Chaos Corona 12 Update 1

New Vantage Live Link transfers changes made in 3ds Max or Cinema 4D to Vantage
Update 1 extends Corona’s integration with Vantage, Chaos’s GPU-based ray tracing renderer, introduced in Corona 12 earlier this year as a way of exploring large scenes in real time. The new Vantage Live Link automatically applies changes made to a scene in 3ds Max or Cinema 4D to a Vantage viewport, providing a GPU-based alternative to Corona’s native interactive rendering. However, it does not make it possible to render animations created in 3ds Max or Cinema 4D in Vantage: something originally planned for the update, but now moved back to a future release.
Better, faster rendering of caustic light patterns
Update 1 also improves Corona’s handling of caustics. Caustics are now displayed more accurately through smoke and fog, since Corona now displays the reflected and refracted light rays they generate as they pass through volume materials. In addition, a new Caustics Multiplier makes it possible to adjust the brightness of caustics in renders, with the option to control the effect on surfaces and in volumes separately. Caustics also now render faster: Chaos doesn’t put a figure on the speed boost, but caustics should “look around twice as good”, in terms of noise removed, in the same render time.
New Auto Exposure and White Balance settings
Other new features include automatic Exposure and White Balance when rendering a scene. The changes made to the render settings can be baked into a scene, or the controls can be left active, adjusting renders dynamically over the course of an animation.
New GPU-agnostic AI render upscaling system
The update also introduces a AI-based image upscaling, making it possible to render images at quarter the final resolution, then upscale them, speeding up rendering four times. Although the underlying technology is developed by NVIDIA, the SDK is hardware-agnostic, and also supports AMD and Intel GPUs. However, the output is not temporally stable: in the video above, Product Manager Tom Grimes notes that it “will have flicker, so it’s only suitable for tracked animations”.
Updates to Chaos Scatter and direct CXR export from Cinema 4D
Changes to existing features include a new set of readymade distribution maps for object scattering system Chaos Scatter, which provide preset scattering patters. It is also now possible to save files in Corona EXR (.cxr) format directly from Cinema 4D, making it possible to generate CXR files during batch rendering.
New collaboration features in Chaos Cloud
Outside the core application, Corona now supports the new collaboration features in Chaos Cloud, Chaos’s cloud rendering service. The functionality makes it possible to share images with clients directly from the VFB, make and review text-based comments, and handle image versioning. Users can also create virtual tours of projects, using Hotspots to act as navigation points, although unlike in V-Ray 7, you have to place them manually: Corona doesn’t yet set up Hotspots automatically.