Btw, while you have R23 and there are nodes there! If you select CentiLeo node space then using uvwTransform node has bigger functionality than Texture tag and it recreates the functionality of native Cinema texture tag's scale/tile/offset/repeats params but it's more powerfull because it can be done per node or used as main projection method for all material textures.
uvwTransform can do the same things as native Texture tag for the same projection if you select defaul texture tag projection in uvwTransform.
On top of that there is easy possibility to use it as mask for node Material mixing. There you can use simple material mix (2 materials) or layered 10 material mixer and combine them as much as you want. To make a mask for these material blends from uvwTransform (with limited repeats) you may apply uvwTransform to just the whole white bitmap or bitmap with some own mask to get complex mask shape.

Hi Ron! Thanks for tests and your opinion!
Using selections for decals is another way that I have just forgot to mention. Yes, it has a problem that it repeats mapped materials everywhere. In the past I made a feature where it was possible to stop repetitions but have removed this for some reason. Actually, I need to analyze things again Since Cinema R20 a lot more mappings inside material are allowed, not just a mapping enabled in texture tag for the whole material. So basically we can map the most of the textures of material using texture tag default projection and some textures (3D noise or scratches or whatever) can be mapped with different mappings using uvwProjection/uvwTransform. Basically, I also need to learn the best user practices of decal/label placement and probably make some boxes that can be shifted across the surfaces.
Why do you left the images noisy with few iterations?

Hi Ron! Thanks for the very good test! I think the wheel shrinks during the motion because of the lack of motion blur keys. Just go to CentiLeo Render settings -> Camera Tab and there you will see motion blur transformation steps. By default it's 2. Just set it to a higher number, say 10-20. The maximum is 32. I hope this should help.

Hi Ron! Very cool images! Small fixes can be done, but they are already in a good shape.
Cinema R21 has Intel Denoiser, CentiLeo uses it from R21 and this small remaining noise can be killed completely.
Btw emissive lights of CentiLeo are very fast. However right now for Cloner and X-Particles objects they are not improtance sampled (and can be slow) - will fix this later.

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Ron Walker wrote: What I would like to know is how to use the various addition shaders Centileo offers as there are no explanations I can find on the site.

I tried to make them intuitive, but still has to write Manual pages about the shaders. And I would also recommend to use node-based materials that is enabled for R21-R23, they are visually more intuitive with inter-node connections.

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Ron Walker wrote: Also is there any kind of Volumetric Environment/Atmosphere available?

Not available at the moment. To be done in the future.

Best regards,
Kirill

Hi Ron! Very nice renders! Btw, it will be fast even if the car headlights are made not from bitmaps but from real glass, bulbs, etc (with a lot of refractive geometry). CentiLeo is fast for such materials.
As for decals
They are possible to do, but the problem is that things are not visual.
Look at the screen and the scene file https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LD-7m0PKf0ngv6MbXNnR7Oc4SF28kv3E/view?usp=sharing
There decal is done using the layer shader where the base layer is metal and on top of that there is a bitmap with centileo logo (1) and there is a white bitmap mask (2). Both (1) and (2) are connected to uvwTransform node. This node has "scale" parameter which makes mapped textures smaller for smaller scale. And there is "decal" flag that stops mapping for out of [0..1] range of UVs. This example operates in mesh explicit UV channel the one we create in UVW tag. That's why there are few decals because the UV space 0..1 regions appear several times. But we can also map in XYZ local space to object where material was assigned. To do this a uvwProjection node should be connected to uvwTransform and therein a "XYZ" mode should be choosen. Then with IPR help you can find good offsets to place decal on a surface. Bad that the real decal box is not visible. Will work on this part in the future and will learn other workflow experiences.

Hi Ron, I have reproduced a bug, now working on it.

This is the similar setup for R20 and below Cinema versions. Not with node materials, but with old menu materials:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVGeZEvwDNsGq1HgIxKbRYVb-xKHm5Ip/view?usp=sharing

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Ron Walker wrote: Finally could you direct me to some tutorials for Shadow Mapping and an up to date manual for the cinema version. This to me seems to be the one thing missing - tutorials.

Hi Ron!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13-yljneGrJvwnLUTkhqc4zMuHaQrCNnO/view?usp=sharing (hdrs are from https://hdrihaven.com/)
This sample shaderball has:
1) shadow matte material example, where the light sources (hdr light and 1 rectangle light) have shadow catcher weights in their centileo light tags. These shadow catcher weights determine the amount of shadow this light casts on the shadow matte material pn the ground plane.
2) Additionally the other hdr (a hdr for camera) has only one non-zero channel and it's for camera. When this hdr with non-zero channels appears first in the cinema object tree then it's non-zero channels override other hdrs below this hdr in the object tree. In this case a non-zero camera channel of the top hdr overrides camera channel of hdr below. But the hdr bellow has diffuse, reflection and other channels that are not overrided and they illuminate scene materials but have no effect for camera. Also you may toggle Alpha output or Transparent output channels in AOV tab of render settings to export respective shadow only images.
3) If you have R21-R23 then you can see in this scene a node material setup for metal material with colored flakes. Very simple to do and handy for car renders.

