More gamma stuff and linear workflows

[flipside]

Or continue to make textures as you used to do earlier (= not worry about color profiles) and use the bitmap loader in max to adjust the gamma, or use the color correct plugin. This is not the perfect workflow but it will get you there too.

[SteveC]

cheers for the reply ene, i double checked everything but my materials
still appera washed out in the material editor and when rendered.

I've just double checked my monitors calibration and gamma and they
are fine, i checked all the settings vlado said to change and they are ok,
which only leaves the bitmaps i use.

I checked Photoshops colour settings and they are set to
sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

I think i'm doing something wrong in photoshop, when i take a bitmap
in to PS, I adjust its gamma, even down to where the bitmap is very dark,
but the bitmap still looks really bad in max, washed out.

where can i be cocking up

Update,

Just had another go at this, but this time only tweaked the bitmaps
brightness in photoshop, this did the trick for getting the material to render
out nicely, however, it was still looking pretty crap in the mat editor slot,
so i unchecked "Affect Material Editor" in the preferences\gamma and the
material looks fine in the editor.

So now i have all the settings vlado said for method 2 except affect
material in editor slot, does this still constitute working in linear
workflow

update of the update

You did it flipside, fiddling with the gamma overide in the material loader
worked, the material now shows up correctly in the mat editor also, at
last, thought i was going to go mental trying to do this

steve

[jujubee]

So i just need to adjust my materials in photoshop before i use them in the material slots in max

No. Let's define 'bitmaps' and 'materials' separately. The max plain 'materials' (not containing bitmaps) can be adjusted within the regular max interface. Your actual bitmaps (images that you can adjust in Photoshop) for the most part should be left alone.

It's rather complicated for me to explain here. But I don't think this is causing your problems.

[gilpo]

Sorry to jump in right in the middle of a discussion, but, jujubee, you're saying that if I go to a linear workflow, I DON'T have to adjust all my jpgs, pngs, tiffs, etc that I use for my textures?

I only have to adjust material settings (colors, glossiness, reflection values, etc) for existing scenes that I want to now render with LWF?

If this is true, that clears a major hangup we have with trying to go LWF. We have thousands of bitmaps and it would be a nightmare trying to adjust them all.

[R2J2]

Gilpo- for me, I've just got the bitmap input gamma to 2.2 and that means all my textures look fine. it's just the colour swatch gets the 2.2 gamma applyed to it so older colours that you have set up will change.
-So yes you only have to change the colours in the older materials the bitmaps should be fine.

[3ddesign]

I see a trend here that I think may need correction. Why do we continue to use the LWF acronym when Vlado points out that there are three methods used to correct for gamma. If we talked in terms of one of these three methods, calling them method 1, method 2 and method 3, and if everyone has actually read Vlados post, we might actually get somewhere and there would be less confusion. LWG means many things to many people due to the mass amount of information and misinformation floating around out there. The guru of Vray has spoken and I think we should put the term LWF to rest and start reffering to the methods Vlado mentions.

M1, M2 or M3, what method are you using? Well, glad you asked, I'm using M2.

Craig

[GALACTUS]

Sorry but am getting a little confused, do we change or dont we change input and output gamma, do we check or uncheck affect color and material editor. Some threads on the subject on LWF have varied opinions on what to change the only constant seems to be changing the actual gamma to 2.2 and checking enable gamma/lut correction.
Perhaps one of you more informed gentlemen could please elaborate on this.

Colin

[3ddesign]

I don't know what to say more than Vlado did at the beginning of this thread. Read it again, especially the part about the input and output bitmap gamma and check the Affect Color Selectors and Affect Material Editor options outlined in Method 2. Also, you need to specify which method you are using, M1, M2 or M3.

Craig

[mcnamex]

Re: More gamma stuff and linear workflows

III. Working in linear space /w linear display

For this method, your monitor is calibrated for linear output, and your images are stored in linear space. No color correction is necessary when working with the images, with the exception when you are using images (e.g. textures) created with method I. In that case, you will need to un-correct them before usage.

If you are using an LCD monitor, this may be the preferred workflow. In that case, no color transformations are necessary, except if you use images produced by method I.

Note that it may be tricky to use this method, as monitor calibrating software is usually designed to calibrate for 2.2 gamma. However, we need to calibrate for linear output (1.0 gamma).

To use this method with 3dsmax and V-Ray:
(*) Calibrate your monitor for linear output;
(*) Disable gamma correction in 3dsmax;
(*) Make sure all your textures are not gamma corrected. If a texture has some gamma correction baked into it, that needs to be removed first.
(*) Do not apply gamma correction to your rendered result.



-----------

All in all, it doesn't matter which method you choose - but when you choose one, you need to stick to it.

Best regards,
Vlado

I am a bit lose there vlado, how and what is the best possible way to calibrate my lcd monitor as to the linear output ) 1.0 gamma

cheers so much for clearing up the cloud in my brain

[mmrender]

(*) Make sure all your textures are not gamma corrected. If a texture has some gamma correction baked into it, that needs to be removed first.



I am a bit lose there vlado, how and what is the best possible way to calibrate my lcd monitor as to the linear output ) 1.0 gamma

cheers so much for clearing up the cloud in my brain

That's exactly what I was about to ask... as much read trough the forum, more questions I have

And the other question is how to recongnise if one texture is being gamma corrected or not.

Thank for the help.

Manuel

[jgray]

My head is swimming after reading this... I'm going to try LWF-M3 since I work on LCD monitors. So base on what I'm reading I would have to do the following?

01. Calibrate my LCD to Gamma 1.0 (using my Spyder2)
02. Render as usual
03. Save as usual (jpg, tiff, tga, etc.) or EXR, HDRI if I want to tweak the exposure

No Gamma correct in MAX?
No G-Buffer/Color Mapping in V-Ray?
No adjustments to my material texture maps?

I really want to understand this. Comments please...

Joel

[jujubee]

No. No offense but you have some reading to do. I just say this because we are all talking in circles now confusing it even more

You forgot the situation where jets are flying over your head while you're trying to figure out what people are talking about.

Heheh. Just saw that post. I've got three little kids running in the upstairs apartment, falling, and crying. It sounds like a mad-man hammering with the ocassional nail miss going all the time - just glad I learned it before they moved in.

[teabag]

look jgray...try this..it worked for me and i work with LCD
1. download lukxs video tutorial for the basic setting....
2. start a new scene...
3. create new materials...
4. at the bitmap input just press ok...
5. if they dont look correct in the mat editor, either correct them in PS or use collor correct and play with its gamma value
6. save the render from vfb with default gamma setting....

if youre are getting LWF image (and youll notice if its right or wrong, trust me) but youre not happy with the result, calibrate your monitor

[_jaro]

sorry for bringing up this again but some thing are confusing me a lot

1. I have calibrated my monitor to 6500 K, set gamma to 2.2 with "adobe gamma" calibrating software

2. I have set up 3ds MAX as Vlado describes in second method

3. I made simple int. scene and hit render. One result is in V-ray frame buffer, another is in MAX frame buffer. Resaults are completly different ( actualy I get same resault in V-ray frame buffer, when I apply correction control with value 0.6, as Chris describes on his DVD )

4. Which is correct? Its really confusing me a lot, because when I put same colour to photoshop, the color is different ( so textures are ), actually they are same in V-ray frame buffer with no correction, but they are washed out in MAX frame buffer. Do I need to tweak textures in photoshop to display them correctly when rendering is finished.

Can someone make this clear for me, because now I feel like Alice in wonderland

[Gijs]

this is to be expected, since the max frame buffer is now double corrected