Chaos has announced a number of new features, new plugins, and licensing changes that will accompany the release of Corona 8.
New features previewed for Corona 8 include Decals (similar to those seen in the recent V-Ray release), changes to rework tone mapping in the VFB, support for Cryptomatte masks, a new Curvature Map, a new Slicer/Clipper that will allow users to cut away geometry at render time, and a new Reflection Tail parameter for advanced control over reflections. Cinema 4D users also gain support for M1 machines for those using a Mac, as well as dome mapping for environments.
This release will also see the introduction of the Chaos Cosmos asset collection and library browser that’s already available in V-Ray, as well as a completely revamped version of Corona Scatter which has been renamed Chaos Scatter. Major new features include slope limiting, the ability to use splines for including and excluding scattered items, a surface colour map, improved viewport display, frustum culling and more. Both Chaos Scatter and Chaos Cosmos will be included in Corona 8 at no additional cost.
Licensing is also set to change, although Chaos are keen to stress that changes only affect new licenses. Users with existing licenses purchased before the Corona 8 release will be grandfathered under their existing pricing and terms. Two significant changes will affect licenses purchased after that point. Firstly, monthly pricing is becoming more expensive. The new cost of a monthly subscription will increase from €25 to €40. On the other hand, annual pricing will reduce from €290 to €280. The second change is that new licenses will no longer include any render nodes which must now be purchased separately for €100 annually per node. A discount applies based on how many are purchased. For individual artists who don’t use a farm, this change will have little effect, but studios may see an overall increase. Licensing will also be moving to Chaos centralised licensing system.
To find out more about these announcements, visit the Corona Renderer blog.
Bye bye corona
Excellent
Why @LeonMai? Seem to be an awesome update imo.
Probably because of the requirement of paying 100€/year/node and not getting any render node with the licenses where it was 3 nodes before I think.
The monthly price increase don’t seem to be a big trouble since the yearly cost is reduced, but if you sum up the yearly cost of the nodes, the price increase is considerable.
Let’s imagine you had before 2 yearly rental licenses, let’s say each license gives you 3 nodes and 1 UI (I think that was for Box, but for rental it was 5 nodes + 1 UI I think), so you were paying:
2+6= 290€ + 290€ = 580€/year
Now you have to maintain the same amount of licenses with the new price:
2 UI = 280 + 280
6 nodes = 600€
You end up paying 1160€/year
So this is factually double, and that’s assuming you were receiving 3 nodes, because I think it was 5 nodes per rental licenses, with 5 nodes the numbers are way worse, 1560€/year, basically 2,6x what you were paying before, now scale this a bit and you will end up with a BIG price increase.
The new features are awesome, Corona never deceived in its progress, but IMHO the original spirit of the engine and the company is gone.
Now you can agree or disagree with me, but I think that’s why LeonMai and other may say “Bye bye corona”
I still run the early free version of Corona on my max 2014. I wanted to purchase a license only to discover they stopped selling permanent licenses went to a subscription model.
Ah ok I see, I don’t use multiple render nodes and I’m an all ready customer, so its just “win win” for me with the features and prices.
Yep, it greatly depends on your situation 🙂
The funny thing is that nothing can be done, if you base your pipeline in some kind of rental software, they can do whatever they want and you will have to accept it or go away, and in any case you will have to accept it because it takes time to change a pipeline.
SaaS (rental) for software is very dangerous, today it does not affect you, but tomorrow they may decide to raise the price to 750€/year, you will have two options, accept or go away and loose access to all your previous work, not cool
Yes.That’s exactly what I mean
bye bye corona – fallen victim to the Chaos pricing strategy of slowing down development on purpose and also uppping prices to keep the new round of venture capital happy.
pretty sad. a lot of the so called features are just the left over stuff from vray and nothing fundamentally good.