Corona 14: Rendering reimagined

The latest version of Corona is here! Corona 14 blends human creativity with artificial intelligence, enhanced procedural power, and cosmic inspiration to deliver faster, more flexible, and more expressive results than ever before. From AI-powered workflows to Fabric Material and Night Sky, this release transforms the way you create photorealistic worlds.

Download Corona 14 →

What’s new in Corona 14

• Gaussian splats let you render detailed, memory-efficient environments with accurate reflections and refractions.
• AI Material Generator instantly turns photos into fully mapped, physically accurate PBR materials.
• AI Image Enhancer refines people, vegetation, and terrain with advanced trait controls, without altering other important aspects of your renders.
• AI Upscaler produces crisp, high-resolution renders that are up to four times larger without requiring re-rendering.
• Night Sky adds realistic moonlight, stars, and the Milky Way—with full animation and geographic accuracy.
• Procedural Fabric Material creates woven fabrics with customizable fibers, weaves, and displacement—no bitmaps required.
• Updated VFB 2 and Image Editor deliver cleaner interfaces and smoother workflows.
• You can now export multiple cameras to Vantage.
  
• Performance upgrades deliver a faster UI and improved rendering efficiency across platforms, with optimized volume sampling for quicker renders.
• Use avoidance groups in Scatter (in 3ds Max for now) to prevent overlap between scattered objects when working with multiple scatters.
  

   

Corona 14: Rendering reimagined.
Try it free and experience the next evolution in photoreal rendering.

Download your Corona 14 free trial →

Create realistic environments faster with Gaussian splats

Bring your buildings to life in context with Gaussian splats support — a new, cutting-edge way to render detailed, memory-efficient environments. Using splats of real-world data, Corona 14 reconstructs complex 3D scenes with smooth surfaces, richer volumetric detail, and natural depth. It’s a faster, easier path to realism — especially for large-scale exteriors. 

Accelerate your workflow with AI-powered tools

Corona 14 introduces a suite of AI-driven tools designed to accelerate creation while maintaining artist control.

• AI Material Generator: Upload a photo of any surface and instantly generate a physically accurate PBR material with all necessary maps — no manual setup or third-party tools required.
• AI Enhancer Advanced Controls: Elevate realism without re-rendering. Refine people, vegetation, and terrain automatically, with advanced controls to fine-tune human features and clothing for more precise results.
• Send LightMix results to AI Enhancer: Apply AI enhancement directly to your lighting variations, not just the beauty pass, for faster iteration and consistent quality.
• AI Upscaler: Turn low-resolution renders into crisp, print-ready visuals up to 4× larger, saving hours of rendering time.

• Enable or disable AI features: You have full creative control — switch AI tools on or off to meet studio policies or client requirements. Make sure to read how Chaos practices ethical AI.

Design under the stars with the new Night Sky 

Now you can render the magic of the cosmos directly in Corona. The new night sky system expands the Corona Sky environment with realistic moonlight, stars, and the Milky Way, all driven by your chosen location, date, and time. Adjust celestial bodies manually for artistic freedom, or let Corona simulate them precisely for true-to-life nighttime scenes. Fully animatable, it’s ideal for time-lapse sequences and cinematic storytelling.

Weave photoreal fibers with procedural fabric materials

The new procedural fabric material gives you full control over woven fibers, thread patterns, opacity, bump, and displacement. Create anything from fine silk to rough linen without relying on external assets. Use built-in presets to get started quickly, or dive deep into customization for a unique look every time.

Work smarter with usability upgrades

Corona 14 refines the everyday experience for artists with a host of workflow and usability improvements:

• A cleaner, more intuitive VFB 2 with simplified navigation and clearer icons.
• A refreshed Corona Image Editor that matches VFB 2’s layout and tools.
• The ability to export multiple cameras to Chaos Vantage streamlines real-time rendering.
• Dockable VFB in 3ds Max and Triplanar mapping controls built directly into Corona Bitmap.
• Flip your render horizontally in the VFB to get a fresh perspective and catch details you might have missed.

Boost performance with next-generation efficiency

Corona 14 delivers a series of under-the-hood upgrades that keep your workflow fast and responsive:

• The first phase of the UI rewrite to QT, improving speed and stability.
• Improved volume sampling for faster, more efficient rendering of fog and light rays.
• Automated high-resolution downscaling that renders at 2× resolution and downsizes automatically for cleaner results in less time.

