Now lets assume you have a scene and you decided you want to go “wild crazy” and do the nasty - I mean try something called LWF. You apply 2.2 to everything. If it says gamma you say 2.2. You put in max’s viwpert lut preferences as gamma and input gamma for bitmaps. You use gamma correction color mapping put 2.2 or .4545 where you think it should go…
Then you render and everthing looks washed out. There are a few reasons for this but I think many people are forgetting a color correction when they are using straight colors.
Let me explain the 3 results
1. I used linear color mapping.
2. Gamma color mapping with .4545 in the inverse gamma see the diference in the shadows.
3. Corrected the color swatches. The colors I used are on the right as are the maps. I applied the color correct plugin added 2.2 to the gamma and I am getting a much more realistic match from the colors I picked.
Let me recap. Colors (not bitmap images that are used as materials) need to have an ADDITIONAL 2.2 gamma added or they will be washed out.
So for a LWF crazy good time you remember sun screen and color correction.
To be moderatly helpful I found the plug-in (at least I think its the plugin I can’t remember)
I only color correct my material color swatch if I am trying to match a previous color I used prior to LWF workflow, or a client has requested a specific RGB value for, say wall paint. As for the rest, I just make the color “darker” than I used to, so it appears “correct” when rendered.
Thank you Sawyer. This works very well in my opinion. Now when I use LWF my scenes look as I want with little to no guesswork about lightening or darkening material colors.
we use colorcorrect with gamma 2.2 even for color swatches. Otherwise it’s very hard to pick a dark grey for example. I also had a discussion with Chris Nichols about writing a new gamma corrected color picker. The standard color picker and the “cool pick” plugin both gamma correct the shown color in viewport and leave the spacing in the gradient linear.
I think there are cases when it would be better to see a linear color and gamma corrected values. This way you could pick low values again. Does this make sense?
It certainly does - I’m just using the gamma spinner in the color mapping dialog at the moment and then making my colours darker in the material settings but it’s getting to a point where the colours are incredibly dark, sometimes to the point that I can barely see any colour in the swatches - colour correct makes it much more convenient to get the right colours.
Does anyone know if MAX 9 or Vray 1.5 is looking into being more LWF friendly? If not, will the color correct plugin work for Max 9? I heard that Cebas is recompiling all their plugins because Autodesk finally redid the SDK.
This color correction plugin, does it just display corrected diffuse colors in the material editors or bitmaps also? I have a feeling I’ll have to redo my entire scene now since I’ve adjusted all my materials down so raically to behave correctly
On that note, I think many 3rd party plug-ins won’t work with MAX 9 because autodesk rewrote their SDK this time around. I got an email from Cebas saying they have to recompile all their products before they’ll work with MAX 9.
Well… Not exactly. I use LWF and I’ve never even used the color correct plugin, I just have to adjust the diffuse swatch colors until they look right - the pain in the butt way but it’s still a way
