Chaos has launched Chaos Corona 9 for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D, accelerating the 3D design process with new tools for clouds, patterns, motion blur and more.
With the new Procedural Cloud System, users can now fine-tune the sky to match the needs of their scene, opening up every cloud type for stills and animations. Unlike working with HDRIs, which are hard to modify, the new cloud system is incredibly responsive and able to realistically react to any daytime setting. Airplane contrails can also be animated for an extra dose of realism.
Instead of using opacity or displacement maps, Corona users can now tile 3D geometry just like they would do for 2D bitmaps and textures. By repeating the actual geometry across surfaces and objects, Corona Pattern offers greater realism to the user, all while cutting the memory requirements typically needed when using displacement.
Chaos Scatter was one of the major hits of Corona 8; now it’s being expanded with its most-requested feature: Edge Trimming. Artists can now control the borders of their scatters, making it easier to do things like ensure that lawn edges are neat and tidy. This feature also removes the telltale signs of CG by making sure objects don’t intersect unnaturally.
Memory improvements aren’t just limited to the Corona Pattern. With the launch of Out-of-Core texture rendering, designers will also see noticeable savings in textures and maps loaded using Corona Bitmap, without any reduction in quality.
A new Shutter Curve for motion blur feature is a fully customisable way to define how your shutter opens/closes over time, helping users to create everything from artistic looks to ghosting effects in their imagery.
Corona 9 also introduces a handy tool for one of the world’s most eye-catching lenses. With a new depth of field (DoF) option in Corona 9, artists can apply adjustments to fisheye lenses to create looks that would be impossible to create in the real world.