Render Engine
- Biased and Unbiased solution
- Path Tracing: unbiased solution
- 4K and UHD Cache: two options for faster biased cached solution for interiors
- Denoising
- Reduces the number of passes needed to get a noise–free image, with render time reductions of 50 to 70%
- NVIDIA AI GPU–based denoising can be used for final renders at the user’s discretion (requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU)
- Intel AI denoising can be used for final renders. CPU–only, and works with any CPU (not just Intel)
- Interactive amount adjustment
- Checkbox to enable/disable the result in the VFB
- Fast Caustics Solver
- Easy to use, fast to render
- Includes caustics from reflection, refraction, and dispersion (splitting light into separate colors)
- Enable or disable for specific light sources
- Works with LightMix
- Separate render element available for compositing caustics in post processing for even greater control
- Works correctly with Motion Blur
- Adaptive Image Sampling
- Balances out the rendering calculations over the image to focus more processing power on tricky areas
- High Quality Image filtering, gives a more natural and “less CGI” look to noise, making it less noticeable to the eye
- Progressive rendering
- Max Sample Intensity (MSI): automatically removes fireflies –
accuracy/render speed tradeoff - Proudly CPU based
Materials
- CoronaPhysicalMtl
- Default material since Corona 7
- Base Layer for diffuse, reflection, bump, and translucency controls
- Base layer uses Oren-Nayar shading model
- Clearcoat Layer for adding a layer of varnish, lacquer, etc., featuring separate bump from the Base Layer
- Sheen for creating realistic fabrics
- Choice of Roughness or Glossiness workflow, both per-material and as scene default
- Choice of IOR or Disney Specular workflow, both per-material and as scene default
- Metalness workflow, where Metalness can be mapped
- Metals can be controlled by simple Edge Color, or by Complex IOR
- UI interactively enables or disables parameters based on whether a material is Metal or Non-Metal
- 35 presets built-in to the material, as starting points, or to ‘reverse engineer’ to learn in creating your own materials
- Refraction, including dispersion, caustics, and thin absorption (for Thin Mode)
- Anisotropy correctly affects both Refractions and Reflection (both correctly affect caustics)
- Thin mode for glass correctly blurs reflections and refractions
- Opacity
- Adaptive displacement with low memory requirements
- Vector displacement
- SSS mode for wax, marble, and other materials that do not use Thin Mode or full Refraction
- Volumetric scattering and absorption mode for fog, mist, and for colored glass, liquids and other materials that use Refraction without Thin Mode
- Self-illumination
- CoronaLegacyMtl
- Uses Lambertian shading model
- Legacy material, to preserve identical results from scenes created in earlier versions of Corona Renderer
- CoronaSkinMtl
- Dedicated material for skin
- Three independent Subsurface Scattering layers
- Two independent Reflection layers
- CoronaHairMtl
- Dedicated material for hair and fur
- Colored and Colorless reflection layers
- Color controls via melanin amounts, or directly
- Adjustable random glints
- CoronaLayeredMtl
- Similar to 3ds Max Blend material
- Combines multiple materials instead of just two
- CoronaSelectMtl
- Store multiple materials for one object, and select between them via radio buttons
- Radio buttons can be keyframed, and accessed via MAXScript
- CoronaLightMtl
- Identical performance to CoronaLight
- Various non–physical settings
- Textured emission (useful for backplates)
- CoronaRaySwitchMtl
- Uses different material for different ray types: direct, GI, reflections, refractions
- CoronaShadowCatcherMtl
- Custom backplate textures
- Screen, spherical, or no projection
- Supports glossy surfaces
- Bump mapping
- Lights work additively (illuminators) or subtractively
- CoronaVolumeMtl
- Simplified material for volumetric scattering and absorption
- “Inside Mode” allows for true 3D volumetric materials
- 3ds Max materials
- Standard
- Blend (including nested blend materials)
- Multi/Sub–Object
- XRef
- Shell
- Double Sided
- Top/Bottom
- DirectX Shader
- Support for 3ds Max physical material
Material library
- Over 520 ready–to–use high quality materials
- Drag–and–drop from the Library to the viewport, Slate material editor and Compact material editor
- Real World Scale or Triplanar mapping used where possible, to reduce tiling and give expected scaling
- Materials organized by category
- Set favorites, with Display Favorites Only option
- Sort by name, favorites, or most used
- Select all objects in the scene that use a particular material
- Resizable material previews
- Open standalone large preview windows for materials
Texmaps
- CoronaAO
- Ambient occlusion shader
- Supports textures
- Includes/Excludes
- Additional controls: spread, directionality, inverted mode, etc.
- CoronaDistance
- Gradient based on distance to other objects
- Supports textures
- List of objects to calculate distance from
- Can be used in Corona Scatter density map to control placement of objects
- Wide range of other creative uses, e.g. ripples on water around objects, controlling light intensity and color, etc.
- Supports all geometry including Corona Proxy, Corona Scatter, and 3ds Max particle objects
- Works as an input to bump mapping
- CoronaFrontBack
- Shows different colors/texmaps on front/back sides of a material
- CoronaColorCorrect
- Adjust brightness, saturation, etc. of a texture map (and still have it affected by VFB post–processing)
- Unique tone mapping capabilities (not present on other output nodes), including LUTs, gamma, curves, etc.
