Corona 11 is out now

New features video

Here’s a quick overview of the new main features:

Live webinar

Watch our webinar to see the new features in action.

Major features

All these features apply to Corona for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D (with a few exceptions that are explicitly mentioned), so we’ll only talk about them once, and demo images may be from either host software. In case you are not familiar with both 3ds Max and Cinema 4D, be aware that what 3ds Max calls “Maps”, Cinema 4D calls “Shaders”;

Corona tile map

Easily create stunning bathrooms, kitchens, walls, and floors with procedural tiles thanks to the Corona Tile Map. 

You can now use bitmaps or procedural maps to define the colors of the tiles and repeat, randomize, or even tessellate an image onto the tiles, depending on your needs. The Corona MappingRandomizer and MultiMap now come with “by tile id” modes, so that you can randomize results by each tile if desired. 

Corona Tile Map also lets you create multiple inputs and outputs, which means one tile map can be used to control results for color, glossiness, bump, displacement, and more, rather than having to keep several different tile maps in sync.

Scatter Altitude

Define upper and lower limits for scattering, creating more realistic and captivating nature scenes with Scatter Altitude.  For example, you can set upper and lower limits for treeline, and waterline, and scatter some clouds around mountain tops without affecting the lower part of the scene.  

Scatter Look At

You can now have scattered items look in the same direction quickly and easily using Scatter Look At. A prime example would be scattered people looking at a stage, or fish in a tank swimming in the same direction.

Edge Map/Edge Shader

Easily apply effects like weathering and staining to the edges of objects with Edge Map/Edge Shader. This is particularly useful for objects with no thickness like leaves, photos, maps, paper, etc. 

The new Edge Map/Edge Shader creates a color gradient based on how far away a point is from a geometric edge.

Pyro (Cinema 4D)

Add an extra layer of action to your scenes with smoke, fire, and other simulations thanks to Pyro. With our new Pyro support, you no longer need to run the simulation, export it to OpenVDB, and then load it back into the scene. Everything is done seamlessly directly in Corona for Cinema 4D. 

Corona Power Tools

Corona 11 for 3ds Max comes with a set of handy scripts called Corona Power Tools, designed to speed up and replace repetitive and tedious design adjustments. 

For example, the Object Replacer tool allows you to easily swap a selected set of objects with different ones (e.g. replace all chairs in a room with a different model of chair).  

Object Replacer

Replaces the selected objects with the objects that were added to the table of replacing objects.

For basic use, open the Object Replacer and, select at least one object in the scene, then click Add in the Replacer. These are the objects that will replace others in the scene. Now select the objects you want to be replaced. Clicking Start Preview will let you see the result without applying it. You can now either close the Replacer to cancel the operation or click Apply for the replacement to become permanent.

Pivot Placer

This has the following modes:

• Bounding Box: shifts the pivot of the selected objects via modifying the offset of their axes.
• Point Selection: places the pivot of the selected object to the selected point on that object.

Transform Randomizer

Transforms the chosen objects based on their axes and variation range. Types of transformations are translation, rotation, and scaling.

Scene Cleaner

Cleans the scene from the options that are provided as checkboxes, such as removing animation keys or layers, clearing the Undo / Redo stack, and more.

Selection Randomizer

Randomizes the current selection of objects, based on the percentage/count of the selected objects. For basic use, select some objects in the scene (this would normally be a large number of objects, as smaller selections could be done manually), and then set the percentage or the count of objects you want to remain selected. Using Start Preview will let you see what the remaining selection would be. You can then adjust the settings to get another selection or close the Randomizer to cancel the effect, or Apply. A typical use case would be to delete 40% of some large number of objects, to thin out the scene.

Other features

Experience enhanced results with the new Intel Denoiser. This has been updated to version 2, and can now run on the CPU or compatible GPU.

When selecting the Intel denoising for final rendering, Corona will use the GPU if it is compatible/available, or default to CPU otherwise. Also, in the Performance tab, you can choose to use the Intel Denoiser during rendering so that it will be used during IR.

Please note that for this implementation, the Intel Denoiser requires an NVIDIA GPU – if no compatible GPU is found, it will default to CPU.

Smaller improvements

These also apply to 3ds Max and Cinema 4D, unless otherwise noted.

