,etc...)

3) Tone mapping and clamping (Color mapping and Highlight compression)

 

-They both support identical use of HDRi. You can even use VrayHDRi map loader with Corona for comfortable use.

 

-Same shader behaviour (In either latest version, both engines use their own form of GGX BRDF for specular reflectance, producing...the same result, with Vray having currently additional parameter (tail) through mixing with other brdf). Vray does currently have wider variety of shaders. It's after all, quite older engine. But the capacity of the basic shader is without much difference.

 

-Both Vray and Corona offer basic and advanced Sky models. The basic (Preetham) is shared by both and is by default set in Vray.

It behaves identically in both engines.

They also each offer advanced, CIE in Vray, and Hosek&Wilkie in Corona. Both these provide more correct horizon illumination, and the Corona variation has also stronger sky coloring/tint.

Any intensity difference is due to different default exposure.

 

-Both support identical camera behavior and controls (Exposure/ISO/..). Corona uses "CoronaCam" mod that can be used on top of native Max camera as well as VrayCam.

Alternatively, they both offer access to this in Render Menu and Framebuffer alike. It's the same workflow.

 

-Both engines are respectively fast or slow depending upon extremely varied conditions. Multiple page elaborate could be written on this topic, but not a single generalized blanket statement made from single individual experience.

 

-Corona has currently more limited options in Animation/VFX/Media territory. But for Archviz ? It's quite equal, being superior in quite few parts like workflow (simplicity of setup, lack of legacy mess due to stricter philosophy and younger age).

 

 

Both engines are great, and suit individual needs. But let's keep it objective.

Edited January 6, 2015 by RyderSK

[Corey Beaulieu]

Deleted. It was unnecessary. I'm sorry to have derailed the conversation.

Edited January 7, 2015 by CoreyMBeaulieu

[Corey Beaulieu]

On a more positive note... the poxy feature in Corona seams more useful. Forest pack only supports Corona Mesh Objects right now and I learned this after making my proxies. All I had to do was choose "Full Mesh" as my display type and it worked perfectly. Its useful in FFP and if you are, say, set dressing a table after proxying. No more creating a lower density mesh as your display object in Vray.

[Ky Lane]

Been playing with Corona less than 24hrs now...

 

[RyderSK]

For general outsider benefit I will try to refute your continued statements:

 

You can use CoronaCam mod with VrayCam. That means, all the benefits of VrayCam like tilting-shifting plus regular exposure. Tilfting/shifting was never part of native Max cam either, and Corona doesn't wish to introduce their own camera for compatibility reasons, so you can keep using any you wish (Native or plugin introduced, or even scripted). Perhaps they might add those features to CamMod in future. In current daily build, it's quite feature packed.

 

Daily build, which will go perhaps live next month and that all the testers had access to, have both GGX BRDF, the same as in Vray, and SSS.

Same shader.

 

The lights (Sun&Sky) are both equal in intensity, but default exposure is not. VrayCam by default has classic sunny "f-8/256/ISO100", Corona by default has some arbitrary EV value that is higher, that can be switched to same DSLR type of controls to match the same look.

 

 

The fact I use both engines then in my production speak of my confidence in both products, I always defend Vray from onslaught of "Corona saved us from eternal sin!" type of folks who simply never learned to use it.

Edited January 7, 2015 by RyderSK
No longer need to reply to above post

[Ky Lane]

So anyway....

 

 

...I'm really very impressed with the results given the small amount of time learning how it all works.

 

[Nic H]

naughty juraj upsetting the fragile americans

 

;-)

[ondrakarlik]

Congrats on being so in love with a simple render engine. You must be so proud of yourself for knowing all 8 options you can control. Not having to think beyond the manual must be such a relief for you.

 

Wow.

This comment made me register here, just so I could say... wow. I don't even know what to say

[lasse1309]

 

 

but the GI is over bright and I'm not sure that it is a physically accurate renderer albeit Brute Force. The resulting image may be to what is provided, but the default sun/sky is not correct as I see it. At least not to the very limited camera settings provided.

 

I think you can get results faster than Vray, but the result is much more artistic than real. It begs the question, at least in my mind, what we want from a renderer. Arbitrary, but speedy or realistic and timely?

 

actually corona is very realistic - it is actually really hard to make it act "not-real" due to the easy setup.

you simply control the brightness via the color-mapping, there is a great video on youtube explaining the fast setup and how to use sun&sky system, really worth a watch.

