Corona getting into bed with Chaos Group - good or bad?

[CliveG]

And good or bad - for exactly who ?

 

Personally I'm a bit less than impressed but am I wrong / too cynical?

 

Grrrrr

[Zdravko Barisic]

https://corona-renderer.com/blog/new-horizons-plans-for-2017-and-beyond/

 

The live announcement and Q&A today touched on this – the plan is to make it so that you can load a scene set up for one renderer and use it in the other, without needing to do any sort of conversion before hand. So the plan is that a Corona material or light will render in V-Ray without conversion, and the same the other way round

 

Thanks!

Tom

[heni30]

Corona team is off to Ibiza in a private jet lighting cigars with $100 bills.

 

Personally I'm a bit less than impressed but am I wrong / too cynical?

Grrrrr

 

After seeing what happened to Lightscape after being acquired by Autodesk I'd say you're being realistic ("here we go again")

 

 

The live announcement and Q&A today touched on this – the plan is to make it so that you can load a scene set up for one renderer and use it in the other, without needing to do any sort of conversion before hand. So the plan is that a Corona material or light will render in V-Ray without conversion, and the same the other way round .

 

 

Vray meeting:

 

"So we could make Vray compatible with Corona and then make Corona compatible with Vray and then...............................

 

Hmmm, let's see.........is there a way can we simplify this whole mess?..........."

Edited August 27, 2017 by heni30

[Ernest Burden III]

Vray won the last big render-engine consolidation, but as demonstrated by the CGarchitect engine survey, another round of market consolidation is probably due. If anyone is concerned about Corona death, there's always Octane. That's the one I have been hearing a lot about from VFX friends.

 

There is a lot of churn going on as thing move towards real-time products as the main tech for rendering. So this is not all that surprising.

 

And to the original analogy of the thread title--Vlado's on top.

[Chris MacDonald]

Way too cynical.

 

Firstly we are dealing with (arguably) the two best render engines on earth for arch viz. The idea that they do not want to be absolutely top of their game is laughable.

 

Secondly I have been dealing with chaos group for a long time now and their customer support is literally second to none; It's up there with itoosoft. You can literally talk to the owner of the company for goodness sake. I'm not saying this isn't the case with Corona, as I'm sure it's much the same.

 

Thirdly I make music in my spare time and I remember back when my software of choice (Cubase) was bought out by Yamaha; nobody knew what it meant for us users but many years down the line all I can say is that it's the best thing that ever happened. Their R&D budget went through the roof and we started seeing features we hadn't dreamed of, along with ones from other software that we had coveted.

 

Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly understand the doubts people have but I would say that they are largely based on dealings with considerably larger entities such as Autodesk; the likes of which are too big to fail, and thus can ignore their user base if they so choose. Neither Chaos Group nor Render Legion have ever shown anything other than complete and utter support to their users.

 

 

This IS good news. Corona has already benefited from the VRay DMC, and imagine the likes of Phoenix playing well with it, etc.

Edited August 27, 2017 by Macker

[heni30]

Way too cynical.

 

Firstly we are dealing with (arguably) the two best render engines on earth for arch viz. The idea that they do not want to be absolutely top of their game is laughable.

 

I think it's this 1st point that people are apprehensive about. If they both do the same identical thing, why not just take the good stuff from the acquisition and have a single improved product?

 

In your Yamaha example that was a gigantic conglomerate taking over a niche product. Not quite the same.

 

And to the original analogy of the thread title--Vlado's on top.

 

or worst case scenario, at the stern.

Edited August 27, 2017 by heni30

[CliveG]

I think my issue with this is a bit more general:

 

Competition is good and has certainly proven to benefit the community in this case.

 

As Corona gained a solid foothold with some great innovation and awesome value for money, Vray suddenly had to lift their game and started an upgrade sequence that provided a benefit to their customers in turn.

 

Co-incidence? I don't think it was. I think it was to stop a haemorrhage of Vray customers.

 

So I'm sad that the competition looks like, for the moment, gone.

 

Whichever camp you're in, I think we're all worse off for less solid competition in this arena.

[Andres Saarnak]

Remember, the other option was to get investment from some venture capital funds and their only goal would have been milking us. I like that the Chaos Group invests not only their money but also their expertise and experience. I already enjoy Vray DMC in Corona. Both teams are led by very passionate developers. Time will tell, but I feel optimistic.

 

 

And what to make of this?

Vlado said on Corona forum: "I don't think that will be the case. Corona's code and architecture is quite modern and will carry it forward for a long time.

Maybe it will be around, but the truth is that V-Ray is getting old. I don't know if you've seen Cars 3, it's a very nice movie and somewhat relevant to the discussion :)"

 

And someone else commented:"Google says "At its root, Cars 3 is a story about getting old and figuring out how to accept that you can’t stay on top forever.""