Smarter, faster, and ready for the future

Corona 14 is built for what’s next, combining the simplicity and photoreal quality artists love with cutting-edge innovations that redefine what’s possible. With AI-powered creation, procedural flexibility, and next-level performance, you can now focus more on artistry and less on technical setup.

Download Corona 14 →

FAQ

How does the new AI Material Generator in Corona 14 make texturing faster and easier?

The AI Material Generator lets you create materials in seconds. Simply upload a photo of a real-world surface, and it instantly turns it into a render-ready PBR material with all the necessary maps — diffuse, normal, roughness, and more — in just a few clicks. It’s ideal for secondary materials that don’t require extensive art direction, allowing you to quickly populate environments and interior spaces without sacrificing believability and without the need for third-party tools.

Does the AI Image Enhancer change my original render, or does it work non-destructively?

The AI Image Enhancer enhances realism, texture, and detail in supporting elements — such as foliage, people, or terrain — without altering your core design. It works non-destructively, meaning it automatically enhances areas for improvement without requiring any re-rendering. With advanced controls, you can fine-tune people, vegetation, and terrain for more precise results.

Can I animate the new Night Sky feature to create time-lapse or cinematic shots?

Yes, the Night Sky is fully animatable, making it ideal for time-lapse sequences and cinematic storytelling. It expands the Corona Sky system with realistic moonlight, stars, and even the Milky Way. You can set location, date, and time for full realism or manually adjust celestial objects for an artistic look — no HDRIs required.

How do the new procedural fabric materials help me avoid using external textures?

The new procedural fabric materials give you true-to-life woven detail and full control over weave, threads, opacity, bump, displacement, and more. Built to be procedural, it eliminates the need for external bitmaps or complex node setups. You can design a wide range of fabrics directly inside Corona 14, and even start faster using the included presets.

Are the AI-powered tools in Corona 14 available for both 3ds Max and Cinema 4D users?

Yes. Corona 14 delivers AI-powered creation and enhancement features for both 3ds Max and Cinema 4D users. The AI Material Generator, AI Image Enhancer (Advanced Controls), AI Upscaler, and the ability to enable and disable AI features are fully integrated into the Corona plugin and part of the Chaos ecosystem, ensuring a consistent experience across both platforms.

What makes Corona 14 a worthwhile upgrade for architectural visualization studios?

Corona 14 marks a new chapter in rendering, blending human creativity with AI intelligence, enhanced procedural power, and cosmic inspiration to deliver faster results and more emotional storytelling. With innovations like Gaussian Splats support, AI-powered creation, Night Sky, and Fabric Material, studios can achieve photorealistic results faster and more easily than ever before, while pushing creative boundaries without sacrificing quality.

Additional smaller improvements

General

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Added option for the CShading_Alpha render element (3ds Max) / Alpha Multi-Pass (Cinema 4D) to include the Bloom & Glare effect.
• Significantly improved parsing speed, especially on CPUs with a large number of threads. The Geometry stage now stays consistent between renders.
• Changed the default adaptivity interval to 1. Noise level can now be estimated after 2nd pass.
• Added support for the Corona Moon in the Light Lister.
• Improved shadowing of Sun by clouds (with legacy switch to preserve results in existing scenes).

(3ds Max)

• Added a checkbox to set whether a Corona Proxy will play its animation using the FPS stored in the proxy file (previous behavior, and still the the default) or with the current scene FPS (similar to V-Ray proxy).
• Added a new Defaults menu in Render Settings > System tab. Save Defaults have been moved here, and Reset Defaults added here too.

(Cinema 4D)

• Added time and location support for the Corona Sun (as well as the new Moon object and Sky object/shader/tag), with the option to automatically convert from a Cinema 4D Sun tag.
• Added a new menu command "Corona Full Sky" for creating a Sky with Sun and Moon, set to use single time and location controls.
• Added an option to specify north direction for all celestials.
• Replaced the previous rotation parameter (counterclockwise) in the Corona Sun with an azimuth (clockwise), to follow usual conventions used in navigation.
• OIDN on macOS updated to version 2.3.3.
• OIDN on macOS now also supports Apple GPU and can also be used in IR:
  • OIDN GPU denoising is now enabled by default for IR in new scenes when using macOS on Apple Silicon
  • The GPU denoising will typically require one of the Apple Silicon CPUs, e.g. M1 or newer
• The Corona Color Correct shader now supports loading of LUTs from the asset browser.
• Improvements in thread scheduling for better UI responsiveness (especially in IR).
• Noise Level Limit in the Render Settings is now shown as a percentage.