As for Manual/Tutorials.
They are started here: http://centileo.com/docs/index.php?COURSE_ID=3&INDEX=Y They have basic technical info + xparticles setup.
Actually it is a problem there are no docs for mateials / shaders although there are similarities to other renderers. At the moment I must accelerate CentiLeo with RTX and after that I can continue writting manual about materials and make a couple of presentations. More speed is needed because there are problems compared to others in many exterior scenes with not very complex lighting where other engines have RTX. While CentiLeo is currently very good for complex situations like out-of-core geometry, complex GI lighting in interiors or night shots or mesh lights or many lights.

Prices
They are to be determined yet. But actually need to reach 0.7 release. The prices will be similar to competitive products of similar features. Probably lower at the beginning when things are too sensitive.

Texture Fade away bug
This is a bug. The textures for some untested reason compete for their place in cache and one texture looses just everything. I have already seen this for extremelly low cache sizes in other much larger scene in 3ds Max and planned to fix it in some later future. But your caches are great with 700Mb on GPU and 4000Mb on CPU. It shouldn't act like this. So I will need to fix it in the most close release. Please, can you send me your scene in email info@centileo.com or PM. With Cinema 4D quick launches I will be able to fix it faster.

Kirill

Hi Alex, and welcome here!
Have you checked the flag "Is Normal Map" inside CentiLeo bitmap? This flag is at bottom of Bitmap. There are also other Normal Map flags to swap the channels.
Connect it to Bump slot of CentiLeo material. Btw unlike Cinema you can mix Normal Maps and b/w Bump Maps in arbitrary way because internally they are all converted to b/w bump map for manipulations.

Hi Ron! Thanks for reporting the issue!
A lot of bitmaps and large bitmaps should be supported given some resonable GPU/CPU texture caches. Reasonable is something like 512MB for GPU / 4GB for CPU.
It's a bug, maybe I did it just recently. Please, help me fix it. Can you show the screenshot from IPR GPU Indicators like a panel at the bottom of the IPR? See example:
http://centileo.com/docs/index.php?COURSE_ID=3&LESSON_ID=39&LESSON_PATH=17.39
To open the panel you should right-click in IPR and enable "Toggle GPU Info".
What numbers are there for texture caches? A screen could be ok. And how many bitmaps are there in the scene? What is the resolution of HDR if it's used?

Kirill

Mehmet, hi! It's a very good car!

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AntonioDi wrote: А поддержки volume light в этом билде еще нет ?

Hi Anton! Welcome here! No, there are no any volumetrics here. Currently concentrated on particles, attributes and render speed. Will publish TyFlow direct support in few days.

Hi sas, and welcome here! Can you add-remove the objects one by one?
Maybe the lighting is too low. Or materials are black during manual conversion. I see that you convert them from Corona.
It seems to work as the counters in IPR window are filled.
I may also look into your scene and detect the problem quickly if you send it to info@centileo.com.

Daniel, it's fixed! The fix is uploaded. My appologises for bug. It was so stupid Also there are fixes for TyFlow scenes which had crashes.
http://centileo.com/news/140/centileo-for-3dsmax-0594/

You are right! I have tested from IPR, not from final
Will fix shortly

Hi Daniel, thanks!
1) Physical camera dof. Have you tested the most recent 0.593 version? I have made a test and both Target Distance of Custom Focus Distance are animated and CentiLeo accounts them correctly from 0 to 20 frame in attached file.
2) Lost half of animation frames. There was a problem but it was fixed in 0.593 http://centileo.com/news/138/centileo-for-3dsmax-0593/
Is this problem still there? I have just recorder it for the same file and all is fine.

As for other issues - they will be fixed, I know they are very much needed. But currently is too busy with complex out-of-core instancing

Hi vblackrender., I still haven't made more tools for cache files but there is some more detailed info in new manual about these cache files here + the larger picture about entire system.

Hi remi! How did you make a background on 004-cntl.jpg ? Is that rendered or just a texture?

Change Log: cntlc4d 0.593 alpha (2020 May 29)
- up to 2x less noise for some HDR images in interiors
- more stable noise structure for low sample count
- Cinema S22 support (for S22.016+ builds)
- Fixed const color profile interpretation of materials

Hi vblackrender., I have improved the noise reductions for HDR such as this one! 2x less noise in the same time! No iteration time increase. Other HDRs that were already good dont' become worse with this modification.
May I post the "before/after" image with this your scene on the news page related to the next 0.593 fix-release? Will also insert the link to your Behance