Some RWF tryings

[instinct]

No need to get insulting i'd say. And once again i am not really talking about lighting. My main concern is post...and there is an objective letdown on the sRGB side. As said above if you're happy with lighting by eye and not doing post (or doing it by eye) feel free to. Noone forces you to to work linear or 1.8 or whatever. But all the "Since when is this a workflow" and "LWF sucks and noone of you needs it anyway" is getting a bit irritating...

Anyways i'm out of this topic is it's getting way off...sorry for the hi-jacking 3d-kad

Regards,
Thorsten

[Neilg]

No need to get insulting i'd say. And once again i am not really talking about lighting.

"LWF sucks and noone of you needs it anyway" is getting a bit irritating...

"My guess is they just haven't had the "eureka" experience, where they fully see the folly of their ways." And this isnt insulting? I hate to bring out he did it first, but I find that more insulting than 2 random directionless words.

And I didnt say anything close to that second quote. I dont get how youve still managed to completley miss my point. I use lwf when I need it.

I was just trying to get a discussion out of it. Instead I got attacked, insulted, and ignored for a comment about lwf that wasnt glowing.
More apologies for the hijack - it's evident this is going nowhere.

[instinct]

oh come on....first off all i do find "fuck off" pretty darn insulting...and "he did it first"? i mean come on...

And i am just a bit fed up with the "why at all" posts in various lwf related threads....yes i was exxagerating...sorry

P.S. what i mean is posts like these "I dont really see the fuss with LWF anyway, but we'll leave that." Maybe just leave it in the first place...

anyways...send me pm's if you wanna go deeper into that (i sure dont heh) as this thread is not even LWF :P

Regards,
Thorsten

[trixian]

Well, first off, sorry to inadvertently hijack this thread, and secondly I apologise to Mr.Cubicle. I had hoped my inclusion of the internationally recognized "Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)" emoticon would make it clear that I, by no means, have a superiority complex, and that the reason I wrote that (the last line), was that I too had some healthy scepticism a long time ago.
Once I realised certain facts, I saw I had been very wrong.
The example I (rather cunningly) came up with was meant to exemplify that while one can easily model anything in any unit system, and any scale, putting them together in one scene later on might pose a problem. This was to try to keep it aligned with Thorsten's explanation on "down the line" problems occurring.

I will now retire from this thread, and continue to speak in a condescending tone to my co-worker.

[jujubee]

LOL this thread is full of win. Guys don't fight, we know you all love each other.

I use LWF and generally don't pass my files around - as I've stated NUMEROUS times for the following reasons:

1) Accurate light/shadow falloff.
2) Accurate colors between bitmaps and diffuse swatches.
3) Accurate bleeding.
4) Cross-program operability.

The more realistic my images get, the more companies demand specific colors from me (especially interior designers.) It's impossible to get specific swatches with any other method. Tweaking the 'old fashioned way' gives you highly unpredictable results that never look as close to reality.

The concept is not simple - there's a lot of information and a lot of wrong people spreading a lot of incorrect information. But it works mathematically and unless you dig very deep you will just consider this only to be hype. But there's an actual 'mechanical' reason for using this - it's because of the way different tools and Max interact with one another.

Some people skip the concept and jump directly to 'how-to.' I think this is a big mistake but whatever.

The reason why it's called 'linear' is because you're taking gamma curves and making a 'straight' line that can coexist between multiple applications.

'Rieder' or RWF - well that's named after someone's last name or so I think. From a personal standpoint, I would never name a method after myself. Or I suppose my method could perhaps be called:

CWF (confused workflow.)

[Neilg]

and that the reason I wrote that (the last line), was that I too had some healthy scepticism a long time ago.

But I do use LWF sometimes, and I know why it's used.
Sorry about the abuse, just took offense that you assumed that I brought up those points because I didnt know it. nevermind eh, we've all got our own methods

[beestee]

The only time you need a stardardised workflow is when your work will be going through a number of people and needing the same level on control on it every step of the way. This doesnt really happen in architecture, and so I consider the stress put on it's importance over-inflated.

I work strictly in architecture and I see great value in using LWF even if the all the work we do remains in-house, even with the same person through the project's lifespan. We have a high volume of work(around 20+ projects per week currently), and it is necessary that we are able to predict the outcome of a project early on regardless of the colors/textures involved...LWF makes that possible.

In fact, I recently attempted a project in our previous workflow just to see if working in LWF has made any difference. What I ran into were increased rendering times on top of more time spent tweaking lighting, materials, model, etc.

Everyone is entitled to work within their comfort zone, but for us, the evidence has stacked quite favorably towards LWF despite the rough transisiton, and we have no reason nor desire to revert to a previous workflow for any possible scenario. For us, it has solved many more problems than it has raised.