[Christopher Nichols]

Happy to see some people are able to see beyond the conspiracy theory. Granted I'm biased (pun intended) but this will be positive.

 

Acquisitions are not always negative, in fact most are very positive. People keep bringing up the same bad examples. However, when Facebook bought Instagram everyone thought that they did it to kill them. Truth is, several years later, they are both stronger from it. When Foundry bought Nuke it became the most powerful composting software out there. And those that want to bash Autodesk, their acquisition of Revit turned the world of BIM on its head.

 

Competition IS good. But sometimes collaboration is better, especially with software. You just got two very smart groups of developers to exchange ideas and you all benefit. And if you think Vlado or Ondra will be resting on their laurels, you don't know them like I do.

[CliveG]

Competition IS good. But sometimes collaboration is better....

 

So Vlado was going to release a denoiser and Lightmixer when he did anyway and Corona's competitive advantage in offering these features (cheaply) didn't contribute to Vlado's urgency in playing catch-up? Mmmm

 

Healthy competition isn't a conspiracy theory Chris

 

Don't get me wrong I hope collaboration is all sweetness and light and I'm sure the first couple of years will actually be fairly reassuring to the doubters, but I prefer that Vray and Corona were pushing boundaries by trying to gain an advantage over one and other. We would all be the winners then.

 

With say 75% market share (a huge guess) who are they trying to gain an advantage over now.... ?

[Chris MacDonald]

Clive you talk as if there is no competition; as if these are the ONLY two render engines available to users. The reality is that there are dozens more, from the likes of the big boys like Arnold/Renderman through to the small scale F-Storm and so on... plus the entire industry is being encroached on by real-time renderers such as Unreal, unity, twinmotion and lumion.

 

There is more competition than I have ever seen.

[Sketchrender]

Christopher

 

I have listened to the Pod cast and it's all good fun, and a very honest conversation.

The competition part of the conversation was interesting.

But the price only came up once.

Corona price point is a very attractive feature, and Vrays is way, more, and the fact that a dongle free option has been out for a good while now for Corona is a major plus, over vray.

A home licence is still not an option with vray unless you bring your dongle home, they are working on it, but , it seems to be taking years.

I understand the price point of Vray, and the work that goes in to it, and the overheads must be hugh, but that's the reason Corona is cheaper surly?

 

Great Pod cast by the way, the 137......explanation.............

Edited August 29, 2017 by philip kelly

[Chris MacDonald]

A home licence is still not an option with vray unless you bring your dongle home

 

You can connect to your office/dongle licence server over the internet, though. And they now have an online licencing system.

[CliveG]

Clive you talk as if there is no competition;..........There is more competition than I have ever seen.

 

Yep you're right Chris, in my world there may as well be only two render engines. I'm not a died in the wool rendering tech head constantly surveying the rendering field, I just want to concentrate on "perfecting" (alas far from perfect but you know what I mean) a renderer to attempt to get the best out it without constantly swapping and changing at every emperors new clothes. I don't want to join the love in and have Vlado's or Ondra's children - I just need their software to enable me to pay my bills.

 

Plus I'm sure that new innovations from Arnold, Renderman, F-storm, Octane, Iray etc have also driven some of the improvements we see today in the Corona / Vray products..... haven't they?

 

Anyway I would be curious as to the actual market share of Vray - Corona - Octane - Arnold etc.... to have a clearer idea where their competition pressure and drive is coming from in the short term.

 

In the longer term however you are right again

plus the entire industry is being encroached on by real-time renderers such as Unreal, unity, twinmotion and lumion.

This is where - despite my lack of industry know how - I reckon the real backstory for this union might lie: Corona evolves to the Arch-viz / product tool perhaps get some Vray animation expertise on board to tidy that area up and then let Vray concentrate on the high end and VFX side. At the same time between them get to work on the ability to take a scene, bake your lighting and materials and run it real time to kill off that impending threat to their existence.

 

All I know is that a union like this on face value makes little, cold hard business sense - on the basis that we're being lead to believe. So I'm suspecting there's a backstory. Hopefully it's a good one

[Scott Schroeder]

Jesus I go on a short vacation and hurricanes hit Texas, North Korea fires a missile over Japan, and Vray buys Corona. I guess the lesson here is never go on vacation.

 

I think this is going to be a good thing in the long run. I think the biggest fear from Corona users will be that the price will go up, because that has been a major advantage for Corona users to get that great of an engine for that relatively low cost. Then you have the fear of what exactly is going to happen 1-2 years down the road with the development teams. Will they stay, get split up, quit?

