migrating to linear color mapping?

[fael097]

Hi, I've been using exponential color mapping for a while now since it gives me a good result out of the box, not much post production needed for what I'm doing. but recently I started working with lighting expositors (lamps etc) and I really need to incorporate lens effect into my workflow, and that's not possible with exponential color mapping, so I'm decided to switch to linear, but I'm having a hard time doing so.

I uploaded renders for the same scene in both kinds of color mapping.

I've trying using the exposure correction in vfb, but the results are never any good, dialing down the highlight burns always makes everything grayed out.

any suggestions?

[Oleg_Budeanu]

Hey there.
I believe that the best solution for you will be to break down the image by render elements and control them separately. I think that the best will be to create the lightselect element for each of the light to control it separately. Rendering everything in 32 bit of course to control burns and dark areas.

[piotrus3333]

highlight burn alone is not enough - you need to boost contrast of raw render as well with ''contrast'' slider or curves / levels. looks like your black shaders are too dark also - these should look more milky on untreated render.

[svetlozar.draganov]

Don't count too much on post-processes. They are fine for fine tuning but balancing light illumination is the best way solve such overbright or way too dark areas in the image.
The latest beta version of 3dsMax has automatic exposure tool which might be very useful in such cases.

[Mugga]

I'm also very interested in this progress. I got exactly the same issue. When I try to work with real exposure values and setting sun and sky to 1.0 intensity I get heavy blown out areas.

There a 3 ways I can get rid of them:
- Lower the intensity of the lights to get it right
- Using the exposure of the vfb and get the highlight burn down
- Going towards exponentional exposure

[svetlozar.draganov]

The most proper way to adjust exposure when working with high intensite light source like Sun is to use Physical Cam with Exposure Control. Lowering Sun intensity or exposure in VFB are not as good as Physical Cam with exposure control.