Saving out to .EXR and Post Question

[jujubee]

I'm wondering how some of you guys save out to .exr using LWF.

I'm not 'baking in' LWF at the moment because of VrayRT.

1) Check VrayFB SRGB button.
2) Save to .exr

At step 2, I've been playing around with various settings before saving out.

Is there any particular method the rest of you use before importing the .exr into PS?

And just curious, what other things ARE you doing afterwards in post? Usually I tweak the contrast and exposure a little. PS out some unintentional errors. I might add a lens blur from DOF (I was looking at Rosenman's DOF Pro but last I checked, 64 bit PS wasn't supported.) Some sharpening.

[sv]

use the Vray RAW image save and use EXR extension - this write a multichannel EXR, unlike the Max save function.

[jujubee]

Pardon my ignorance - but when you say 'Multichannel' - what does that mean?

[jujubee]

Ah okay - I always thought it was mostly the Render Elements and I just read about it here:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/.../t-527415.html

[jujubee]

I'm sorry I'm feeling like a total noob trying to understand this all. I guess that's what I get for teaching myself graphics from day 1.

Should add that I don't use compositing tools much. I thought multichannel EXRs will only be read with something like the ProEXR plugin, which doesn't work on CS4 x64 (although I just read there's a beta.)

Also appears Shimzake has an importer here as well:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...t=41740&page=2

Looks like I have my homework to do... All I was looking for was some simple tips lol.

[jujubee]

Okay great. Now I'm saving out to .exr using the vrimg dialogue and have the proExr beta installed.

Open up the image and all imports into separate layers nicely.

That's great an all, but now what? I know I can play with layer blending and isolating different items (such as specular, shadows, etc.) - but how and what are most of you guys doing with these separate layers?

[Morne]

I also would like to know. Jip same here. Teaching yourself can sometimes be confusing and you could miss the important stuff. Also another question, ones you' ve done all you want to with the exr in photoshop or nuke or whatever, do you then save the final client version to a jpg and that's that? I mean you work in float, do all the adjustments in float, but then the client just gets a standard 8bit jpg?

[Clifton Santiago]

I usually use them in AE, because the proEXR plugin in not suported in 64-bit PS CS4. I usually just use the multi channel render elements for masking geometry using Material and Object ID. If I need further control, like to reduce reflection strength globally, I might render Total Lighting, Reflections, Refractions and Specular. I would then add them together and reduce the opacity of reflections layer. Also sometimes I'll just render the specular channel, blur it, and Screen or Add the layer on top of the otherwise final rendering for a nice specular/diffuse glow.

[3DLVIZ]

In this thread here the author of ProEXR released a beta (1.5b) for the software and it supports Photoshop CS4 x64.

Scroll down a bit to see the thread from fnordware(reply #26):

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/42755...node0?tstart=0

Haven't tried it yet as I'm in the middle of a render, but will do so tomorrow.

-Dave

[3DLVIZ]

Just tested it out and it does infact work with CS4 X64 on Vista.