 

There is also rampant speculation that Vray will push into VFX and film to compete against the biggest of the boys and Corona will slide into that niche for arch viz.

[John Dollus]

There is also rampant speculation that Vray will push into VFX and film to compete against the biggest of the boys and Corona will slide into that niche for arch viz.

 

Speculation? That's been the reality for quite some time.

 

And those that want to bash Autodesk, their acquisition of Revit turned the world of BIM on its head.

Umm, that didn't work out so well for all of the firms who bought into Autodesk's Arch Desktop BIM > Revit BIM push.

 

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em

Edited August 29, 2017 by John Dollus

[Ernest Burden III]

...the fact that a dongle free option has been out for a good while now for Corona is a major plus, over vray...

 

Vray4C4D is software-key licensed. I don't know about the other versions--Rhino, Sketchup, Modo. The key is paired to your Cinema4D serial number.

[Scott Schroeder]

True, but I have always felt that Choas Group was being held back by the "How to Vray/Make it like Corona" crowd and now they can shift all of them over to Corona and really focus on making a version of Vray that gets back to it's more open technical roots for large scale rendering teams. Maybe they can finally do away with the basic/advanced/expert tabs in Vray just to satisfy the push button crowd. Something like Renderan is built for teams with 10's if not 100's of technical artists to code their own versions of Renderman for their own rendering tools in their own rendering pipeline. I think the Chaos Group guys are much more suited to develop for their own technical kind and Corona developers are more suited to develop with artists in mind.

 

This will help Corona as well because we struggled to use it on our larger scenes due to Corona not being very efficient with memory. A fully loaded arena struggled on Corona where as Vray churned through it like it was nothing. Corona can hopefully in the future be used for more than houses in the woods, empty hyper modern kitchens, industrial lofts, and empty black and white bedrooms. Corona's real strength was in product viz and residential still images, this merger hopefully expands their user base outward.

 

Quiet honestly, I think Corona is going to benefit more from this than Vray will in terms of actual development. Chaos Group will benefit from getting some $$ back from people who have moved away from Vray. It's a win-win.

 

In 5/10 years most of the engines we use will be based on either Chaos Group or Epic's development. UE4 is now directly in line with Vray and Twinmotion. Chaos Group now has Corona. And UE4's datasmith is going to simplify it all with software to software transfers.

 

I just can't see the hate that this is getting, esp on the Corona forum. That thread is dripping with venom.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Yea Corona forum run out of control very quickly, not sure who started that

Well if we all read all the inside that are posted everywhere, we will learn that it was Render legion who was looking for money, I mean a partner to grow. It is obvious, they want to get out of the survival mode and make a good business out of it. it is understandable.

 

They already had a hard time when they finally started to charge for the software, I remember there were a lot of people complaining about such. 'What?... I have to pay now?" So yea all the hate is there, I do not agree with it but, oh well.

 

Regarding the questions and distrust, is also because we got hit several times. I also agree with Chris N. there are very good examples, but there are very bad one too, besides is not Autodesk Buying REVIT a software they didn't have a direct competitor, it is one render engine joining their straight competitor so. It does look strange at least. for Instance, what if Arnold 'join forces' with V-Ray, talking about too many setting hum?

 

 

I guess many people were hoping to have a great option compared to V-Ray, for a less price but they thought in the upcoming future with the same features. Now at first glance, it looks like when Autodesk Bought 3DMax and now Maya and Max compete in the same realm but one has fewer features than the other one, and the Autodesk answer is if you want that, you need to get the other software.

 

I really hope Corona survive for a long time, I like the software, the workflow is incredible, results are predictable and consistent, I like V-Ray too, is a software I know I can trust, also the company. So I really hope for the best. So as Chris N. says only time will tell if we pre judge this wrong.

 

This is the bless of internet

[Sketchrender]

You can connect to your office/dongle licence server over the internet, though. And they now have an online licencing system.

 

Not reliable for home use.

Had it go down at the wrong time on deadlines.

The new licence , ie no dongle version, is only available for the new licences.

 

but anyway the pricing of vray is still way off the price of Corona....hows that going to pan out.

[Scott Schroeder]

I wouldn't worry about price. Vray is much much much much more complicated than Corona and Vray's price point is easily justified. Granted, most of us use a small % of what Vray can actually do and that's what made Corona so appealing. It just rendered your scene and had no GPU component tacked onto it. Therefore, Corona's price point is easily justified.

 

We can speculate all we want but Chaos Group has done nothing in their entire history to show anything that they are like Autodesk, so stop making that awful connection. If the creators of Corona buy a home next to Minecraft creator/sellout Notch's 70-million dollar shack in Beverly Hills, then you can start to get worried that they sold their souls.