Hi guys, Me and a few other users who are working in Archviz would like to check if there is any possibility that you want to have a nice working integration between Blender and Corona.
I know from one of the developers that they are still probing Blender market. They’ve got a problem with Blender license, but if they will see a lot of people who are interested in buying their product for rendering than I think there will be no problem with licensing:)
Currently, there is Blender exporter for version 2.79 which works, but I think that we deserve full integration, and I think that there is no better render engine for Archviz than Corona renderer, which is used by the best archviz artists.
The next good thing is that many of 3dsmax users are thinking about changing their software to Blender, but as far as there will be no good Blender - Corona integration they will stay with 3dsmax. And more people on our board can bring more money for Blender developers, which is great.
Corona is not only archviz. It gives much better depth and crispy details than Cycles. With this times are significantly lower than Cycles or Luxcore. How it deals with textures, how it sees the reflections and refractions is simply beautiful. Also, it does have fastest production-ready caustics rendering. Even Cycles/LuxCore can’t give full DOF control. Tone mapping is really stress-free, without pain and noob resistant.
The best CPU utilization and tricks are making its performance very close to GPU with CPU you still can extend your RAM and not to worry about out-of-core.
Maybe Octane is good, but I know how much Octane for Blender users would hop into Corona without any doubt - due to image and control that Corona does have.
I guess some people have a headache having already Max or Cinema 4D models libraries.
In future we’ll need to find and donate the developers who will do a shader wrangler between vRay/Corona for Max and C4D to vRay/Corona in Blender which applies shaders on models that have been exported to Blender.
Also, I’m on research on a solution to convert Max/C4D stuff without having Max/C4D via server.
Otherwise it can be using Max/C4D on remote hardware, of course without cracking, pirating software but this is still somehow a greyzone.
I am very interested in Corona. But I’m not sure it can compete with cycles speed when rendering with one or multiple gpu-s. Is there anywhere a comparison?
I have RTX 2070 and I can assume that I still need CPU power, it goes faster than Cycles on GPU.
My CPUs are 2x Xeon E5-2697 v3.
Remember, Corona is still going to be developed, researched - it already uses Optix GPU denoiser! It’s a matter of time when Corona will be forced to be also GPU engine.
V-Ray core was CPU all long years and it had GPU revolution. Fortunately…
I also posted in that corona thread so i am obviously very much for this I think corona is the easiest to use render + best looking one “out of the box” of all the ones i have tried. Their post /grading image viewer is also super useful when you dont want to fool around with the EXR in a separate program.
Paging @rawalanche
I am all for more render engines in Blender, but personally I don’t know if I need Corona. I am very happy with E-Cycles (tremendous speed) and LuxCore (beautiful realism).
I am also worried that it’s still on CPU. I optimized my rig for GPU rendering. And based on latest news from NVIDIA I think there will be huge gap in speed between GPU and CPU rendering.
The fact that Corona is a commercial render doesn’t bother me. Unfortunately, for my case I am curios but not really interested.
I moved from Vray after years to Corona for about 2 years and now finally to Arnold in Max. I’ve been using Cycles this last year, on and off as well and it’s great for it’s ease of use, speed, and excellent integration into Blender. Arnold is still a bit of a mess in Max, but I did always love the quality of Corona. The main thing that changed for me was that it was only ever CPU. Has that changed? Can it now run on RTX cards?
Okey. I checked your portfolio and it really awesome. I’d prefer use different renderer at one time:
E-Cycles, when need speed and node-based materials;
Yafaray/The Bounty, for production, especially in small scene (BidirPT is fastest than any in other renderer just with CPU);
LuxCore, when need spectral renders and Full GI with caustics as well;
Corona, using Blender 2.79b build and it need for ArchViz prod, Full GI with much more accurated Light caches as fast as possible and plus, it has bunch of lighting methods.
I think the main reason of the Corona is still CPU renderer is in the core. It will need to be change overall core ready for GPU computing and plus, many users are using Corona without curious on what they are doing on Cpu or Gpu except.
I’ve tested Corona back in the days and my impression was that it was the best render engine I’ve tested so far, especially for Archviz.
But since then too many things have changed, both in the software and hardware world.
For me although I wouldn’t have any problem paying a fair price for a good render engine, properly integrated into blender, the “windows only” is a deal breaker.
No Linux, No Way.
From what I was reading in the Corona forum there was absolutely no interest in porting it to Linux, so bye bye Corona and Good Luck!
I’m happy with Cycles and Luxcore and have a 99% percent FOSS workflow.
I think the Corona devs should call their owner Chaos group to make it an company wide coordinated effort to push their products into the Blender market. I know for sure that Vray is coming - so the guys over there must have a working concept and also a prototype of how to do it.
yeah this is what i thought. its odd why that is not coordinated. i know they still kind of operate as separate companies but they are sharing tech so…
Yeah, it’s really weird. I don’t follow Vray anymore much but when they showed Vray 5 it seemed like they absorbed a lot of ideas and tech from Corona. They probably bought them just for that reason and don’t care that much about the future of Corona.
I obviously don’t know that as a fact but it’s the impression I get observing from the sidelines.
I very rarely see archviz renders that are nicer than those produced with Corona, which is super simple, and super affordable. I don’t get why it’s developers are ignoring Blender community, which I’m sure of, has many potential clients. They’re using same excure about blender licence policy over and over, which as we all know is possible to produce commercial tools for (as Otoy Octane or Chaos Vray does, and Redshift is in the works). Maybe we should make some official poll and share it on not only blender 3d groups (local archviz fb groups and so on) asking if one would use/switch from other software to Blender if it had fully integrated Corona rendering engine and share the responses with Corona?
As I understood, Corona developers wanted to make Corona addon for Blender fairly early, but they had some kind of problem with licensing. Maybe they didn’t like you can’t protect the license or something. Not quite sure.
I think corona is the easiest to use render + best looking one “out of the box” of all the ones i have tried. Their post /grading image viewer is also super useful when you dont want to fool around with the EXR in a separate program.