Feature request: One click ACES scene conversion button please

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Hello,

here is one more feature to consider which is nothing "smaller" than one click ACES scene conversion button
Please correect me if my assumtions are way off but i was thinking that since vray knows which maps are plugged into correcponding mtl nodes it could automatically make all the necessary setups
The current workflo is quite tedious especially in studio environment with TB of libraries of models and textures.
Thanks for consideration.
Among some other smaller updates ive already read here, this woudl be a true vray 6 seller for us.
Cheers
M

[DanSHP]

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...ymtl-converter

One click solution

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...ymtl-converter

One click solution

Isn't that from a Russian developer? Might have problems paying with sanctions and all that.

[^Lele^]

Well, it's paid in USD, checking on their site.

[atanasbak]

Or you can also try this tool: https://youtu.be/ae0XcGLG2RI

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

OK so heres my experience with above mentioned plugins/scripts

1.
Aviz AColor Manager
-
works but it makes the render about 4 times longer!!!!! Tried all sorts of material conversion mechanisms it offers. Some crash the scene when it starts rendergin, some take ages to render. Applying more layers on top of it in VFB produces some weird results too.
DONT BUY/DOWNLOAD!!!!

2.
VrayMat Converter
Doest seem to have done the conversion at all, although it was crunching something...no idea whats going on in the background but maps remained unchanged in terms of the setup


I really hate using 3rd party plugins for something that could be done by developers inside vray as a tool especially for major payed release - no offence. Spent almost 100 dollars today for nothing :-/

Is there really nothing you can do about this feature guys???
Wanna convert? Use another plugin tool principle doesnt cut it really.

M

[^Lele^]

Is there really nothing you can do about this feature guys???

What *exactly* would the feature entail?

[Morne]

What *exactly* would the feature entail?

Personally, to me, no conversion should be needed.

It should simply be an on/off switch
On = Aces (ie treats all your existing assets as srgb primaries etc, deals with gamma etc. It knows internally how to handle diffuse textures, no matter if bitmap, procedural, vraybitmap, whateverm vs non diffuse stuff like glossy, bump, normal)
No need to rename stuff either

Off = classic sRGB

[Morne]

.....and because I cant edit Beta posts, some more info added to my previous message:

when on - acec, it should of course also handle all your view transforms, opencolor and all the stuf that goes with it

[^Lele^]

I'd like to see a laundry list written.
The reason i ask is because to me that is nigh undoable universally (bound to have a zillion special cases not well handled. Remember the LWF checkbox.).
Perhaps though, reading a precise list of what needs to be done would show me the error in my thought processes.
F.e. incoming assets could be ACES encoded.
So doing it with "No need to rename stuff" could work only some of the time ("some of the time" is -for us- between risky and a nono.).

[Morne]

2 auto options then
1, in the way I mentioned, and another for already ACES encoded files.
(and perhaps a 3rd for a mix between the 2)

For us for example, we dont have a single asset over almost 30 years in the industry, that is encoded in ACES. Everything is sRGB. For libraries on our shopping list that we aim to still purchase down the line, we're not aware of any of them utilising ACES assets.
We merely want that new thing "make pretty" called ACES to get our end results looking good, sooner, with less hassle.

There's great minds working at Chaos, well hopefully. I'm sure between all of them, they can come together and come up with something keeping both camps happy.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

What *exactly* would the feature entail?

Hi Lele,
have you seen in that above mentioned video how its supposed to work? https://youtu.be/ae0XcGLG2RI
Although to me what they show in the video its half way working cos i was getting all kinds of errors when i tired to use vray source code options...also they show the featuires on very simple scene.
But something along the workflow those Aviz guys have...

I also condur with Morne.
I tend to believe most of the studio pipelines use adn will be using srgb encoded asets and its almost impossible to convert several terabytes of data to Aces..rename, encode and what not....
Not a coder, far from it so i can only say how i visualise it
Button or a few in the vray system rollout to switch between aces/srgb that wold take care of all necessary adjustments in the materials, vfb etc
Whats happens in the background stays in background - similar to what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

If there are many options we might get into the LWF waters, if i remember correctly, many people, years after its introductions had problems hitting and tweaking all the settings to get it right.

I dont think ACES is some kind of color approach that will magicaly turn ones shitty 3D into beautifully photographic work of art, but having the option to swim into those waters when you need to, with ease, that is at least for me a strong selling point.

[^Lele^]

I personally have a number of open issues with ACES, that i have not yet seen addressed anywhere.

There's either bubbling, unbounded positivity, and absolutely no color picking, or math involved (particularly in artist-driven tutorials), or there's silence (for years on end.), conflicting technical opinions, and no unique solution to a number of issues (i try and get my info at the source, so on aces central or through the technical documents on github.).
So far, i haven't seen the issues being raised by anyone in here, and that's why i remain quite suspicious, and unconvinced we should actively promote it as a universal, one-click approach (while we should indeed provide support for it. Some *do* render to DCI-P3 devices.)

But as mentioned, that's just my own take on it, which may well be flawed: the math isn't easy and there's ample scope for getting lost in details, or to oversimplify and ignore the root issues.

[atanasbak]

1 - works but it makes the render about 4 times longer!!!!!
2 - Tried all sorts of material conversion mechanisms it offers.
3 - Some crash the scene when it starts rendergin, some take ages to render.
4 - Applying more layers on top of it in VFB produces some weird results too.

1 - Rendering in ACEScg is by definition harder to compute, in our tests it takes from 10-20-30% longer, depending on the scene (but not 400%).
2 - We recommend the default one or if you have OCIO config setup the first option. Please send us a scene that you are having issues with so that we can recommend a solution.
3 - We use standard OSL maps for the material conversion and sometimes V-Ray will crash, any complex shader can crash any renderer. Nothing that we can do about, we log a few bug reports: 1, 2
4 - We apply only one lookup table layer to convert from ACEScg to sRGB color space the final image. You should turn off/delete any other previous color correction layers as they behave differently in ACEScg.

ACESsg is a much better color space to work with, from the test renders to the post production.
We build AColorManager for us and the artists so that we can focus on creating better images without wasting time on technical setups or configs.

[piotrus3333]

1 - Rendering in ACEScg is by definition harder to compute, in our tests it takes from 10-20-30% longer, depending on the scene (but not 400%).

it is very misleading to say that VRay in ACEScg mode renders slower. if you compare ACEScg vs sRGB both tonemapped with OCIO results will be pretty much the same timewise. if you are getting noticeable time difference that means you are not accounting for one stop of exposure lost with OCIO setup - so ACEScg renders slower but ends up being less noisy.