Dark Materials in Editor

[tct70]

Hi All,

I seem to be finding more and more that I need to make my materials (especially those with bitmaps) extremely dark in the ME in order for them not to be blown out when rendered. I've tried different kinds of colour mapping (linear, HSV exponential etc.) but always the same thing - especially when applying meterials to the roof of a building.

Now I'm sure I must be doing something dumb as I don't recall this being such a problem in the past. In my current scene I am using the Vray Sun and Sky for the first time with a Sun intensity of 0.01, along with a standard max (Viz in this case) camera, and HSV exponential colour mapping - all set to 1.0.

Any help you could give me would be much appreciated as I seem to be going around in circles and missing something probably quite fundamental.

Thanks,



Trev

[Neilg]

Happens with the exponential or gamma based workflows usually. Try reinhard.

[Clifton Santiago]

Are you using LWF? If so, make sure your bitmap input it set to 2.2. Otherwise your bitmaps are double gamma corrected and will appear washed out. As for materials with diffuse comprised of just color or procedurals, you need to make the colors darker than you did prior to LWF. Or if you want to match an old color or a specific RGB value, just use the color correct modifier with a gamma of 2.2.

[tct70]

Hi Clifton,

I'm not using LWF as I am unable to get my head around it - mainly because I have 2No. Benq LCD monitors and have no idea how to calibrate them - or indeed what to calibrate them to, and still don't understand what to do as most of what I've read seems to refer to CRT's. I'd dearly like to know what to do as I've seen some fab renders with LWF but would need someone to "hold my hand" (no literally you understand) thru the process.

I have swithced to Reinhard colour mappimg and that has improved things dramatically, although I'm sure I could do better.