Materials

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Added support for randomization by pattern to Multimap (3ds Max) / Multi-shader (Cinema 4D), and MappingRandomizer.
• ToonMtl - added shadow control & GI suppression.
• Added option to invert the slicing to the Corona Slicer material.

(3ds Max)

• Added automatic color space selection using OCIO rules when batch loading bitmaps from Corona MultiMap.

(Cinema 4D)

• Added global parameters for Sample Count and Sharpness Threshold which will affect all Outline materials.
• Corona Bitmap can now load textures using UDIM pattern stored in the Asset Browser database.

Cosmos and conversion

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Added non-physical control of reflection and refraction tint into Physical material:
  • This helps to better convert V-Ray materials and import from Cosmos
  • These controls are hidden by default, and are located in a material's advanced settings

(3ds Max)

• Maps are reused and no longer duplicated when importing materials from Cosmos.
• Added the possibility to drag and drop multiple selected Cosmos materials into the Slate Material Editor. The drop position of all imports (even without drag and drop) has a slight shift applied to it.
• Improved the import of materials from Cosmos:
  • Corrected the ordering of NormalTexture/MappingRandomizer/Bitmap
  • Fixed the 0 scaling used in the Triplanar node for an AI Material Generator material
  • Removed the empty CoronaMix map which was plugged into the Subsurface Scattering Amount
  • Triplanar and MappingRandomizer maps are reused if the same map is plugged into multiple nodes

(Cinema 4D)

• Improvements in .vrscene import and scene converter:
  • A V-Ray Environment object is now converted into a Corona Sky when all of its subshaders are the same
  • Added support for V-Ray Color, Combine Color and Mix shaders
  • Performance improvements of the Scene conversion dialog
• Added initial support for conversion of V-Ray tone mapping to the Scene Converter (includes partial support for Exposure, White balance, Hue/Saturation, Sharpen/Blur, Lens Effects and Filmic tonemap).
• The Scene Converter now includes an option for converting legacy a Corona Sky tag to a Corona Sky object.
• The Converter dialog now shows a preview of shaders.
• Support for conversion of the UVW channel from the V-Ray UVW Channel shader when converting to Corona Bitmap.
• We now show a warning when converting a scene containing old unsupported V-Ray objects.

VFB 2

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Removed the confirmation dialog when enabling/disabling all lightmix layers.
• Removed decimals from the (new) White Balance operator.
• Extended the VFB title placeholder parameters with %cxr - this shows the path to the currently viewed cxr (VFB system settings).
• Added upload conditions to the AI Enhancer button tooltip.
• Chaos Collaboration now opens in a separate dialog.
• When a Light Mix is displayed in the VFB, then the displayed LightMix is uploaded to the AI Enhancer instead of the Beauty pass.
• The upper toolbar’s height was decreased from 56px to 40px.
• The Tools sidebar's width was decreased from 342px to 300px.
• Renamed Collab to Collaboration, Enhance to AI Enhancer, and added rounded edges on button highlights, plus increased the button area size.
• Moved Sidebar visibility button and the Zoom dropdown over to the right of the main toolbar.
• Added the option for the VFB to save images in half-resolution.
• Updated icons, moved main tool buttons to left, added foldable icon labels.

Vantage

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Improved viewport IR text during Vantage Live link.
• Added support for exporting Gaussian splats from Corona to Vantage.
• Materials exported to Chaos Vantage now preserve the original name from the 3ds Max or Cinema 4D scene.

(3ds Max)

• Improved viewport IR text during Vantage Live link.
• Added support for MultiTexture Map in Corona for Vantage.

Scatter

(3ds Max)

• Ability to compute collisions between individual scatters:
  • Each scatter can be assigned to one Collision Avoidance group in the Scatter Lister.
  • Scatters in the same group will avoid collisions among themselves.
  • Collision evaluation is based on the Priority assigned in the Scatter Lister where a Priority 1 scatter instance will take precedence over a Priority 2, etc.
• Object and spline lists now allow the adjustment of related properties in bulk when multiple items are selected.
• Added addModelNode() command which can be used within scripts to add a model.
• Added support allowing mesh objects to be used as include/exclude modifiers.

