LWF 2.2 Poll ! Yes or No !

[instinct]

- max, vray, photoshop, monitor settings, VGA drivers, printers - all this stuff is designed to reproduce light as close as possible to it's phisicaly characteristics known to the science. Of course with many restriction because of hardware imperfection and historicaly developed limits.

- max and vray is not perfect and may be there are tons of algorithms to be added to develope the way they acts to get close real life light distribution. Rememmber how exalted we were of the "realistic" balls of 3dstudio4 for DOS Despite this they are adjusted to be accurate to the phisical characteristics of light. Gamma 2.2 could be implemented as default setting, but it's not done for now.

Huh ?? These many restrictions you mention are exactl why there is sRGB in the first place. And claiming sRGB would be more photorealistic then linear is a tad far-fetched. Put a red sphere on a white plane and render with GI. That kind of colour-bleeding is realistic ? You have to light differently with LWF. And if you do so results are better in my eyes (besides other nice effects like beeing able to maintain a fully linear and fully float pipeline throughout). sRGB is by design getting rid of colour-information. I prefer doing that jsut before the final outcome, not before even post-processing it.

Regards,
Thorsten

[studioDIM]

Lele,
of course it's amazing that LWF method developed and good explained. Highly appreciate LWF. It's always good to have alternatives. Hope you to accept my words positively.

Sure do, no worries

I have a questions I'll be glad to find answers if you know this.
-how many bits per chanel is VRIMG and VFBuffer?
-how many bits per chanel is OpenEXR file format?
-how many bits per chanel is MAX9 frame buffer?

They are all 96BPP.
The max FB by default clamps to 1.0
EXR has variants at different bit depths, but does reach 32 per channel

-why when converting vrimg ("clamp" and "subpixel mapping" are unchecked) to openexr, the file size drops down significialy (sometimes nine-ten times)? Is it depend of some kind of compresion or method for storing Fpoints data?

The VRIMAGE file format isn't meant for storage efficiency, but for non-linear writing. EXR has also lossless compaction embedded, hence the different file-sizes.

-why when open in Photoshop converted OpenEXR is not so "dinamic" as the same image when in VrayFrameBuffer?
-is there any bugs when converting VRimg to OpenEXR related to the bit depth?

I don't think the issue is there at all.
There may be some issue with clamping, but i don't think (wild guess here) that it is anything other than a conversion option, ie. it's not "embedded" that way in the converter, it's most likely a default that can be changed.
Also, i do not trust PS as a program that understands FP imagery properly.
IT's too new for adobe, and they suck, imho, at that, compared to proper, full-FP softwares (the ones mentioned above).

Lele

[HMA_Steve]

im with kalografik. tried it but dont like lack of contrast.

[kalografik]

Thorsten,
sRGB and Adobe1998(AdobeRGB) are colorspaces and do have nothing about lighting in 3D. LWF changes scene lighting levels and your approach to achive realism.
As for the red ball - its depend on material setting and the level of secondary bounces in Vray. Personally I keep SB very low because of unnatural look at high levels. The Red ball example is good for visualizing color bleeding but do not illustrate the light/shadow distribution at diferent gamma settings when using LWF.

And, yes I'm agree to everybody - all we gona get good for the eyes images on every occasion, exept when composite with video or photo.

[instinct]

Well they have a LOT to do with lighting in 3d. For the exact reason you gave. LWF does not change your lighting levels actually. sRGB does. And you are used to it hence the lighting you are used to doesnt work anymore in LWF of course. That's my whole point. But that's not cause LWF is always pale and has no contrast, but cause the lighting is not set up correct for LWF. You need to think different and work different yes. And your old scenes will look crazy off when simply switched to LWF, yes...But that's a whole different matter.