If you work in a way that is consistent and predictable, you are able to spend more time improving in other areas, so why wouldn't such a workflow be widely accepted and suggested?

[jujubee]

Beestee I agree completely.

[rmejia]

Well here's a little photoshop diagram of the way I see this whole gamma correction issue:


I assume that most people want to see things in Max and in your monitor in the same way. Most things (LCD monitors, digital cameras, photoshop, windows, etc...) work in a gamma 2.2 space, BUT Max works in a linear 1.0 space. Working in 1 and seeing in 2.2 is incorrect. Monitors suck and can't translate colors in a linear fashion, they have to apply a weird non linear (gamma) curve. If you try to display linearly recorded color on a non-linear output device like a monitor, you will not get linear output, and the result is a slightly different (darker) color than intended.

Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction

[instinct]

max default is not linear...it's sRGB that's the whole point. And regarding calibration anf gamma correction in an ideal world everything would be done linear and you'd have color profiles ONLY for outputting to any kind of device (like sRGB for your screen or some special profile, some printer profile for your printer etc etc).

Regards,
Thorsten

[jujubee]

Yep - those diagrams illustrate the point.

However, you cannot account for how each independent renderer is going to handle those curves or linearization. A slight programmatical difference and then shadows and colors can go far off quickly.

For instance, I still have problems with the VraySky/Sun when using LWF on exteriors. Androkonis agreed with me on his exteriors as well. I think LWF works fine from a method standpoint, but there is some discrepancy with sun/sky and cameras when corrected to 2.2. The color balance seems off - it's as if the sun/sky don't adjust to a 2.2 solution properly. The GI from the sky (not sun) doesn't seem to cast properly. You will also notice discrepancies with HDR multipliers.

For that particular reason, this is why something other than LWF could be employed for more visually accurate/appealing results on exteriors. Perhaps RWF or simply sticking to a Reinhard color mapping would work even better.

The end results no matter what is what matters ultimately - but for interiors LWF takes you 95% of the way there.

[instinct]

Mind you once more that the bigger problems arise in post...see http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html#examples

sRGB even fucks up scaling...so how would it do color operations correctly ? Regarding Sun and Sky mind you that the VRay implementation (just like 99% of the other implementations of sky systems out there) are NOT physical Sun/Sky simulations...they are physically BASED ANALYTICAL models...that's quite some difference, so color should be taken with a grain of salt by all means....linear or not :P

Regards,
Thorsten

[Morne]

why cant we just render properly with VRay? why do people always have to go to post? I'm geussing it speeds things up in post because you can fix your mistakes easier that way (that comment wasn't aimed at anybody in specefic, I'm just thinking out loud). So if there is some kind of method or workflow that will help us to do a whole lot LESS post, I'm all for it! So far LWF is not working for me. I'm not getting the same results as others in this forum. As soon as I have time I want to try this RWF method.

3dkad I like the results you got so far. It looks nice however I prefer your exterior tests more than the interior ones. When I try this method I'll probably have more comments.

Instinct and Cubiclegangster I have no doubt that you are two of the experts here and I'm sure you know what you are talking about. I have not experienced the problems in post yet that you mention Instinct, however as time goes on, I'll probably get there also and ask you guys for some help. But for now, open a cold one, put your feet up and smile

[instinct]

Check the link, save the source images and try it yourself in Photoshop. The examples are exxagerated of course. but still this does happen in any sRGB manipulation you do. more subtle but it's there.

And why do you insist on rendering a perfect pic straight out. I am afraid as long as there's a client this wont be the most effective way. As there's a marketing departement looking for a specific look. If a manufacturer builds a cheap product with cheap materials he surely doesnt want his ad's to reflect that :P

Regards,
Thorsten

[jujubee]

why cant we just render properly with VRay? why do people always have to go to post?

That would be nice. A long time ago I pointed out some of my LWF experiments and final results to Vlado after having banged my head against Throb's original LWF post.

The problem is that Vray was designed around Max. Max to begin with, operated in it's own universe at 1.0. I speculated with him that the reason people were getting very good results (albeit at larger render times) with Maxwell is that Maxwell circumvented Max's 1.0 by being a standalone renderer.

When I was rendering with LWF using Vray, I was getting pretty close results to Maxwell's realism at a fraction of the time.

I'm assuming fryrender operates similarly (as a standalone) although I have never used it.

Perhaps Mental Ray has taken a queue (again, I haven't used this) and adjusted their settings to match LWF as well. They would be wise to do so.

AFAIK, the only real way to 'settle' this properly once and for all would for Vray to be a standalone not tied to Max's own default gamma stupidity, or if there was a way for Vray by default to modify Max's default gamma to begin with.

With the later, I don't know if it is possible.