Corona 16 released for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D

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Chaos Corona 16 released for 3ds Max & Cinema 4D
Corona 16 is out now!

Download: my.chaos.com/download/build?product=Corona

What’s new in Corona 16 :

BOTH 3DS MAX & CINEMA 4D

Major Features

Gaussian Splats: Gaussian splats can now be relit so they receive illumination from the scene. Also added a clipping mask for Gaussian splats and support for the highly compressed SPZ format.

Vantage: Greatly improved support for a range of Corona materials in Vantage export and live link (see Vantage Live Link under Smaller Changes).

Parallax Displacement: Added a parallax displacement mapping option to the Corona Physical material, which can take less memory to render than geometry displacement.

Parallax Interiors: Using just a flat plane, give the appearance of furnished and lit 3D rooms behind windows with the new Parallax map (Parallax shader in Cinema 4D). Samples are available in Cosmos.

VFB Background: Set a background image in the VFB that isn’t affected by post-processing, removing the need to use a Tone Map Control.

AI Assistant: A new AI assistant (beta) offers help with product usage, suggestions for improving the rendering, mood matching based on an image, and scattering.

Notifications: Initial implementation of Chaos notifications. See Notifications Management (Notifications Management) for how to manage notification settings.


Smaller Changes


Rendering:

  • Improved the CoronaSky atmospheric shader (Volume Effect) significantly, including many bug fixes. Scenes from earlier versions load with the Volume Effect in legacy mode to preserve their appearance.

  • Extended Render Selection (render mask) with options to render reflections, refractions, and shadows of included objects.

  • Added a Lighting Analysis render element (multipass element in Cinema 4D).

  • Enabled denoising of Alpha elements to improve compositing (CShading_Alpha in 3ds Max, additional Alpha elements in Multi-Pass in Cinema 4D).

Material Previews:

  • Sped up material preview rendering and updates. In 3ds Max, users with only one interface license can now render material previews with the interface license they already hold.

Corona Image Editor (CIE):

  • Integrated Collaboration, AI Enhancer, and Veras into the Corona Image Editor.

Vantage Live Link:

  • Added Normal map support.

  • Added metalness and refraction support.

  • Added support for the Legacy material.

  • Enabled support for the Corona Slicer material.

  • Implemented support for the Corona Ambient Occlusion map (shader in Cinema 4D).

  • Improved export of roughness to better match between Corona and Vantage.

  • Enhanced support for Corona Volume Grid.

  • Improved support for the Corona Mapping Randomizer.

  • Extended support to handle more MultiMap randomization modes.

  • Enabled export of multiple cameras in live link.

  • Added basic support for Vignette.


Bug Fixes


General:

  • Fixes for identified vulnerabilities.

  • Fixed random crashes when opening the Veras/Collaboration dialog. The dialog’s content no longer has to be reloaded when the dialog is closed and reopened.

Materials:

  • Fixed a crash in the Physical material caused by NaNs in roughness/anisotropy textures.

  • Fixed splotches on thin translucent objects (like curtains) when seen in reflections.

  • Fixed environment fireflies caused by half-open Slicer material intervals; they’re now clamped to the bounding box.

Rendering:

  • Fixed reduced performance when using the physical camera size and clipping.

  • Fixed OIDN denoising render elements less than the beauty pass.

VFB and Corona Image Editor (CIE):

  • Fixed the command-line CIE (CoronaImageCmd) mixing different images together when processing multiple images.

  • Fixed the Regions tool discarding regions smaller than 20x20 pixels.

  • Saving all render elements now stops after the first error, to avoid flooding the user with errors.

  • Fixed incorrect scaling of widgets in the Corona Image Editor and Standalone when opened on a secondary monitor with a different scale than the primary one.

Vantage Live Link:

  • Fixed a sphere light with IES enabled pointing in the opposite direction.

  • Fixed light intensity not applying to lights with IES enabled.

  • Fixed opacity rendering incorrectly when a bitmap used Image Alpha as Mono channel output.


