Hi,
This is more general than vray related question. I tested max 2015 and noticed that color correct plugin is not available for it. I am using it alot with my current max version. Is there any easy solution to convert all the color correct parameters to something that max 2015 can handle? One way is of course that I create bitmap for all the solid colors but it’s quite a big project.
It says here that ColorCorrect for 3ds Max 2015 is available:
http://www.cuneytozdas.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC\_ID=1035
Best regards,
Vlado
Thank you a lot for the link. That was a saver.
I’m wondering what’s wrong with the native color correction built in max? People always complain about it but I don’t see what’s wrong.
For some reason it causes significant render slowdowns with Vray. There have been calls for Chaos to implement their own VRay ColourCorrect material, which would be fantastic.
Try using any of the hue and saturation controls in it, it utterly trashes the data in your texture map.
It also causes significant viewport slowdowns, I’ve found. It’s very irritating because quite a few stock model companies are using CC mats for their models, such as the HQ Trees packs etc.
Two questions related with the plugin color correct.
A. If I use the native color correct, and change gamma to 2.2 for instance; it ‘brightens’ my image; If I do it with the plugin he ‘darkens’ it.
B. With the native color correct can adjust hue and saturation, to be able to compare to the plugin, does the native one work in HSV or HSL?
Yeah there seems to be different interpretations of some gamma things, just use 0.454545 instead of 2.2 and you should get the same result. I’m not sure on hsl or hsv in the native one but I find doing any quite large adjustments in it tends to break your colour information really badly. The brightness and contrast controls are particularly bad, definitely use the advanced mode rather than basic, it’s a bit softer.
Never used brightness and contrast; only gamma tbh. And some desaturation and hue shift now and then. Never had problems or I just didn’t know what to compare it to. Will start using the plugin now and see if that improves things 
Yeah it’s just big transforms I find to be really destructive.
I’m told this is improved already, but I don’t know if this is for the current 2015 release, or for a future release.
Best regards,
Vlado
We try to use as few plugins as possible. We use the inbuilt colourcorrect regularly. I have read that it can cause slowdowns with VRay. I didn’t realise that the 3rd party version of this does not cause these slowdowns.
Has anyone done any tests, or is this urban myth? We are on Max2014 with Vray3 btw.
Good to know. I’ve never used this 3rd party CC myself either, only the native one.
I was told the improvements went into 3ds Max 2015. Now I have to try my sample scene to see if it indeed works better.
Best regards,
Vlado
I find most people use the third party Color Correct plugin as a way to generate a solid color. In VRay we have the VRayColor map, which does the same thing (probably a hint faster since that is all it does). So I would never use a third party to to generate a solid color.
As far as the built-in color corrector goes see below for a summary of a posting I made to CGTalk here that explains we so many people have crap results with the built-in color corrector when using linear workflow:
The math for the built-in Color Correction node seems to expect 2.2 gamma data.
When in 2.2 gamma mode (linear workflow) in Max all textures get converted internally to linear space. So you are essentially feeding linear images into the Color corrector. This produces the ugly results.
If you want to fix it you can convert your texture back to gamma 2.2 first and then back to linear afterwards.
Do this by putting a color correct with the gamma (advanced radio button where brightness contrast is) set to 2.2 in front of your main color correction. Then put a color corrector with the inverse of 2.2 which is 0.4545 (1/2.2 = 0.4545) after the color corrector. This will convert it back to linear.
I think this will give you the result you want.
NOTE: It looks like viewport textures may be processed in 8 bit (or have some other clipping issue, like a signed value wrapped to negative - probably ought to report this), because they look like crap after this, but the preview of the material, and the render look good.
Note that I would never use brightness or contrast for anything. Instead use an “Output” map and enable the color map to use it like a Curves control. (You could enable the color map on the bitmap itself, but then you loose the ability to have it affect more than one thing because it is no longer a separate node.) Note that this color map will also be operating in linear space as well, unless you use the two color correctors to make in gamma 2.2. So you curve may look different from what you are used to.
I did some speed testing regarding the built-in color corrector vs the Color Correct plugin (under Max 2014 with VRay3).
I used four color correction nodes (of each type) chained together in series, only doing gamma adjustments, up and down. This is probably close to worst case since the nodes are called four times.
No CC Nodes:...............................20.2s
Built-In CC Nodes:.........................28.8s
3rd party Color Correct Nodes: ............21.8s
That is enough (32% faster) of an improvement that I guess I will be installing the 3rd party Color Correct by Cuneyt Ozdas on the farm, and eat my words about avoiding 3rd party plugins… I will still use VRayColor for solid colors, though…
The built-in ColorCorrection map should be faster in 3ds Max 2015 - it would be interesting to do your test there.
Best regards,
Vlado
Yeah… I’d think carefully about that. I loved that plugin right up until he stopped developing it for a few releases. Then I hated it.
Does the speed continue to decrease in a linear fashion if you add more nodes to your test? I was just wondering if 4 is close to the worst possible case?
If you had the native colour correct involved in multiple places within VrayBlend materials throughout a scene I could imagine quite a few nodes being used per calculation of each ray (if that’s the right way of thinking about it at all).
It’s a shame there’s no way of forcing each node to save it’s results in RAM at the beginning of the render. I guess this eliminates one of the advantages of colour correct but it’s not really what I think of when I’m using it - more of a convenience being able to make image adjustments within Max.