(Cinema 4D)

• Added the option to include the children of objects used as distribution targets in Chaos Scatte

Bug fixes

Crash Fixes

(3ds  Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed an issue where the Corona Pattern Mod could crash when using a RaySwitch material or Light material on it.

(3ds  Max)

• Corona now automatically fixes NaNs/INFs found in geometry and reports them to users. This also avoids NaN related crashes.
• Fixed a crash when converting a Bitmap that is plugged into MultiMap.
• Fixed a crash when moving the leftmost key in a Ramp using the spinbox.
• Fixed a random crash during open or close of 3ds Max
• Fixed a crash when sampling Anima materials.

(Cinema 4D)

• Fixed a crash when a Layered material was connected to an Outline material.
• Fixed several cases of NaN errors on macOS.
• Fixed issue where "Add existing..." in a Shared shader might result in a loop in shaders (and subsequent crash).
• Fixed a random crash caused by a Corona Proxy object (usually triggered when saving or loading scene).
• Fixed a possible crash in the VFB when enabling/disabling Bloom&Glare.
• Fixed a crash when copying objects with complex material hierarchies between documents.
• Fixed a possible crash when rendering a scene which has multiple Corona Lights using shaders.

Installer fixes

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed slow uninstallation.
• Fixed issue with installer not running on CPUs without AVX support.

Vantage fixes

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed an issue with changes in material assignments in scene states not being correctly saved in Chaos Vantage for scenes exported from Corona for Cinema 4D.
• Fixed an issue with some textures being mismatched/swapped in Live Link to Chaos Vantage
• Fixed an issue with material refraction controlled by a shader not being correctly converted into Chaos Vantage.
• Fixed an issue with partially metallic materials (e.g. with metalness controlled by a shader) not converting IOR correctly for non-metallic parts into Chaos Vantage.
• Fixed issues with non-color textures (e.g. roughness or IOR) used in non-trivial materials not being correctly rendered in Vantage when connected via Live Link.

VFB fixes

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed AI Image Enhancer uploading a cropped image when AI Upscaling is on in the render settings. Now the whole image is uploaded in the original resolution.
• Fixed the "Rest" parameter in LightMix being reset when restarting rendering.
• Fixed Exposure being incorrect when loading a CXR file (in history or in CIE)
• Fixed not being able to change current render elements/pass in the VFB2 with the mouse wheel.

(Cinema 4D)

• Fixed an issue with post parameters in the VFB not creating any UNDOs.
• Fixed an issue with UNDOing camera removal (after render end) which was leaving the camera pipeline disconnected from the VFB.

• Fixed an issue with post processing sometimes resetting for a new render to parameters from when the last render was terminated.

Materials

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed a rare issue where Triplanar mapping in a Corona Scanned Material could lead to a NAN.
• Fixed the Outline material when it is used with camera clipping.
• Fixed artifacts created by Slicer caps.
• Fixed an issue where a Corona Bitmaps “No tiling” mode did not work with Triplanar.

(3ds Max)

• Fixed an issue where IR would not update when an object with a Corona Pattern modifier used the option to use a Pattern material.
• Fixed the CoronaPatternMod incorrectly setting command mode to “select” (e.g. when cloning using Shift + Move).

(Cinema 4D)

• Added an option to override the Global Volume in a Corona Camera.
• Added an option to lock the aspect ratio for a Corona Bitmap’s UV length.
• Fixed the mirroring of Corona Triplanar shader inputs (old scenes are loaded with legacy mapping enabled, for backward compatibility).
• Fixed issues when a Filter shader is added around a texture in the Corona Sky while IR is running.
• Fixed an issue where some nodes might be missing after loading a document.
• Fixed a crash in some special cases when linking nodes.
• We now ensure unique names when cloning nodes.
• Fixed an issue with Cinema 4D functionality for de-duplicating materials often not working on Corona materials
• Fixed an issue with node-based materials being offered for conversion even when conversion was not supported.
• Fixed Decal's "Fit to Bitmap.." to work with bitmaps from the Asset Browser.
• Fixed a memory leak when copying materials.
• Fixed an issue where copying objects within the document when some Corona materials (Select, Layered etc) were attached caused duplication of these materials.
• Fixed an issue with the Level parameter for Top and Base layers in Corona Mixture shader not working.
• Fixed an issue where a Camera’s physical size would influence the outline of an Outline material.

