Corona Renderer 1.0 released, future development plans announced

Render Legion announced the first commercial release of their renderer, with a significant list of new features. Changes include:

• Interactive rendering – supporting virtually all materials, maps, geometry, and Corona features
• UHD cache – new biased caching solution, similar to the good old HD cache, but produces less bias and does not flicker in animations
• SSS and volumetric scattering
• GGX microfacet BRDF model that allows creating realistic metal materials easily
• Reworked UI dialogs – 3 tabs are used instead of single one, eliminating scrolling and searching for the correct rollout
• CoronaMultiMap texture – easy randomization of colors and texmaps with instances
• Improved Blend material support – now renders faster, supports nested Blend materials, bump mapping, render elements, emission, displacement, BDPT/VCM, and more
• CoronaScatter improvements – controlling density and scaling with maps, option to remove instance collisions
• ShadowCatcher improvements – added more texture inputs, bump mapping, light llluminators, more reflection controls
• Performance improvements to displacement, instancing, scene parsing, saving big renders, sampling of dim reflections, etc.
• New material energy conservation mode (closer to Mental Ray and V-Ray models)
• Added time estimation and better progress bar
• Added two sided emission to Corona lights

Plus other minor improvements. Corona Renderer can be used in trial mode for 45 days. After that, purchasing a license is necessary. The software is being offered at a discounted price of 448 € for the next 45 days (regular price is 548 €). It is also available through rental licensing.

Also of note, Render Legion announced the development plans for the future, including speeding up the development of the Cinema 4D version, release the first public alpha for Maya and start development for other applications, which will probably include Rhino, Modo, and Lightwave. Development of Corona Renderer 1.1 for Max will focus on further speed and memory optimizations, adding “render region” controls to Corona VFB, creating a CoronaBitmap Max plugin, a Corona displacement modifier, etc.

Visit Corona Renderer’s website for more.