What is upscaling?
The Upscaling in Corona for 3ds Max improves rendering speed by first generating a lower-resolution image and then enlarging it using advanced techniques. It uses AI-based methods to maintain details and minimize artifacts, making it a great solution for production rendering when time is a priority.
How to enable upscaling for production rendering?
To use Production Upscaling in Corona for 3ds Max, go to Render Setup > Scene Tab > Production Upscaling:
Note: enabling Upscaling automatically enables NVIDIA AI Denoising.
To learn more about different Upscaling modes - see Production Upscaling at the Chaos Documentation Portal.
Upscaling can also be enabled for interactive rendering improving its performance at some quality loss. See Performance Tab at the Chaos Documentation Portal.
A similar feature, which doesn't use AI upscaling, is available in the Corona System Settings. See Corona System Settings.
Examples
Click to enlarge or check the image comparer.
When Upscaling is enabled, the overall image quality remains high, and details remain clearly visible. However, some details, such as the grass in the bottom-left corner and the tree in the upper-right corner appear slightly less sharp compared to the render without upscaling.
Despite this minor loss in sharpness, the rendering time is significantly reduced. With Upscaling ON, the render time is 3 minutes 35 seconds, while with Upscaler OFF, it takes 11 minutes 59 seconds, both at 20 passes. This demonstrates a big improvement in speed and keeps good image quality.
Conclusions
This approach is great for test renders, previews, and quick iterations, where faster results are more important than perfect sharpness or quality. It’s also useful for animations and large projects, where reducing render times saves a lot of time and resources. While some small details may be slightly softer, the overall image quality remains good, making it a smart choice when balancing between render time and render quality.