SCATTER

Smaller Changes

  • (3ds Max) Changed preset distribution patterns to automatically link a bitmap to the density map slot, enabling bitmap-driven scattering and editing for presets.

  • (3ds Max) Added an edge-trimming direction override, so the X, Y, or Z axis can be used instead of the surface normal for edge trimming.

  • (Cinema 4D) Enabled curve-based adjustment of scale and density in Chaos Scatter Area include/exclude.

  • (3ds Max) Introduced bulk enable/disable actions in Areas lists, also available in the right-click menu.

  • (3ds Max) Improved UI sync of the Scatter distribution map preview on preset or parameter changes and on renames of referenced maps.

Bug Fixes

  • (Cinema 4D) Fixed crashes when opening some scenes with Chaos Scatter.

  • (Cinema 4D) Fixed a crash when loading scenes with Scatter that linked unexpected objects or tags.

  • (3ds Max) Fixed Corona not properly parsing scatters with modifiers or sub-object scatters.

  • (3ds Max) Fixed instances above specific values being translated incorrectly.

  • (Cinema 4D) Fixed Scatter not updating correctly when a model’s visibility changed.

  • (Cinema 4D) Fixed the cluster offset transform scaling incorrectly with cluster size.

  • (3ds Max) Cluster offset is now in scene units.

  • (Cinema 4D) Fixed Undo in Area include/exclude reverting multiple actions.

  • (3ds Max) Fixed spinners not capturing uncommitted edit-box values on selection change. Input is now registered when clicking away without pressing Enter.

  • (3ds Max) Fixed UI controls not being disabled when a deleted object was in the selection.

  • (3ds Max) Labels are now colored when the instance count is clamped in the viewport or during generation.

  • (3ds Max) Fixed the object list not filling the available width.



CINEMA 4D

Major Features

  • Compatibility: Added support for Cinema 4D 2027.

Smaller Changes


Enhanced Material Previews in Viewport:

  • Implemented normal map support.

  • Added basic metalness and refraction support.

  • Enabled triplanar shader support.

  • Extended support to the Legacy material.

  • Included enhanced preview of the Mapping Randomizer shader.

  • Improved loading speed of scenes with many textures when the enhanced viewport is enabled.

Vantage Live Link:

  • Greatly improved the performance of initial export and later updates in live link.

  • Updated live link to work across machines, including from macOS to Windows running Vantage.

  • Implemented detection of errors and of Vantage closing while live link is running.

  • Improved progress reporting when exporting a scene to Vantage via live link.

Chaos Cosmos:

  • Introduced a tool to automatically download missing Cosmos assets in the scene.

  • Changed Chaos Cosmos assets to re-link automatically when a scene is opened on a machine with a different Cosmos download directory, if the assets already exist there.

Materials and Shaders:

  • Improved the conversion of Cinema materials using non-physical properties of the Corona Physical material.

  • Introduced new mapping options for Glints.

  • Improved loading of bitmaps with incorrect file extensions in Corona Bitmap.

Rendering:

  • Implemented simple linear motion blur for particles rendered via the Render Particles tag.

  • Introduced a warning when rendering with both ACES OT and an OCIO view transform.

CXR Files:

  • Enabled saving CXR files with 16-bit layers, reducing file size (layers that require 32-bit, such as Cryptomatte, are kept as 32-bit).

  • Registered CXR files with Corona Image Editor on macOS so they can be opened from Finder.

General:

  • Removed the legacy VFB 1.

  • Changed the minimum requirement to Windows 10.

Bug Fixes

VFB and Color Management:

  • Fixed a crash when switching scenes shortly after an image with an OCIO view transform was first shown in the Corona VFB.

  • Fixed a freeze when initializing the view transform in the Corona VFB.

  • Fixed a crash when using the VFB pick tool on an object with a normal map after a render finished.

  • Fixed the VFB pick tool freezing in scenes with a standalone Sun placed in a hierarchy.