 

honestly I cannot see Juraj being a bully at all - not even in the reply he gave to your statement.

he knows what he is talking about and has a strong opinion based on ratio, I can assure you.

 

Myself using a handful of engines in daily production can just say each has its strengths. Corona's in my eyes for sure lies in the photorealism possible in a very quick and uncomplicated manner.

 

in general i can say i hate all of them engines, but differently

 

cheers

L

Edited January 7, 2015 by lasse1309

[Nils Norgren]

I usually avoid these comparison threads because they always end up in poor taste, lack objective information and just...pointless.

 

Everything you write in above post is quite wrong though.

 

As someone who seamlessly work between both Vray (having latest 3.10.02) and Corona (daily build tester), and I can assure you, they're very similar in output and workflow that the fact people see completely different engines speaks of their ignorance of either.

 

naughty juraj upsetting the fragile americans

 

Perhaps either because I am a fragile american or the fact that I work with Corey, I find that the above responses out of line, his original post was a (as he said) an opinion (perhaps a harsh one) with points positive and negative about software, with no personal malice.

 

I suggest that we attempt to bring the tone of the conversation back to the intent of the site that Jeff so graciously hosts for us to exchange information, opinions and thoughts. Statements about fragile americans not withstanding I think that the school yard atmosphere is unwarranted.

 

Whether or not someone is a Bully or someone else's statement "speaks of their ignorance" is not the point of the this site.

 

- Nils Norgren - Neoscape

[RyderSK]

Look, I do agree with that. If perhaps this is communication lost behind language barrier by me, I didn't meant those highlighted sentences to have any emotional charge at all, although it seems both of you have read it that way.

I already explained the ignorance refers to "ignorance of either", meaning in relationship to software, not a personal trait.

 

His opinion was factually wrong, which I wanted to address before he builds upon those quite strange sentiments (like the "artistic renderer"),

I would have completely ignored actually subjective opinion like "Don't like the UI, too little options,etc..". The difference is he was claiming something he simply didn't even properly pay attention to understand and made incorrect judgements out of it.

 

I went to discuss his assertions though, not his persona. And I have no intention to continue in any form now.

Edit: I see the conflicted message was removed, for sake of fairness, I have cleared reference to it, so it's not quoted.

Edited January 7, 2015 by RyderSK

[Corey Beaulieu]

I deleted the post. It's quoted enough around this thread so it's unfortunately around for good, but it was unnecessarily aggressive and I'm sorry to have gone 0 to 60mph like that (or should I say 0-100kpm).

 

All I meant by "artistic render" was that, as I have stated a few times, I have so far found the controls to be out of sync with what I would expect with a real camera. No one seams to agree with me on that, but I have yet to see another result in my own testing. If, as my opinion goes, the controls become arbitrary values, even if they are close, but not the same, then that puts them in an artistic space. It seams a poor choice of words, but they are what I chose. They needn't be read as I was thinking myself as stating fact. I was stating my 8 hours of experience with the engine and

 

I'm not at all done with Corona as I am not at all expert. I have seen several things that I find great and several that I look forward to seeing improve in the future.

[Scott Schroeder]

Back on to the OG discussion. Do any of you feel like Corona may lose a lot of steam once it becomes commercial? I think that they have dangled the free carrot for far too long in front of everyone and when they go into a paid model, people will just walk away from it or just continue to use the free alpha 6(?) build.

 

For me personally and for where I work, Corona had the majority of the vote to become our new engine. Then Vray 3 came out. Weighing the options and the time it would take to convert assets, it just made the most sense for us to stick with Vray 3 even with their unpopular on the internet new pricing scheme. I must say though, a lot of what we are seeing in Vray 3 I think was because Corona is finally giving the guys over at Chaos Group some serious render engine competition. In the end, that competition is only going to lead to cool things for us as artists.

 

Corona can be a bit odd for those of us who learned on Vray Versions prior to even 1.5. You are used to having to know all the bells and whistles and a myraid of spinners to adjust. To me, using Corona was like the first time I got into my car with that has a keyless start. I knew I knew how to turn on a car, but for the life of me I looked like a chimp trying to operate a space shuttle. Hint, you have to have your foot on the brake to start the car. The best way to use Corona is to take a sticky note, write, "IT'S NOT VRAY!" on it, and stick it to your monitor.