- Mode available so that one CoronaColorCorrect controls multiple other CoronaColorCorrects, allowing you to apply the same adjustments to multiple maps and adjust those from one location
- CoronaTonemapControl
- Specify whether a texture map should be affected by VFB Exposure, Tone Mapping, etc.
- CoronaOutput
- Legacy only, used in scenes created before Corona Renderer 2. Replaced by CoronaColorCorrect and CoronaTonemapControl
- CoronaMix
- Advanced mix shader
- Texture or color inputs, different blending modes
- Works as an input to bump mapping
- CoronaRaySwitch
- Same as RaySwitch material, but on texmap instead of material level
- CoronaSky
- Implements latest Hošek & Wilkie realistic sky model
- Allows changing ground color and turbidity
- CoronaColor
- Allows to input single constant color using a color picker
- HDR numerical values, Kelvin temperature, web hex input
- CoronaWire
- Wire shader
- Allows to set edge/vertex size in world or screen coordinates
- Falloff between Base and Edges/Vertices color
- Can be used as an input to bump mapping
- CoronaBitmap
- Works similarly to 3ds Max bitmap, but faster (10–20%)
- Spherical, Dome, Cross and Mirrorball modes for use as an Environment
- Rotation via degrees or U Offset (for environments)
- Asynchronous loading (start work on a scene without wait for all textures to load)
- CoronaRoundEdge
- Rounded corners shader
- Works as an input to bump mapping and other material slots
- Fast mode for faster rendering and no noise, with no parameters needed
- Precise mode for blending across other objects / elements / materials
- CoronaMultiMap
- Randomly assigns colors/maps to instances or mesh elements
- Frequency spinners
- Hue and Gamma randomization
- Features advanced blending modes
- Global blur multiplier to affect all multimaps elements
- Supports up to 25 inputs directly, with another 75 accessible via MAXScript
- Can be used with just one input, applying gamma and hue randomization
- CoronaTriplanar
- Apply textures without explicit UV mapping, with no stretching or seams thanks to the in–built blending
- CoronaSelect
- Store multiple maps in a material, and select between them via radio buttons
- Radio buttons can be keyframed, and accessed via MAXScript
- CoronaNormal
- Automatic detection of incorrect input gamma
- CoronaBumpConverter
- Converts RGB maps to be compatible with the Bump channel (e.g. 3ds Max native Marble, Wood, ColorCorrect, etc.)
- CoronaUvwRandomizer
- Apply random offset / rotation / scale to textures and maps by instance, material id, etc.
- Options to allow randomization of seamless textures, e.g. to avoid visibly obvious tiling
- CoronaUserProperty
- Assign a numeric value to a node, for use with MAXScript
Post–processing effects
- Controlled from render settings, Corona Camera, or VFB
- All settings are adjustable during/after rendering
- Image updated in real time
- Bloom & Glare
- Both controlled independently
- Threshold
- Color intensity & shift to adjust colors
- Glare ray count, blurriness and rotation
- Lens Effects for scratches, dirt, etc.
Misc
- 2.5D Displacement
- New default displacement calculation method, which saves significant memory and parsing times
- V–Ray compatibility
- Supports assets from V–Ray 3.60 or newer (assets from older versions may work, but not guaranteed)
- Renders VRayMtl and VRayLight, even if V–Ray is not licensed or not installed, without running any sort of conversion
- Hair and Fur support
- 3ds Max native Hair and Fur
- Ephere Ornatrix
- HairFarm
- Hair rendering both as billboards or as full cylindrical geometry
- Phoenix FD support
- Supports Phoenix FD 3.10.00 or newer (3.10.03 required for compatibility with Interactive Rendering)
- List of known current Volumetric FX limitations
- FumeFX support
- Supports FumeFX 5.0 or newer
- List of known current Volumetric FX limitations
- Corona Displacement Modifier
- Allows setting per–object Subdivision Quality
- Adaptive displacement, with low memory requirements
- All displacement features and settings that are available in CoronaMaterial
- Advanced “Render Selected”
- Render mask by an include list, object ID, or viewport selection
- Improved Color Picker
- Can be set to replace default 3ds Max color picker
- sRGB mode for ease of use with Photoshop and similar; can be disabled for a linear workflow
- Perceptually uniform color gradients in both modes
- Color selection by Temperature
- Adjustable averaging of neighboring pixels
- Inverse color picker allows setting of white balance in combination with the Color Tint parameter in the VFB
- Error reporting with online help
- Error messages linked to a support page with more info and possible solutions
- Automatic selection of the offending object
- Automatic correction of certain errors
- Error message forwarding from render slaves in DR
- Corona Converter
- One–click solution to convert materials, lights, and maps from other renderers
- Improved material editor scene
- More representative previews
- Override material option (with excludes/includes, and options to preserve displacement, light materials, glass materials, portals, and unsupported materials)
- Comprehensive support for file formats
- CoronaBitmap supports Kodak Cineon, SGI file, RLA image file, Adobe PSD Reader, and DDS image file formats, as well as all the more common formats (JPG, PNG, etc.)
- CoronaVFB supports saving to the most common formats, including .TIF with specified output color depth, alpha channel, etc.
- Save and resume
- Ability to save VFB and resume rendering later (even on a different computer)
- Render only elements
- Computes render elements in seconds without doing shading
- Autosave
- Optionally saving the VFB every few minutes and after rendering. Rendering can be resumed from these backups
- Bundled LUTs
- Over 70 LUTs included with the install
- Bundled IES profiles
- Sample IES files included
- UI supports HiDPI monitors