I wanted to say goodbye as I am officially leaving Chaos - and Corona development - after a prolonged parental leave.
As Chaos became a much larger, different company, it reached a point where I do not feel I can meaningfully contribute and enjoy doing so. The break from work helped me realize and accept this. I will instead focus on my family and hobby programming projects. Maybe we’ll meet again in the future ;). Although I need to say this up-front, I am not making another Corona/renderer plugin.
I would like to thank you all for first giving Corona a chance, then continuing using it and providing feedback, for enduring bugs and creating wonderful works of art, and for spreading the word in the community. I’m leaving Corona in the capable hands of Martin, Aleš, Tom, and others, who have been taking care of it exclusively for the past 2+ years already, and they did a great job doing so.
Thanks for the ride and good luck in the future!
Ondra
Thanks for the great Render engine. I knew when you sold to Chaos it was going to be the beginning of great change. For me mostly not for the better, but for you guys, maybe it was a blessing? Either way take care in your endeavors and always put family first!
Thank you for giving us the most awesome render engine - and for giving me a job with the team way back in 2016 Corona not only wouldn’t be what it is today without you - it wouldn’t exist at all.
We’ll be staying in touch, and I look forward to the times I get over to Prague and we get those chances to meet up! And of course, enjoy the time with family and all your future projects!
Seems appropriate to have a bit of history here with some old Corona banners (though I ran out of them after Corona 4 as we stopped making banners like this, and for some reason 3 is missing!)
It’s unfortunate for the CG community but understandable since most startups can be draining.
Hopefully you’ll find a new project that you’re pationate about and I can’t wait to see what it is.
Your work was superb. It was a pleasure to use the software of your creation; thank you for that.
You changed our industry in the most meaningful and beneficial way and we all owe you a debt, my friend! Whatever you decide to contribute to this community down the road we can be sure it’ll be awesome. Na zdraví!
I wish you nothing but the best in your future endeavours. It is never easy to leave something you started, but if it is no longer the thing you love, it is time to move on, and it shows great character and growth.
When I first opened a beta of Corona in 2013, I was so excited by it. It was a solution to a lot of the problems that I found with Vray’s shortcomings. I was surprised when Chaos bought Corona, and what I feared happened. To keep Corona out of Vray’s way, it has been “stifled” in my opinion. Held back to the realms of Archviz when it could easily be a full-on production render engine. We are 12 years on from that beta, and I feel development on Corona has really slowed down and somewhat regressed under Chaos.
Thx Ondra, I landed a job i really wanted thanks to Corona, it was back on alpha or beta versions 0.7, I had to do an On site test, they had vray installed on the machine, but it was a demo version that changed its settings to default on each click, so I installed the corona demo and made the Test, i got the job.
That big of a change corona was, sadly the progress hasn’t been that fast lately, but a bigger structure comes with all of that…(any one has seen the phoenix and anima forums -sad-) Also not every one WANTS to be CEO, i really understand the decision to let it fly and be others problem.
Enjoy the profits and live a happy life !!
Corona not only wouldn’t be what it is today without you - it wouldn’t exist at all.
