EAlexander

Yes - I think this looks a lot better. I think the wood still look a bit cartoony. I think it's the lack of contrast in the color - it's very even all over. But that is nitpicking and I think the scene looks great! See reference attached

Yes! Much improved. I think the composition is better overall and I like the DoF. Things that stand out to me: Saturation of the green tobacco 🙂 which looks too much like cooking parsley here Wood tabletop - is that supposed to be painted wood? Considering how rough it is based on the depth of the bump/displacement, the paint is too perfect. This pipe looks like it has never been used - I see the micro scratches, but there is no burn or soot marks around the opening of the bowl. I would darken the overall backplate a bit, but that is personal preference. This is looking really good and moving in the right direction! e.

Happy new year! Thank you for everything!

Just started it last night. Off to a great start!

Car Studio Lighting RnD. Working out a new studio setup for lighting cars for an upcoming project. WIP - still a ways to go on this. First shots feel a bit gray/dull. I always shoot cars in dark environments, so I'm learning how to do it in a white environment without burnout.

Beautiful!

@clarence Here is the material - attached. Just change the color in the one color node (all the way to the left in the node editor) to adjust. Let us see any renders you do with it. Even though this is built with Corona 7, it is a legacy material until I can read more about the new Sheen channel and rebuild it to be more modern. EA_Velour_v01.zip

Just had a good with this and I think there is a lot of potential there. Matte painters could get to love this. Easy to use, but super limited right now in output resolution. If they keep developing and can let us get decent sizes out, I could see it becoming a thing.

Thanks guys - yes, lighting and saturation are a bit blown out on those for sure.

Building a new Velour shader in Corona. WIP.

Amazing!

Anything that Carey Smith and Division 05 puts out is worth watching. Here's a 4 part series where he takes an existing show reel and re-edits it and talks through the process to improve it. Then look through his Design Crit series to step up your work. Also 002 Storyboarding is my fav and I make all my students watch it.

Cool things happening in here.

Some texture RnD for a project I'm working on. Curvature is coming in the next version of Corona Renderer, but you can still do nice things with the current AO system.

Don't know if it is "exclusively" made in c4d, but I believe Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs is mostly C4d driven.

Its so subjective and there are hardware realities to consider as well. I've started looking at render engines like Cameras. Some people like to shoot on Canon, some like to shoot on Nikon, some prefer...... I think less about tests of seconds but which one feels better and is more instinctive to me. Corona is this hands down for me - easily the easiest render engine I've ever learned and great images right out of the box. But I don't do animations, or heavy vfx, or characters, so it's going to be so different for everybody and I don't pretend to think it's the best solution for anyone else. Without the render wars, though, we would still be yelling at random strangers online about mac vs. PC, pepsi vs. Coke, or the z-brush interface.

Yes, this is great. Never heard of that site before - thanks for letting us know. e.

My all time favorite, not Cinema, but well related, is Carey Smith of Division05. https://youtube.com/c/Division05

So I think it's breaking down for me that when I am doing architectural or exterior work, the volumetric system in Corona works very nicely, and I don't find the wait times too bad - I don't do animations, so if it needs an hour over lunch, no biggie. I upgraded from 10 cores to 32 cores a few months ago and this makes a huge difference. For concerts and work where I'm trying to design an entire stadiums lighting system, I'll stick to Redshift where I can dial it in per light and it doesn't need to be butter smooth. Single bounce is more then fine for that.

Okay Corona - I take back every bad thing I said about your volumetrics. I just didn't know how to use them correctly. Actually a nice system that cleans up very fast. This is not a perfect example and is pretty heavy handed, but I'm trying to dial in the look and then I can back off the volume later. My only wish is I could have an option for lights to exclude being affected by the volume (yes, I know this is not realistic), but it's extremely handy in Redshift for sneaking in extra hidden rim lights on objects.

Thanks everybody!🙏

More sky RnD - this time with displaced terrain inside of Corona. Trying to get more comfortable with exteriors as I've always rendered interiors or shows/concerts and I want to know more about Corona displacement capabilities and how to use it better. Finally feel like I have atmospheric volumetrics under control....somewhat.

More sky system RnD with Corona and post. Color feels wonky. Still working.

Really nice work!