Little script one points at a root folder which contains .CUBE LUT files, and then can browse those with a realtime feedback in the VFB.
It also allows to export a set of RGBA images, one per LUT, in any of the VFB-Supported formats (it includes only two extensions in the file save, for simplicity’s sake, but one can override as wished.)for further post-process.
Note that saving Exr images will NOT save the tone mapping with them, use a LDR format like the ones suggested, or save the EXR and move the LUT application to post.
No support offered, no requests accepted.
Feel free, however, to expand on the code as you see fit.
EDIT: V0.03 offers auto-detection of LOG/LIN LUT types from the filename (there is no consistent use of metadata in the cube files to that purpose).
It can always be overridden, of course, but comes in handy to save out wedges.
EDIT: V 0.05 fixes a potentially nasty bug with preset saving.
EDIT: V 0.06 adds tooltips to all the UI controls.
EDIT: V 0.07 adds back in the ability to save variants. As a temporary workaround fix to the focus stealing, have every VFB accessory panel (Color correction, history, lens effects and so on) CLOSED when running the script.
EDIT: V 0.08 has a temp fix for the focus stealing, which consists of the script hiding the side panels before (auto) applying a LUT. Drawback: it currently doesn’t restore the panels status, so you’ll have to unhide them manually. V-Ray LUTs Explorer Intro Video.zip (5.51 MB) LUTsExplorer_008.zip (2.95 KB)
LUTs are look up tables this mezns that it shift a certain color into another.
As easy as it seems, it’s only a file that condense a color grading that could have been done with whatever post production tool (in different steps).
So yes, you can build them youself of course but those who already exist uses the knowledge of people how are usually professional graders.
Keep in mind that as those are just chats to shift colors, they have been created to work on a certain type of footage in the first place or to give a certain mood to a film etc.
That’s why one LUT will not work for all your different shots and why we want to be able to scroll through a bunch to give a different look than the one we have out of our raw render because a) we are bot constrain to a specific look and b) because the same lut wont give the same result depending on the raw footage.
LUTs is a old technique that is commonly used in film and advertising productions but they seems to get pretty trendy those days build in the render frame buffers.
I’m more interested in getting a proper bloom and glare like FStorm or Octane one straight in Vray, that would make a huge difference as it’s not that easy to the those properly done in comp (at least not with AFX)
Yes and the LUT can give the intended look only if it came from the same kind of source the LUT was using when it was created, so that’s why many LUTs will just look like shit when just playing with them randomly. So we need to find LUT that were created to work on linear image I guess.
I asked in the wishlist section to add a weight for the LUT in the VFB. Another useful thing could be to be able to layer the LUT. I know it sound against what LUT are made for but it could add more variations. We then completely loose the expertise that were put in those LUT in the first place when layering them, but it’s more a way to play rapidly with many random variation of color grading. Creating new variation by varying each LUT weight and layering them. the more we have variation and the more we can adjust them the fastest we can find the right recipe. It’s like cooking when we play with different spices.
It is a old technique that I heard about since probably 20 years but I never really knew what it was exactly. Now I’m so happy to know! In fact it’s just a preset of color correction filters.
I played with the glare and bloom in V-Ray and also in Fstorm this week. Normally I would always do that in comp cause it’s way too slow in V-Ray. In comp I could get decent result pretty fast. But in Fstorm it’s just photoreal and real time too. It’s also better than what I usually get in comp. And the good thing is that you get instant feedback so you can adjust your rendering settings to get the perfect glow really fast. We really need this in V-Ray too! Sounds like a gadget that serious production will not use cause they do that in comp. But I think it’s more than that. It’s a tool that will allow us at the 3D step to find the right render, shader, lighting settings to get the perfect photoreal look along with LUT hand in hand. Cause LUT is also the same kind of tool that allow us to prepare our render outputs more perfectly and rapidly for the compositing step.
it would be a good idea to have an opacity slider because alot of the luts can only be used at a fraction of their strengths on rendered images so when you actually bring a lut into vray its either that lut is modified already to a weaker value somehow, easiest way now is in photoshop because using them as is in vray doesnt really give the results i am looking for.
