New vray framebuffer doesn`t apply adjustments to render elements.

[piotrus3333]

tonemapped passes can not rebuild the beauty and this is their purpose. so you can go from 100% of reflections to 0% of reflections. or to 200%. you add up all the elements you need and get the final result. you can turn off some lights or make them twice as strong. every element can be adjusted to your liking. and now this is possible within VFB2. quite spectacular I would say whether you use it or not.

what you’re doing now is using them more as masks on your beauty and not as additive elements to create the beauty. nothing wrong with that - whatever works for you. but you are basically asking to implement an option to enable behaviour considered to be a bug. I remember very well that my photoshop template files were set up to correct VRayMultiMattes clamped by highlight compression VFB adjustment.

there is a thread “feature ideas 2” somewhere around. easy to check the users support for this.

[piotrus3333]

there is VRayBackToBeauty render element now - this should explain what render elements are meant for.

[seandunderdale]

There is no confusion over what render elements are for, but not everyone rebuilds a beauty in linear 32bit. However I would still like a reflection / spec pass to have the same grading as my beauty when I hand renders to a retoucher. The way the passes would be used is to screen (add) on certain parts of the passes to overall add contrast or shape to the beauty. What Im asking for is a tick box that says "apply colour corrections to render elements". Much like the tick box in the exr options in Vray Next for adding framebuffer grading. (which is broken for single channel exrs)

Its not a bug, its just a different workflow. The retouchers I work with want to treat a flat beauty like a photograph. They dont want layers and layers in a beauty rebuild in a 32bit comp that that has to be brought into another non 32bit comp as a smart object. They want a flat non floating point beauty ( exr / png). And passes that match the beauty to boost whats already there. Currently its not possible to do that if you use linear, unclamped renders in the framebuffer and grade on top of those before output to Photoshop.

[piotrus3333]

it become a bug when tonemapping options appeared in vfb.
still unclear to me why tonemapping via color mapping in render setup is not solving your issue.

and if retouchers are getting exr and using Photoshop than they are already going through photoshop-32bit-hassle. so tonemapping few more layers should not be an issue I guess.

on that point - not evolving VRay but Photoshop’s hdr handling is to blame for most problems like this one. Affinity on my ipad can do so much more with simple curves adjustment layer.

[seandunderdale]

We arent using a 32bit workflow in Photoshop. I render to PNG personally these days since the retouchers I work with prefer it. Tone-mapping in render settings means any framebuffer corrections in VF2 are working on a clamped image, which I why I tone-map using the framebuffer layers.

[piotrus3333]

We arent using a 32bit workflow in Photoshop. I render to PNG personally these days since the retouchers I work with prefer it. Tone-mapping in render settings means any framebuffer corrections in VF2 are working on a clamped image, which I why I tone-map using the framebuffer layers.

VRayUnclampedColor mentioned above will solve that.

[dreidesign]

I added VRayLightSelect manually. not through LightMix element. maybe this. no clue as I did not encounter the issue.

correct exposure? whatever looks good. you are tonemapping the output anyway so do you need to match raw output tonemapped by VRay with burn value? the difference might be coming from camera exposure so it could be predictable, not sure.
"messed up"? what do you mean? VRay saves the tonemaped, denoised, color corrected "beauty" as filename.effectsResult on my side.

We got that issue, cause we are using the LightMix element. So that worklow isnt applicable for us.

With "correct exposure" I mean settings of exposure layer, curve layer or whatever to get the unclamped color pass to look like the "normal" beauty. I tried your workflow and there is no way I could get near the "normal" beauty from the uncampled color with just an exposure layer or curve.

[piotrus3333]

We got that issue, cause we are using the LightMix element. So that worklow isnt applicable for us.

With "correct exposure" I mean settings of exposure layer, curve layer or whatever to get the unclamped color pass to look like the "normal" beauty. I tried your workflow and there is no way I could get near the "normal" beauty from the uncampled color with just an exposure layer or curve.

if mixing light manually with composite layer is dealbreaker for you than I ran out of solutions, sorry.
quick recheck with VRayUnclampedColor - works as expected here.
this is pixel value difference (just three decimal places in exposure layer value. use second layer if you need it “more” alike) between tonemapped rgb and unclamped with exposure:

[dreidesign]

if mixing light manually with composite layer is dealbreaker for you than I ran out of solutions, sorry.
quick recheck with VRayUnclampedColor - works as expected here.
this is pixel value difference (just three decimal places in exposure layer value. use second layer if you need it “more” alike) between tonemapped rgb and unclamped with exposure:

No problem. Just like seandunderdale said, a simple "apply colour corrections to render elements" tickbox would be the solution.

I rechecked on the scene the "unclampedcolor", when I compare the unclampedcolor against the beauty, the unclampedcolor got a super yellow tint. As if the white balance is "broken". With a simple exposure you get nowhere near the beauty. Maybe its scene related, and I test it with another one.

[piotrus3333]

as mentioned before - VRayUnclampedColor does not include camera exposure - same with white balance. so white balance layer, then exposure - in that order.

and just in case - check if your blending mode for VRayUnclampedColor is overwrite or normal.

[dreidesign]

Okay, that makes sense now. But this would also mean that when you got different exposures/white balance per camera you would need to manually change the values in the vfb composite?

[piotrus3333]

yes. different exposure and white balance per camera.
and no. nothing manual with maxscript. but I guess you are loading VFB2 corrections per camera anyway?

[wxyz]

why can't there be a WYSIWYG Button?

[seandunderdale]

I must be missing something here, since adding an exposure to an unclampedColor, and lowering the highlight burn, still kills off the lens fx. I now have an RGB render tonemapped from render settings, and an unclamped render which has super whites, which react to lens fx. However once an exposure is applied to the unclampedColor in the framebuffer, its the same as the RGB.

My bad, I had my order wrong. I was adding the exposure to the unclampedColor layer when it should have been a global effect, not specific to that layer. It seems to work ok now. Ill give it a go for a bit and see how it fits, but it seems to be doing the job. The retouchers I work with arent worried about precision, if they think it looks right, it is right, and this looks like its a step in the right direction.

That solves the lens FX issue, and tonemapping passes, but it doesnt fix any grading Ive done to the beauty that isnt applied to the passes. If I add a color balance and tint my shadows, that still only gets applied to the effects result. I also like to do my white balance is the framebuffer and this also isnt applied.

[mpavlos]

this actually makes them really useful in post.
but again - just bake in tonemapping and you are almost where you need to be. contrast and white balance can be transfered via lut I guess.

Looks like you don`t fully understand what you are talking about. seandunderdale is totally right about all layers being complete trash in VFB2. That`s why i started this topic.
Overexposed layers without all corrections applied are totally useless in postproduction. VFB1 worked well in this case. I rolled back to old VFB in vray5. Glad it`s possible.
I hope somebody from dev. team are reading this and "fix" this in some later vray version.