Cosmos and conversion

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Normal map Red-Green flip is now imported correctly from Cosmos.
• Added UVMapper rotation parsing to VrMatConverter. Now W rotation is considered when importing from Cosmos.
• MappingRandomizers imported from Cosmos now have instance randomization enabled by default.
• Fix for Cosmos imports that use grayscale bitmaps and inverse in the output of a bitmap.
• Fixed wrong Subsurface Scattering conversion from V-Ray materials.

(3ds Max)

• Fixed inconsistent color space when converting Bitmap <-> CoronaBitmap. The same color space as the original bitmap is used now.
• Fixed an issue with wrong gamma mapping when importing a normal map from the Cosmos Corona Material Library collection.

(Cinema 4D)

• Fixes in V-Ray Light Material conversion.
• Fixed how tag names are is displayed in the Converter dialog.
• Fixed undo handling for shared shaders.
• Fixed the conversion of Opacity Clip when converting from Legacy to Physical material.
• The Converter dialog shows proper asset names when a Bitmap shader contains an asset path.

CIE

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed slow startup.
• Persistent VFB settings for the CIE are now stored in %localappdata%\CoronaRenderer\ImageEditor, instead of with the binary.

General

(3ds Max and Cinema 4D)

• Fixed an issue where the outline of an Outline material disappears when viewed behind a transparent object that does not have outlines.
• The Sun and Moon are now always rendered behind the clouds, regardless of the Cloud Shadowing state.
• Fixed inconsistency with Bloom&Glare and Sharpen&Blur (they were not correctly greying out) when using Camera postprocessing overrides.
• Fixed a freeze when changing Post/LightMix settings.

(3ds Max)

• Fixed an issue where 3ds Max would get minimized after closing the Corona Color Picker, Memory report dialog etc.
• Fixed an issue where accepting some confirmation dialogs could minimize 3ds Max.
• The warning about legacy Atmospheric Elements now doesn't appear when editing materials.
• Fixed the Yes/No dialog message box seen on changing  renderers briefly minimizing the application.
• Fixed unwanted minimization of the parent application (CIE or 3ds Max) when an Open File dialog is confirmed or closed.

(Cinema 4D)

• Fixed "Save Project with Assets" not correctly handling assets from the Asset Browser.
• Fixed some cases when assets were missing during render when using Team Render.
• Fixed issues with the Corona Sun rotation not behaving correctly when used in a hierarchy that had been already rotated.
• Fixed an issue with Lumen and Candela units not correctly taking into account the scene units:
  • for backward compatibility, the lights using these units in old scenes are rescaled to preserve the same look as in previous versions
• Replaced the broken "Save without shared shaders..." in the Node Material Editor with the new "Unshare all shared shaders".
• Copying objects with materials between documents now avoids creation of duplicate materials.
• Fixed loading of VDBs in the Corona Volume Grid from paths which contain localized (non-ASCII) characters when the storage does not support short paths (e.g. NAS or some filesystems).
• Fixed setting of custom parameters when copying a Corona Camera tag to another camera.
• Fixed an issue with OIDN denoiser on macOS not working.
• Fixed issues with Asset Browser paths not correctly loading in some cases in Corona Bimap, Proxy, Gaussian Splats etc.
• Prevent specialized UI widgets from being used in the general Cinema 4D UI.
• Fixed an issue with changes done by dragging spinbox arrows in Tone Mapping creating multiple UNDOs.
• Fixed an issue with LightMix settings not being properly initialized for Team Render.
• Fixed an issue with Post Processing changes in the Camera restarting IR.
• Fixed a possible issue with the Denoising dialog not closing correctly.
• Fixed error estimate being zero in IR for first several passes when "IR subsampling" is used.
• Fixed incorrect output of viewport render when using legacy color management in Cinema 4D 2025.
• Fixed incorrectly applied View Transform in a viewport render when using OCIO in Cinema 4D 2023 and newer.