Corona Renderer 5 for 3ds Max Optimises Memory, Caustics, Geometry

The 2.5 Displacement tool can render intense displacement faster with less memory.

Corona Renderer 5 for 3ds Max has major updates for scenes containing heavy displacement and caustics. Also helping designers take better advantage of their hardware and available RAM, the version 5 software  uses memory and processing power more efficiently.

Geometry processing speeds are faster due to a new tool called 2.5 Displacement, which is now the default on all new scenes. The 2.5 Displacement tool can render faster with less memory for scenes using intense displacement, with no change to a user’s existing workflow.

More Detail, Less Memory

2.5D Displacement allows the use of a smaller Screen or World Size value, which means more detail in the geometry created by displacement while still needing less memory. 2.5D Displacement also results in a savings on Parsing Time - the time needed to resolve the image into its elements – in many cases.

"As developers, it's easy to be swept into the challenge of pushing the boundaries of rendering systems. However, that's not always of the most benefit for end users, who depend on the software to make a living,” said Adam Hotový, co-founder and vice president at Chaos Czech. “Corona Renderer 5 supercharges what’s already there, so designers don’t have to buy more memory or the latest CPU, every time they need to make a push.”

Pure Caustics

Corona Renderer 5 continues on from Corona 4’s developments in advanced caustics workflows. Performance gains have now been recorded at up to 20 percent in scenes that are pure caustics, making the process of rendering lighting effects faster on pool water, diamonds and glass.

Render times can be optimised by removing objects generating caustics that do not contribute significantly to the result. Caustics have been improved for scenes with multiple lights. For example, as well as the usual effect of excluding an object from a light, that object will also no longer create reflective or refractive caustics from that light. On the other hand, by compiling an Include list for a light, only objects in that list will generate reflective and refractive caustics from that light.

This functionality is not only useful for producing specific artistics looks but also to define control over multiple objects that use the same material instead of creating and controlling separate materials with refractive caustics.

Rendering of CoronaColorCorrect is now faster due to optimisations.

Corona Renderer 5 brings further optimisations to geometry storage, Bloom & Glare calculations, and scenes with large numbers of instances such as hair. Rendering of CoronaColorCorrect and CoronaDistance maps is faster as well. Work done to optimise Corona Renderer includes a rewrite of the geometry processing, a switch to the latest Intel Embree raytracing library and the calculation of mesh normals.   corona-renderer.com