The release of Corona 14 by Chaos introduces a broad set of enhancements for artists working with 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. According to the official “What’s New” overview from Chaos, the update emphasises three areas: smarter AI-assisted workflows, advanced procedural materials and greater environmental and scene-context realism.

Gaussian Splats

One of the standout additions is support for Gaussian Splats, a novel method for scene reconstruction designed to accelerate the placement of buildings and objects within realistic contexts. Chaos describes this feature as enabling memory-efficient “splats” derived from real-world environments, which provide smoother surfaces, richer volumetric detail—meaning more accurate light and particle interactions with depth and atmosphere—and a more natural sense of depth in renderings.

Nighty-Night!

In the domain of night-time and atmospheric visualisation, Corona 14 expands its Sky system with the Night Sky feature. Artists can specify location, date and time to simulate moonlight, stars and the Milky Way, or manually adjust celestial elements for artistic control. The feature is fully animatable, offering potential benefits for time-lapses or cinematic render sequences without relying on external HDRIs (high dynamic range images).

Materials

Procedural material creation receives a boost with the Fabric Material, enabling the creation of realistic textiles via native control over weave structure, threads, opacity, bump and displacement without the need for external bitmap textures or complex node graphs. A set of presets is provided for rapid deployment.

On the AI-tooling front, Corona 14 introduces an AI Material Generator that takes a photo of a real surface and transforms it into a fully render-ready PBR (physically based rendering) material. The goal is to expedite creation of secondary materials that need little artistic input. An AI Image Enhancer improves detail and texture in supporting scene elements such as vegetation, people or terrain while preserving the core design; this tool supports sending LightMix results (lighting scenario composites) directly into the enhancer. An AI Upscaler enables conversion of low-resolution drafts into high-quality presentation imagery, potentially saving render time while maintaining crisp output. Users may toggle AI features on or off, giving full control for studios with strict AI policies.

And more ….

Performance and workflow refinements accompany these major features. Volume sampling for render-intensive volumetric effects such as fog, light rays or smoke is optimised. A new option enables rendering at double resolution and automatic downscaling on save, which, according to Chaos, may allow higher noise levels or fewer passes and thus reduce render time. The UI has begun a rewrite using Qt (initial phase), starting with the Physical Material interface.

The Virtual Frame Buffer (VFB 2) has been updated with a cleaner, more compact interface, simplified navigation and clearer icons; the Corona Image Editor now mirrors the VFB 2 look and feel, enabling tone mapping, LightMix variants and other post adjustments outside the host DCC (digital content creation) tool. Additional workflow improvements include triplanar controls inside the Corona Bitmap (no separate node setup required), multiple-camera export to Chaos Vantage (initial implementation) and docking of the VFB window in 3ds Max.

Corona 14 is listed as compatible with Autodesk 3ds Max versions 2018–2026 (64-bit) on Windows and with Maxon Cinema 4D R17–2026 on Windows and macOS. Subscription licensing is offered on monthly or yearly payment terms.

Get your Corona here

However, the true impact of features such as Gaussian Splats and the AI modules will depend on how they perform in real-world production environments. Testing before deployment remains essential.

The post Corona 14: Gaussian Splats, Night Sky & fabric-material first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Chaos has released Anima 6.2, a significant update to its character and crowd simulation software used in architectural visualisation, VFX, and realtime previsualisation. The update focuses on making animated urban scenes feel more alive, with new automatic driver systems, expanded crowd tagging, and a sharper integration with 3ds Max and Unreal Engine. The release was announced on the Chaos blog and is available through the Chaos documentation portal.

Traffic, meet humanity

Anima’s traffic tools, first introduced in version 6.0, have been expanded into a more self-contained system. Vehicles are now automatically populated with drivers and passengers from the software’s digital human library. Users no longer need to manually rig or seat figures inside vehicles — every car on the road now behaves as a populated, believable entity. Brake lights and turn indicators are also animated automatically, triggering as cars slow, stop, or change lanes. These features are integrated into the simulation system rather than post-processed keyframes, meaning they respond dynamically to changes in scene layout. Chaos confirms the addition of 120+ new vehicle and human models optimised for these functions, ensuring visual consistency between drivers, passengers, and exterior assets.

New path types and smarter crowds

Crowd animation also sees technical improvements. 4D Paths, previously restricted to individual character animation, now extend to crowd movement. This allows dense, varied pedestrian sequences to be generated with consistent timing and collision logic, especially in high-detail close-ups. A new tagging system enables users to define and sort population traits — including clothing category, gender, or ethnic appearance — when generating large groups. This makes it easier to balance or stylise crowd composition in large-scale scenes without manual filtering. Chaos reports an overall reduction in memory consumption when handling large scenes and an improved texture management system for assets with multiple materials.

3ds Max and Unreal: tighter integration

The 3ds Max bridge plugin has been rewritten for greater stability. Importing and material generation now occur faster, particularly in dense traffic simulations. Anima scenes can be exported as native V-Ray proxies or rendered directly inside Chaos Corona or Chaos Vantage, depending on the pipeline. The Unreal Engine plugin (tested with Unreal 5.4) continues to support realtime playback of crowds and vehicles, but now benefits from more efficient animation caching, reducing draw calls and stutter during heavy traffic shots.

Quality-of-life and UI changes

The Capture Video function inside Anima’s viewport lets users record quick scene previews without exporting to another DCC package. A simplified asset browser improves navigation in large project folders. For layout and scene iteration, Chaos highlights general UI performance gains and faster scene reloading. Tests cited by Chaos show shorter project load times, though no numeric benchmarks are provided.

Licensing, pricing, and availability

Anima 6.2 is available only via subscription licensing. Perpetual licences were discontinued earlier in 2025. Pricing remains at $121.80 per month or $717.60 per year. The software supports Windows 64-bit (Windows 7 and newer) and offers integration plugins for 3ds Max 2023+, Cinema 4D R26+, and Unreal Engine 5.4+. Anima 6.2 is now also included in the Chaos ArchViz Collection, which bundles Anima with V-Ray, Corona, and Vantage for unified licensing across visualisation pipelines.

Production reality check

For visualisation studios, the update directly addresses two persistent pain points: believable traffic and lightweight crowd management. Automatic driver and light animation reduce manual setup time, while the tagging and path updates allow for more precise crowd distribution. The system’s new caching behaviour and memory optimisations may prove valuable in Unreal-based VR and realtime review contexts, where Anima’s heavy data footprint previously limited usability. However, as with any major version, studios should validate plugin compatibility in staging environments before committing to pipeline upgrades.

The post Chaos Anima 6.2: cars that finally drive themselves (almost) first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.