CHAOS CORONA VS LUMION: A HEAD-TO-HEAD COMPARISON

In this article, we are going to do a head-to-head comparison of Chaos Corona vs Lumion. This two software are 3D renderers which are important to the 3D artist, architects, and 3D modelers.

Chaos Corona and Lumion are now the two most popular render engines. They are sturdy and efficient. It's also true that they have their own distinctive qualities.

To assist you in making your decision, we will compare these two engines. Select the engine that satisfies all your project's needs.

The significance must be understood by 3D artists who have used Blender or any of its substitutes, such as 3DS Max, Maya, or Revit. You may also want to check out another comparison between Blender Cycles and Vray.

So now let’s start a comparison between Chaos Corona vs Lumion, which will help you gain insight. This will also help you in making your decision easier.

WHAT IS CORONA?

The Chaos Group created Chaos Corona, a 3D rendering program for computer-generated imagery.

Architecture is frequently visualized using it. Both, a standalone GUI-less application and a plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max and Maxon Cinema 4D, are available for Corona. It is a benchmarking tool for assessing CPU performance in multi-threaded workloads. Chaos Corona is a CPU-based rendering engine that can perform biased and unbiased rendering.

EASE OF USE

Everyone refers to themselves as a “3D artist,” not a “3D technician”. Thus your equipment should be as unobtrusive as possible. This is to prevent getting in the way of your imagination.

One of the simplest render engines to learn is Chaos Corona. The setup is as easy as clicking “Render”! Most new users pick up Corona Renderer in a single day and develop a fondness for it over several.

EASY TO UNDERSTAND

The goal of Chaos Corona is to free users from artificial and technical procedures. Also, it frees up artists' attention to concentrate on their ideas. Corona is always working to streamline the creative process. Especially by eliminating or hiding any unneeded technical settings. Studying manuals and adjusting sampling are things of the click render, and Corona will work its magic.

ARTIST FRIENDLY

The development of Chaos Corona involves close collaboration with the artistic community. Its designers are also former artists. Thus their combined expertise and experience are crucial to the creation and ongoing development.

IN-BUILT HELP

Most parameters in the UI have tooltips activated when you hover your cursor over the controls. When 3ds Max is not open, you can still refer to the automatically generated online GUI manual.

Tooltips are not supported by Cinema 4D. They have discovered a technique to add them in Chaos Corona 7 and later versions as well! They have begun with tooltips for the Corona Materials. And they may add them to other areas of the Corona UI if they are well-received.

USE YOUR FAVORITE TOOLS

You can keep using any tools you already have in your workflow. All while using Chaos Corona's Interactive Rendering, Including:

• SigerShaders
• iToo's Forest Pack and RailClone
• Quixel Megascans
• Chaos Phoenix
• Allegorithmic Substance
• Hair Farm
• FumeFX
• Tyflow
• Ornatrix

Chaos Corona is also compatible with a wide variety of third-party plugins.

RENDERING

Without sacrificing quality, Chaos Corona produces predictable, dependable, and plausible outcomes. You may have materials and lighting that are straight out of the box.

They have excellent examples of the caliber of work Chaos Corona is capable of producing. You can see it in their Forum as well as the Gallery section. But, if you want free High-Quality PBR Textures, materials, or HDRIs, you can also see them in 3DHEVEN.

Continue reading to learn details about the technology involved!

CAUSTICS

You can add caustics to the scene with the Fast Caustics Solver. You can then enable refractive caustics. This can be done for each material after reflective caustics are calculated for all materials in the scene.

Additionally, you can decide to send caustics to their own Render Element for modification in post-processing. Create an Include/Exclude list for items to receive caustics. Disable caustics for specific Corona Lights. The include/exclude settings of Corona Lights are respected by Caustics as well.

CORONA CIE

A separate program for working with your photographs is the Corona Image Editor or CIE for short. It offers comprehensive and quick post-processing options for Corona including:

• LightMix
• Fully featured denoising
• Tone mapping
• Bloom as well as glare
• Blur / sharpen and vignette

Its user interface is inspired by the Corona VFB and shares its look and feel.