  • Fixed bright pixels appearing black with some OCIO view transforms.

  • ACES OT tonemapping operator is now disabled by default in scenes already set to use a view transform.

  • Fixed the denoising checkbox in the Corona VFB not being correctly enabled or disabled when denoising settings changed between renders.

  • VFB size is now correctly adjusted when opened from Picture Viewer.

Enhanced Viewport Previews:

  • Fixed a crash in enhanced viewport previews with shadows enabled.

  • Fixed a crash in enhanced material previews when using multiple viewports.

  • Fixed a crash when enabling enhanced material previews with the FrontBack shader used in bump.

  • Fixed enhanced viewport material previews not working correctly in Cinema 4D 2025.3.3.

  • Fixed Corona Bitmap enhanced preview not being handled correctly in Cinema 4D 2023 and older.

  • Fixed Corona Bitmap sometimes not working correctly in the enhanced viewport preview.

  • Fixed subshaders (Front back, Normal, and Triplanar shaders) occasionally not working in the enhanced viewport.

  • Fixed blurred textures in the viewport preview when using a layered shader.

  • Default texture size is now taken from Cinema 4D preferences when using enhanced viewport previews.

Materials and Shaders:

  • Fixed a crash in the Corona Node Material Editor.

  • Fixed NaNs appearing in some scenes with bump.

  • Fixed roughness set to zero causing issues with the Light Override material.

  • Fixed the alpha source in Corona Bitmap being ignored.

  • Custom level is no longer reset in materials when a texture is linked.

  • Fixed thumbnails of objects with Corona materials appearing incorrectly in the Asset Browser.

Rendering:

  • Fixed rare random crashes when initializing a new render.

  • Render is now saved only when rendering finishes (that is, isn’t canceled).

  • Camera resolution override now also works with the render queue.

  • Fixed some Corona preferences (auto save, VFB title) being ignored for Team Render.

  • New Corona Camera now uses the same default focal distance as Cinema 4D.

  • Improved error handling when parts of the sky model data are missing (for example, due to a corrupted or incomplete installation).

Interface:

  • Fixed a freeze when showing the progress dialog for some operations in Cinema 4D S22+.

  • Fixed crashes in the Corona color picker.

  • Fixed Corona UI issues on HiDPI monitors when some newer versions of Redshift were installed.

Licensing and Installation:

  • Fixed a long freeze when starting IR after a previous license acquisition failed due to a networking error.

  • Fixed the macOS installer unnecessarily running under Rosetta.

Corona Image Editor (CIE):

  • Fixed a crash when closing CIE before denoising finished (or when performing another action, such as opening another CXR or pressing erase).

  • Fixed CXR file association breaking when installing Corona Image Editor.

Chaos Cosmos:

  • Fixed Chaos Cosmos issues on hi-DPI monitors on macOS.

Vantage:

  • Fixed Vantage export not working correctly for scenes containing an object with very large geometry.

Known Limitations

  • Notifications are currently not supported on Intel-based Macs.

  • Parallax displacement is automatically switched off and regular displacement is used instead with layered materials or decals, because parallax displacement behaves unpredictably with them.


3DS MAX

Major Features

Vantage: Chaos Scatter can now be exported to Vantage without exporting all the individual scattered instances, resulting in much faster export and live link.

Gaussian Splats: Added support for rendering native 3ds Max Gaussian Splats.

Smaller Changes

Color Management:

  • Delivered support for ICC profiles in Color Management, introduced in 3ds Max 2027.2.

Rendering:

  • Optimized rendering speed of tyFlow volumes.

  • Rolled out an option to preserve Translucency in the Material Override settings.

  • Introduced an option to scale Bloom and Glare alpha intensity to match the Beauty Bloom and Glare intensity.

Gaussian Splats:

  • Implemented an Exposure (EV) control for Gaussian splats, next to the existing Intensity control.

  • Updated Corona Gaussian Splats to show the crop box size after scaling.