Scatter

• Improved scatter warning/error message texts

Scatter (3ds Max)

• When converting scatter to geometry, the resulting geometry is automatically set to be visible in rendering
• When an instance is moved directly by the user when Edit instance is enabled, new instances no longer appear at its original location when collision avoidance is enabled
• Added support for groups and hierarchies scattering
• Scatter is now installed as an application plugin for 3ds Max 2022 and newer
• Scatter UI has been rearranged (note that removing RollupOrder.cfg from Max UI settings might be necessary for this change to take full effect. It can be found in: “C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\20XX – 64bit\ENU\en-US\UI\RollupOrder.cfg”)
• Edge trimming now works for Corona proxies with non “Full mesh” display mode
• Improved tooltips and UI

Scatter (Cinema 4D)

• Improved performance in Cinema 4D 2024

Lister (3ds Max)

• Added “Make unique” action for instances
• Added texmap editors for Corona Lights and Corona Light Materials
• Added tracking of nested materials

Lister (Cinema 4D)

• Lister dialog now also displays Displacement tags
• Lister columns visibility setting is now preserved between Cinema 4D sessions
• Lister now includes a list of instances, cloners and generators under each object
• Added “on” column in Lister for Corona Proxy

Converter (Cinema 4D)

• Moved Camera, Light and Sun conversion to new system
• Support for explicit C4D Area Light and Sun conversion
• V-Ray physical Sun & Sky is now converted to Corona Sky in physical mode (instead of Corona Sky with V-Ray physical shader)
• Support conversion of latest V-Ray Sun and Sky (DomeLight)
• Added support for VRayScannedMtl
• Changes to the conversion of Hair material
• Converter now creates one single UNDO action (instead of separate UNDO for each converted node)

Improved Normal / Bump filtering reduces the loss of detail in those channels that can come with using a smaller render resolution or moving an object further away from the camera. 

In the image above, we have zoomed in to a set of drawers that are toward the back of an image. The top version shows the “old” filtering, and we can see that the reflections look quite glossy and sharp. Yet, there is a normal map that should be causing the surface to look a little rough. The lower image shows the new Roughness modulation being used, and the reflections are noticeably more blurred and less glossy, which is what we’d expect.

For comparison, below is an image of the same material with the object close to the camera, with Linear filtering (the default before Corona 11), where we can see the blurring of the reflections:

Color management

• Added option to select the input color space to Corona Color
• Added option to pick a color in current rendering space to Corona color picker
• Added option to set input color space of Corona Bitmap. Uses OCIO config selected in 3ds Max for automatic detection of bitmap input space and for transforming between color spaces.

Some things to note when working with the OCIO workflow in 3ds Max 2024:

• Corona rendering space is overridden by the parameter set in the OCIO workflow settings
• The Material tree is evaluated in the rendering space, instead of linear sRGB
• “Color Swatch”, “Material Editor” and “Viewport Default” parameters in “Displays and Views” category in OCIO workflow settings are now used when rendering viewport/material editor or displaying color swatches

Some things to note when working with the OCIO workflow in Cinema 4D:

• Currently, rendering space configured in OCIO is ignored and Corona continues to use Adobe Wide RGB space as before. It is possible to change this in Development/Experimental settings, however, it is currently not supported in Team Render and for batch rendering.

It is recommended that users stay with the defaults and only move to using other color spaces and/or an OCIO workflow if they already fully understand what effects that will have and how it works.

Other smaller improvements

• Corona Image Editor, Command Line Interface: Added “–batch” parameter for faster processing of multiple files. An updated script can be found here
• Corona Image Editor, Command Line Interface: Added back the processing information
• AO, RoundedEdges, Curvature shaders now work with MappingRandomizer
• Updated version of Cosmos shipped in installer to the latest version
• Updated version of licensing server shipped in installer to the latest version

Other smaller improvements (3ds Max)

• Improved the opening time of scenes that contain CoronaVolumeGrid, CoronaProxy or CoronaFumeFxMod in Max 2024 and newer
• Added option to the Corona Convertor for switching normal filtering mode for all materials in the scene
• Added Real World Scale UVW mapping to CoronaDecal
• Improved conversion of V-Ray metal materials to Corona Physical material when importing Cosmos assets
• Setup LightMix button in Multiple Environment Maps Setup dialog is greyed out when rendering is running
• Added warning when baking LightMix where multiple LightSelect elements share the same LightMtl
• Reintroduced warning shown when there is black tint in Tone mapping
• Bucket rendering – improved decision on when to revert to random pixel rendering based on Render Regions and Rendering Mask
• Added maxscript alias “excludeMode” for “occlusionFrom” in CoronaAO map to support older scripts

Other smaller improvements (Cinema 4D)

• Viewport selection filters now recognize Corona Light and Sun as lights and Corona Pattern modifier as deformer (S26+ only)
• Color mode in Corona Light is now selected using dropdown instead of individual checkboxes
• Save dialog in Corona VFB now remembers file format used for saving previous renders

Rendering and worker threads on Apple Silicon now use default QOS:
This is mostly internal change that might improve rendering
performance on some M1/M2/M3 CPUs