A toast to 10 years of Corona: A decade of rendering brilliance

Celebrate Corona's 10th birthday with us by looking back at its journey, from its humble student development roots to the go-to archviz renderer it is today, 20 releases later!

The story of Corona began in February 2009, when university student Ondřej Karlík’s fascination with rendering led him to develop a render engine. The earliest Corona images—though not in 3D—but crucial first steps—can be found in Facebook archives and include a simple loop across all pixels, three stacked spheres, and an image exploring shadows and reflections. The first Corona render featuring lights was a snowman.

Joining forces with the original developer of Corona, two key individuals supported Ondra’s personal project with the ambition to grow it into something bigger. The trio came together and formed Render Legion:

Ondřej Karlík – The original developer of Corona.
Adam Hotový – Came from the archviz industry and recognized the need for a dedicated render engine. He connected with many big names in the field, bringing in experienced early adopters.
Jaroslav Křivánek – A researcher specializing in light transport who contributed valuable expertise in research and development.

This trio laid the foundations for what would become a widely respected rendering engine.

The launch of Corona 1.0

Corona took a non-corporate approach in its early days, often embracing memes and humor to engage the growing community. The forum existed before the website, with its first post appearing in 2012. Even back then, the quality of users’ renders was impressive. By 2014, Corona had made many public appearances at events, such as 3ds London. The last free alpha version (Alpha 6) remains available for historical interest, though it’s far from suitable for modern commercial use.

The big day arrived in early 2015. Leading up to the release, the Corona offices doubled as living spaces for Adam and Ondra, who dedicated all their time to finalizing the launch. Financial limitations made the release an all-or-nothing event. After intense effort, Corona 1.0 was officially released on February 25, 2015, at 3:33 PM. The initial Corona website was acknowledged as quite basic, but improvements were quickly made.

Industry recognition and joining Chaos

Following the launch, Corona began appearing in magazines like 3D Artist in early 2015. The team also started a tradition of celebrating Corona’s birthdays with cakes. Education was a key focus, leading to the creation of Corona Academy, an in-person training program that has since evolved online into Cinema 4D and 3ds Max video tutorials that are central to supporting the community.

In 2017, Render Legion was acquired by Chaos. Ondra and Chaos founder Vlado had long-standing mutual respect, and discussions about coming together had been ongoing for years. The acquisition provided more financial and technical support for continued development.

Key Milestones (2019–2020)

Release of Corona for Cinema 4D

In 2019, Corona for Cinema 4D had its first commercial release (Corona Renderer 3). Like the 3ds Max version, it was available for free during early development.

The loss of Jaroslav

2019 also brought a tragic loss—Jaroslav passed away due to an accident. He was a brilliant researcher and a true gentleman. His contributions are still remembered today, with an annual rendathon event held in his honor.

Adam’s departure

In 2020, Adam left the company for health reasons, another significant loss. His personality and approach to community engagement were fundamental to Corona’s identity. His legacy still influences how the team interacts with users.

The ongoing evolution of Corona

From 2020 to 2025, Corona has continued developing in response to user needs. Some key facts:

Since Corona 1.0 (2015), 20 major releases have been made (excluding hotfixes), averaging two releases per year.
The Corona Gallery on the forum has 592 pages of user-generated images dating back to 2012.

A fun tradition is the Corona T-shirt, made for each release. Some highlights:

Corona 3 – Bug fixing theme
Corona 6 – Debugging from home (during COVID-19)
Corona 5 – “Eating RAM” joke, reflecting the tradeoff between speed and memory use.

Celebrating Corona’s birthday with your stunning renders

We asked you to submit your best work rendered in Corona, and you delivered some outstanding projects. Naturally, most of the Corona birthday submissions were archviz-themed, including hotels and residences, as well as commercial and public spaces. A few of you also submitted product visualizations, which really stood out from the rest! Check out the amazing renders below, and let’s celebrate Corona’s birthday together; looking forward to future developments ahead!