Cameras:

  • Changed new Corona cameras so that they no longer copy parameters in Tone mapping, Post-processing, Projection & VR, Distortion, Environment and Clipping, Overrides, DOF & Motion Blur, Tilt & Shift, Photographic, and Bokeh from an existing camera.

Vantage Live Link:

  • Included support for CoronaDisplacementMod and scatter object displacement (material and modifier).

  • Added support for the Cellular map.

  • Added support for the 3ds Max Composite map.

  • Added export of the rendering color space.

  • Changed Vantage live link so it no longer stops after objects are merged into the scene.

  • Improved error messages.

Chaos Cosmos:

  • Changed Cosmos Browser to start on demand and to notify about missing assets.

  • Updated Cosmos to prompt users to download incomplete assets again.

VFB and Interface:

  • Extended the VFB settings dialog with Performance and System sections.

  • Made VFB icon animation toggleable in VFB settings and Corona System settings.

  • Introduced Ctrl++, Ctrl±, and Ctrl+0 shortcuts in the Cosmos, AI assistant, and cloud collaboration dialogs to zoom in, zoom out, and reset zoom.

Bug Fixes

Stability:

  • Fixed a crash that could occur when switching renderers when V-Ray was also installed.

  • Fixed a crash when rendering animated RailClone with geometry motion blur.

  • Fixed a rare crash in Corona materials.

Rendering:

  • Adaptivity is now deterministic: it produces the same noise on every render, regardless of the number of cores used.

  • Fixed animated textures plugged directly into objects such as Corona Light, Corona Decal, Corona Volume Grid, or Corona Fractal not updating between frames when “Fast animation parsing” was enabled.

  • Fixed tyFlow sparse volumes showing seams at their borders.

  • Fixed tile rendering not working with Deadline.

  • Fixed the AI Enhancer render element rendering incorrectly with DR.

  • Fixed DrServer scaling and size flickering.

  • Fixed chromatic aberration producing artifacts on CXRs rendered in a non-sRGB color space.

Interactive Rendering:

  • Fixed interactive updates not happening when a CoronaDistance source node moved.

  • Fixed Auto Adjustment switching to defaults after material editor updates while IR was running.

Material Editor:

  • Fixed material preview not working correctly after a scene reset.

  • “License not available” previews are no longer stored in the material preview cache in the Slate Material Editor.

  • Fixed the color management color swatch setting not being applied to the ColorTex result preview.

Chaos Cosmos:

  • Loading of HDRIs from Cosmos now respects the Scene Environment source.

  • Fixed incorrect bitmap color space and triplanar scale in Cosmos materials.

  • Fixed the integrated web browser (Cosmos, Veras, and others) being too small on high-DPI monitors.

VFB and Cameras:

  • Fixed the Corona Camera resolution override exceeding the 32768 limit when changing the width with a locked aspect ratio.

  • Fixed a sub-pixel render region staying drawn in the VFB.

  • The shutter curve editor no longer shows the “Histogram controls are available in VFB” label.

Corona Image Editor (CIE):

  • Fixed Image Editor file associations (CXR, CEXR) not working.

General:

  • Fixed the Bitmap load dialog not opening in 3ds Max QuietMode.

Vantage Live Link:

  • Fixed the 3ds Max physical camera not exporting to Vantage.

  • Fixed triplanar mapping not working correctly in Vantage live link.

  • Fixed texture gamma and color space not being exported correctly.

  • Fixed refractive roughness not matching between Corona and Vantage.

  • Fixed Corona Camera Tilt and Shift not being exported correctly.

  • Fixed the 3ds Max Color Correction map rendering incorrectly.

  • Fixed a color-corrected sky used as the environment map rendering incorrectly.

  • Fixed the Vignette value not being set correctly. It’s now taken from Corona’s tone mapping settings.

  • Fixed the live link session staying open after switching to a different renderer while it was running.

  • Fixed keyboard input not working properly when switching between spinboxes while Vantage live link was on.

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