Chaos Corona Exterior Rendering Guide
Recreate a Kraken Studio precedent—a moody lakeside cabin surrounded by forests and atmosphere. You'll build landscapes from scratch using 3ds Max's displacement modifier with smoke maps, import your SketchUp cabin, set up Corona cameras with automatic two-point perspective, and populate interiors that sell the exterior. Then cover everything with trees, grass, and rocks using Chaos Scatter before adding volumetric fog and finishing in Photoshop.
- 5+ hours of premium content
- 14 step-by-step video lessons
- Future updates included
About this course
Eight lessons building a complete exterior scene inspired by Kraken Studio's atmospheric work. Start with procedural landscape creation using 3ds Max's displacement modifier and smoke maps—no external terrain data needed. Import your SketchUp cabin, position it in a valley with a water plane, then set up Corona cameras and Sun/Sky lighting. Populate interiors through glazing to sell the scene, then cover everything with trees, grass, and rocks using Chaos Scatter. Final lessons cover frame buffer colour grading, Corona volumetrics for fog, and Photoshop post-production for that cinematic finish.
This comprehensive Chaos Corona course transforms your approach to exterior architectural visualization, teaching you to create stunning photorealistic environments that rival professional landscape architecture presentations. Through hands-on practice with advanced terrain modeling and environmental design techniques, you'll master the complete workflow from initial landscape creation through to final cinematic output.
The course emphasizes practical application of Corona's advanced rendering capabilities, including sophisticated lighting systems, volumetric effects, and atmospheric conditions. You'll learn to leverage Corona's streamlined interface and powerful Chaos Scatter tools to populate vast landscapes with realistic vegetation, creating convincing natural environments that enhance architectural presentations.
Advanced techniques covered include HDRI environment integration, complex material creation for natural surfaces, and professional post-production workflows. The curriculum focuses on efficiency and quality, teaching you to balance render times with photorealistic results while maintaining flexibility for client revisions.
By completion, you'll possess the skills to produce professional-grade exterior visualizations that meet the demanding standards of contemporary architectural practice. These techniques transfer directly to competition submissions, client presentations, and marketing materials that distinguish your work in the competitive visualization market.
What will you learn?
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This course will teach you:
Landscape and terrain creation
Three methods: sculpting brushes with push/pull deformation, displacement modifier with smoke maps for procedural terrain, and importing height maps. Position your SketchUp cabin in the valley and duplicate landscapes to fill the horizon.
Lighting, materials, and interiors
Corona cameras with 30mm focal length and automatic vertical shift for two-point perspective. Corona Sun and Sky with volumetric clouds. The secret to good exteriors: populate interiors with Cosmos furniture so glazing looks convincing.
Chaos Scatter and final output
Separate scatters for trees, grass, and rocks—each with independent density and scale. Frame buffer colour grading for exposure, white balance, and contrast. Render at 2560×1440 with 15-minute time limits and Corona High Quality denoiser.
Syllabus
Setting up the goal: recreating a Kraken Studio precedent with a moody lakeside cabin. We review the simple SketchUp model and plan the three strong visuals we'll produce—complete with fog, god rays, and atmospheric lighting.
Three methods for creating landscapes in 3ds Max. Paint deformation with push/pull and relax brushes for bespoke sculpting. Height maps using white-to-black tones. The displacement modifier with smoke maps—the technique we use throughout—creating a 200m terrain plane with 500 segments.
SketchUp to 3ds Max using DWG export with legacy AutoCAD settings for proper group and component recognition. Positioning the cabin in the valley, adding columns for the bridge structure, and setting up the water plane. We also duplicate the landscape to fill the horizon.
First renders. Two methods for Corona cameras: click-and-drag placement or create-from-viewport. Setting 30mm focal length for exterior shots and enabling automatic vertical shift for proper two-point perspective. Corona Sun and Sky with volumetric clouds, plus HDRI environment lighting.
The secret to convincing exteriors: a believable interior. We populate the cabin with Chaos Cosmos furniture—sofa, chairs, coffee table, hanging light, mirror, artwork, and people visible through the glazing. Timber materials applied with UVW mapping, plus a water texture with noise for realistic variation.
Populating the landscape with three separate scatters: trees, grass, and rocks—each with independent control over density and scale. Transform settings using normal-vs-Z at 0.9 for natural tree variation. Spline include/exclude keeps vegetation out of the water. Cosmos library provides all the assets you need.
Frame buffer colour grading: exposure, white balance (cooler for realism), contrast, saturation, and gamma to lift shadows. Adding taller grasses and reeds for variety. HDRI replacement to get the sun angle right. Sharpening settings to offset denoiser softness, plus Corona volumetrics for atmospheric fog.
Render settings for 2560×1440 with a 15-minute time limit—Corona High Quality denoiser handles residual noise. We render three shots including a waterside view with blurred foreground. Photoshop post-production for fog, god rays, sharpness, and contrast to get that cinematic finish.
Meet your instructor
Adam Morgan
Architectural Director
ThreeForm Architects
Hi, I'm Adam. I am the founder and director of ThreeForm Architects, a team of architects and artists in Liverpool, UK. The office is experienced in a wide range of building types and procurement routes, successfully winning projects with contract values of up to £20 million. We work for a broad spectrum of public and private sector clients across the country.
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