[crazy homeless guy]

Thorsten,
sRGB and Adobe1998(AdobeRGB) are colorspaces and do have nothing about lighting in 3D. LWF changes scene lighting levels and your approach to achive realism.

i think they do unless you are color calibrating your monitor to a 1.0 gamma? i think monitors are typically set up for a sRGB color curve, which i think is a 2.2 gamma. this is the whole reason you have to apply the curve correction to the frame buffer to see what the hell is going on when working in linear space. you are basically compensating for your monitor being calibrated with a curve when you click the sRGB button in the vray frame buffer. it is making the image match what your monitor is set to display.

if you calibrated your monitor to a gamma of 1.0, then everything would look correct in the vray frame buffer without applying a correction curve.

As for the red ball - its depend on material setting and the level of secondary bounces in Vray. Personally I keep SB very low because of unnatural look at high levels. The Red ball example is good for visualizing color bleeding but do not illustrate the light/shadow distribution at diferent gamma settings when using LWF.

if you are simply trying to save out of 3dsmax, and not do any post work, then LWF probably isn't for you.

....when i first started 3d, i would try to do all of my work in 1 piece of software. i thought it showed how good or talented i could be by not having to do post work on it. then i woke up and smelled the coffee. the image you get out of max is the base image you have for your final. the post processing is where the final umph and magic is applied to the image. so.

[kalografik]

Thorsthen
Ok indeed LWF pushed you to work "darker" and you have to change all the scene respectively to the what you see.
Ok LWF indeed does not change lighting levels. You set them by what you see in the new circumstances when switching LWF. But it changes linearity of the gray gradients in channels all over the scene: light, shadows, textures, swatches etc. This is what the Gamma change - linearity. Putting Gamma different than 1.0 is similar to apply Photoshop "Curves" all over the MAX as a preprocess, including light falloff linearity. Thats why LWF changes lighting, not levels indeed

sRGB is just limited colorspace designed to simplify stitching hardware color reproduction. sRGB was created because using wider AdobeRGB has unpredictable color reproduction on different devices.
-sRGB - if you want good color match reproduction in WEB, and flawless work between softwares.
-AdobeRGB - if going to print with some good photoprinter or if you have good monitor.
But again, the colorspaces do have nothing common with gamma exept that AdobeRGB can produce richer detail when gamma is pushed up on good monitor.

Of course everything about LWF and colorspaces is up to your likings.

All that thread is because the Candelero's try to convince me that LWF at 2.2 is absolutly and only way to approach PHOTOrealism and I'm sorry we wasting your time in such technical debates.

Regards

[Candelero]

All that thread is because the Candelero's try to convince me that LWF at 2.2 is absolutly and only way to approach PHOTOrealism and I'm sorry we wasting your time in such technical debates.

I said it is easier and more natural to the eye... not that it is the only way !
At least everyone's eyes accept photorealism differently... as we are all different !

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

[kalografik]

Candelero, read the first post again to remember what was your yesterday's state.

... as we are all different - is a different thread.

also you said that "YES" option will be above 90%. Do not forget this for a week.

Ring the bell again my friend
Notice that the results are not influenced by our conversation here so don't be loud

best regards

[instinct]

noone is going to force you to use LWF. i wouldnt say it's the only way to achieve photorealism, but sure is the most straight forward one for me once i got used to the differences. Plus it adds a big nice galore of post possibilities

Regards,
Thorsten

[ene.xis]

might not be the most photorealistic way (whatever that is!?) but it sure looks to me as the closer way to real-life imho

[Candelero]

My position was that LWF is always more photorealistic and real rather than working in Gamma 1.0.

Kalografik, this is what I said !
As for the 90%, well that's because we added more options.
)))

Anyway , it is a nice discussion - which I find is very useful and of course
will confuse all the young jedis.


Best regards,
nikki Candelero

[ene.xis]

ya bet!
Lwf as a thread topic is always granted to be a funky one!


but a again confusion is more about semantics than thechnic imo

[kalografik]

Candelero,
OK anyway. Will be back a week later to take my results
Astalavista baby

Thornsten- I agree with you.

ene.xis - it's up to personal perceptions indeed

[DaForce]

fight fight fight

oh wait thats not helping is it