[Justin Hunt]

I am hanging out for the commercial version. Do I think it will replace Vray in my production, no it will supplement it. After redoing an interior scene with corona I think it I will continue to use corona for interiors. I just couldn't get the same quality out of Vray with out a huge amount of user input. The Vray version was good (not great) but it was only once I did the corona version did I see how much the vray version fell short.

 

However for 80% of my projects Vray will still be my goto.

 

I think with the extra cash input corona will develop a lot more and quickly fill in the gaps it has at the moment.

 

jhv

[Zdravko Barisic]

naughty juraj upsetting the fragile americans

 

;-)

 

Here's another one naughty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okm9hNG2kaU

^

Great tut for starting playing with Corona.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Back on to the OG discussion. Do any of you feel like Corona may lose a lot of steam once it becomes commercial? I think that they have dangled the free carrot for far too long in front of everyone and when they go into a paid model, people will just walk away from it or just continue to use the free alpha 6(?) build.

 

I really hope that this wont happens, the development team has done such great work that it is about time they get some income out of it, there was such discussion when they release their prices and licensing information that to me sounded insulting for them. Let be honest, in our industry there is a large crowd that piggy back on cracked software for years and they are very loud voices when developers change prices.

Hopefully Corona gain a consistent an increasing user base so they can develop further the software and do not get stuck in a snail paces development like Indigo, Thea render and such.

 

For me personally and for where I work, Corona had the majority of the vote to become our new engine. Then Vray 3 came out. Weighing the options and the time it would take to convert assets, it just made the most sense for us to stick with Vray 3 even with their unpopular on the internet new pricing scheme. I must say though, a lot of what we are seeing in Vray 3 I think was because Corona is finally giving the guys over at Chaos Group some serious render engine competition. In the end, that competition is only going to lead to cool things for us as artists.

 

I do agree with this, VRay gain the rendering competition long time ago and there was no other render engine that shake a little the floor of Chaos group combo of quality and speed, now let us not start the discussion of what render is better or compare with renderman or what not, because for small or medium production there was only Mental Ray, Final render and Brazil by then?

any ways VRay proved it self now there was about time to make workflow simpler and more direct, thankfully it is shown in the latest version. I am pretty sure part of this was for some pressure about this new render engine that had such direct approach to calculate GI.

[Nic H]

i guess an australian sense of humour is lost on this forum

;-)

ill be trying out corona this weekend i reckon!

[thomaschristensen]

I don't know why there is such loyalty towards a render engine always. The old battles between Mental Ray and Brazil was just as pointless.

 

It has nothing to do with which is better, because most of them today are all based on the same algorithms, it's just what else they do with them and how they package it that matters. Corona and Arnold is very similar in this sense.

 

Corona does an AMAZING job at being fast, easy and to the point. Here we are using Corona solely at the moment while waiting for chaosgroup to sort their shit out. Vray 3.1 had the right idea, basically adding the stuff vray was missing compared to corona, but they just didn't do as good a job of it.

 

Here I am talking about pure productivity, in features etc Vray will always win.. they do have 15 years head start after all, but in setting up an interior shot, lighting, drafts, getting a final out and post production. Corona just made my life SO much easier, and I have been using vray for 10 years, I could get the same result, I would just have to spend 2-3 times as long tweaking small settings, where now I can spend that time in post production.

 

So when it comes to the question of whether people are playing with corona or not, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't?! if it fits your workflow or not is up to you to decide, but that doesn't make it better or worse necessarily. At the end of the day it's great artists that makes great images, not the tools.

 

Personally I would love to stick to Vray, but chaosgroup doesn't give me much of a choice currently with the project we have on here.

[philippelamoureux]

What I like about Corona so far :

 

-It's simplicity. (i learned vray and I still don't understand all the relations between the million settings) AT LEAST it's much less complicated with vray 3.0.

 

-I like that you can play with the colormapping in realtime while the image is rendering. (dunno if it's possible with vray but I haven't test/found it)

 

-It's not there yet, but the interactive viewport is going to be very nice imo...(vray has activeshade but I always find it gives quite different results than with vray ADV). Octane render was king for that tho!!!

 

-The cheap subscribtion pricing model (hate expensive box model)

 

-It has render farms (looking at you god damn OTOY guys)

 

-Round corner settings on materials. Brilliant (possible in vray too but more complicated iirc)

 

That's it for now! Happy rendering guys