It is not required to have a scene loaded while working with your photos in the CIE. So you can denoise Corona renderings outside of the rendering process. For example, decreasing the memory requirements. Working with an image within any 3D software has higher system requirements.

Because it is a portable application, so there is no need for installation; use it by unpacking.

Also with a standard Corona license, it is free.

Regular EXRs that aren't Corona work as well (in Float format). You can add bloom as well as glare to them, use a LUT or your tone mapping settings, etc.

BIASED AND UNBIASED RENDERING

Both biased and unbiased rendering options are available with Chaos Corona.

Chaos Corona by default employs a very nearly unbiased but somewhat biased approach. And lowers render times. The suggested option, which requires no setup whatsoever, is this one. Chaos Corona will produce clear, accurate results. It will be free of splotches, interpolation artifacts, and other visual flaws.

The 4K cache avoids trying to interpolate everything by using only partial caching. Although this is slower than a completely cached method (like irradiance caching), it produces just temporary noise and no artifacts.

WHAT IS LUMION?

The medium of architectural visualization is effective. It may depict both form and function. It also enables designers to communicate their intricate design concepts in a common visual language.

What if, though, we went further? What if we could capture an emotion rather than try to communicate an idea? a sentimental reaction to a location that we would have never been to but feel emotionally connected to.

Lumion is referred to as “easy” because it has all the advantages. It is strong, quick, and of great quality. It is a 3D visualization software. It is fit for the most prestigious architectural presentations made by professionals. It is possible that you wouldn't expect such simple software to be such an effective tool. As it is leading the way in providing what architects and designers need to envision their ideas. But to be honest, Lumion is chock full of shocking revelations.

Here are some features about how Lumion works and what exactly makes it so simple so that you can better grasp how easy it is to use, instead of Corona Chaos.

EASY-TO-LEARN SOFTWARE

Navigation in Lumion is simple for anyone. Even for those who have used a computer to play a video game and flown around in a virtual environment. Because it uses the same few computer keyboard keys. It will take a few minutes of practice for someone who has never played computer games to understand how to use Lumion's user interface. You can teach yourself how to visualize your designs in one afternoon.

Similar to how putting stuff like objects, trees, people, and cars is simple and quick, so is importing your 3D CAD model. Real-time visualization is possible with Lumion.

With only a few clicks, you can create a camera route and output a video.

The Lumion functionality is covered in a total of 160 concise and attractive visual tutorials. Each one is a couple of clicks from the Lumion online home page and lasts one or two minutes. You can directly refer to them through the Lumion application itself and can access these at any time.

RENDERING OF LUMION:

One of Lumion's key advantages while rendering is PBR. It has always been of abundance and quality. It is called physically-based rendered (PBR) materials. More than 1,200 different materials are in this collection.

And with the new displacement map import functionality included in Lumion 10.3, you can now improve the realism, texture, and detail of any material used in your project. 

DISPLACEMENT MAP

With this new function, importing a displacement map into a material's settings is simple. Maps of displacement can be made by you or downloaded from a variety of trustworthy sources.

Lumion is a straightforward and intuitive process used for both importing and customizing.

Many successful renderings are built on the foundation of materials. They act as a link between an architectural design created on paper and its actual construction. They convey the design's aesthetic and style as well as the building materials the project calls for.

MAPS AND MATERIALS IN LUMION

However, a blend of three different “maps” determines how a material appears in a render. These maps are simply layered on top of one another, and when combined, they provide the content with the proper appearance.

Many materials in Lumion have these maps applied automatically. But importing your displacement maps can help bring out the realistic texture, depth, and rich detail of the materials in your project.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we can see that choosing between Corona and Lumion is a hard choice to make. It is best if you have access to both of these as both enhance each other.

If you would like to see a comparison between Lumion vs Twinmotion, you may head here.