Note: Starting from Corona Renderer 7, the Corona Material has been renamed to Corona Legacy Material and you will find a new and more complete material called Corona Physical Material which will allow you to create more accurate and realistic materials for your projects. Please visit the following link to learn more about it: Corona Physical Material.
The Corona Legacy Material is an all-in-one solution capable of producing “standard” diffuse materials, as well as more complex materials, such as:
- Glass
- Metals
- Subsurface scattering
- Fog
- Displacement
- Self-illumination
- etc.
Typical usage: almost any kind of surface can be simulated using the Corona Legacy Material, but for even more physically accurate results, use the Corona Physical Material instead.
How to create basic materials?
The C4D file containing simple materials presented in this guide can be downloaded here: [link]
To create a new Corona Legacy material, in the material editor go to the menu Corona > Legacy Material:
"Plaster" type
For this material type, the default Corona Legacy Material has a diffuse component only. It is gray with a diffuse level (brightness) of 70%. This makes it useful for basic materials such as plaster, painted walls, and similar.
Simple "plaster" material
Shiny plastic
To introduce some reflectivity to a basic material, enable the "Reflection" channel.
Shiny plastic
Rough plastic
To make the reflections more blurry, go to the reflection channel and lower the "glossiness" value.
Rough plastic
Rough plastic with rounded edges
Concrete
Since Corona supports native Cinema 4D procedural maps, they can be used to create details in materials. In this example, a Noise shader was used to control Diffuse color, Reflection Glossiness, and Bump amount.
Procedural concrete material
Wood
To create this material, you can use a native C4D procedural "Wood" texture. The Reflection Glossiness was set to 0.8. The Reflection IOR was increased to 2, to make the wood appear as if it was slightly polished.
Procedural wood material
Metals
For most metal materials, the Diffuse channel can be disabled (or set to pure black color). Metals have high reflection IOR values. Below are some examples with material settings:
Chrome
Chrome - mirror-like material with high glossiness
Gold
Gold material
Copper
Copper material
Rough aluminum
Rough aluminum
Mirror
Mirror - a reflective material with a very high glossiness and Fresnel IOR value of 999
Glass
The Glass materials have both reflectivity and refraction properties. Refraction can be set either to solid or thin (Refraction > Thin (no refraction)). The solid glass should be used for objects that have thickness - such as vases, bottles, liquids. The thin mode disables any refraction while keeping the object transparent and reflective. This mode should be used for objects with very thin surfaces that do not refract light - such as window panels, or soap bubbles.
Thick glass
Thick (solid) glass
Colored glass
Colored glass - For this material type, the refraction color is changed, which means that the color is purely dependent on the object's surface. The effect is as if the object was made of clear glass coated with a thin layer of paint.
Colored glass - Absorption
Colored glass - For this case, the Absorption color is used, which means that the color is dependent on the object's volume (thickness). The effect is as if the object was made of colored glass. Thin parts will be more clear, thick parts will be more colored.
Thin glass
Thin glass
Water
Clear water
Clear water - This material is identical to "solid glass", with the exception of refraction IOR value, which is set to 1.33
Dirty water
Dirty water - To create this material type you can use the "clear water" as the base; then, the volumetric absorption, and scattering was added to make the water look muddy.
The C4D file containing simple materials presented in this guide can be downloaded here: [link]