Lele, the whole purpose of the FStorm / Octane (few months ago) etc is to skip the step of a post production tool, either PS or Nuke or afx or any other.
Those artists (me included) want to be able to have a final deliverable product to the client straight out of the VFB.
I know it doesn’t make sense for those who are used to a bigger pipeline where you need to export as linear and do a hundred of things after the 3D step, but it’s not the case for a lot of people out there that works on any other kind of work than big productions.
Besides the fact that i can’t fathom why you’re advocating delivery of NEGATIVES (Or Polaroid prints) to your client, and disregard the DEVELOPMENT (Or are unhappy at the Polaroid’s one) as if it was a dirty, or expensive, thing (Fusion is free for commercial use.), if i had a penny for each of my wishes, i’d be a millionaire today.
The truth of the matter is that I can’t do it.
You want, you have the code, and permission (encouragement!) to edit it.
Will, means, and allowance: get editing!
I haven’t said it’s dirty or expensive, I know some tools are free and we have bought few of them.
I’m just saying I like to get all my groceries from the same super market, it take me the hassle away of taking my car to go to 5 different shops.
Beside being easier, it brings me home earlier to see my family.
The whole purpose of that talk as I said (and I can dig up the thread of octane if you can’t remember) is that we want to have that integrated in the VFB.
We are not coders, we are artists, and we are here on this forum to try to push the development stage of the software into the direction we thinks it would serve us best.
I know you can code though but you’re also a artists so you are kind of in between and have two hats on your head, that’s great but if you say you can’t with this tool, well this shows again why we would need that integrated straight into the VFB. Or do you imply no one in Chaos Group could code a blended layered LUT CC in the VFB at all?
But hey, if the only response from CG to wishes is : “do it yourself” well then I guess I won’t spend so much time trying to push Vray forward (IMO) anymore.
You can keep asking, and get no response from the coders.
No reply doesn’t mean they haven’t read, it means they have no reply to offer yet.
I gave you a free tool, which is better than nothing, and in the process showed you that it’s well within the scopes of an artist’s skills (Where scripting belongs.).
I also wrote, in bold, that i’d accept no request, nor provide for any support, so your surprised resentment is well out of place, as is, but that’s strictly my personal take, the boundless sense of entitlement.
You’re left, really, with few choices: dig into the tool code and make it better, make do with what’s been freely provided to you and some of your own legwork (we also have families we’d like to see, every now and then, you see. A bit each, yes?), or wait for whenever the VFB will have what you want.
Maybe for V4, maybe sooner, maybe later, maybe never: you’ll have to wait for the reply of someone who knows.
I spontaneously tried to help, on a weekend, in July.
I shall go more to the sea instead.
Personal request: please stop naming every other renderer on the planet and make it a yardstick able to sustain an argument.
It’s not a valid argument, it’s awfully tiring, it’s hardly ever actionable.
Find better arguments than “X has it”, or “I Don’t want to do that”, and we may enter a mature conversation on features and workflows.
This approach isn’t one i feel i can contribute to in any meaningful way, so i’ll stop right here.
Sorry if I offended you Lele, and I appreciate your work as I mentioned in my first post on this thread, this tool is absolutely great.
I didn’t meant I would like this tool to be any different, I just wished this tool as well as some other implementations where done straight in the VFB.
Maybe I should have gone with those wishes on another thread where we also speak exactly about the same things, I just lose track with all those threads spread around.
I’m very grateful you took it on you to get this tool out and I’m sure it will be a real benefit for the whole community
But I have a problem when I try to save the result: I launch your script, load a LUT .cube file, choose a preset I like and then hit the “Save current channel” button. But when I open the image in PS, it seems the LUT has not been applied. What am I doing wrong ?
I also tried saving the image using your “Save Variations” button: it works but I can’t have a 16bit Tiff image, only 8 bits.
EXRs do not save the LUT, while any non-FP format saved directly from the VFb should maintain the color corrections.
I do not know of any option for the file saving from the maxscript side, so 16bit tiff can’t be processed by the script, currently (they seem to always come out as 8bit).
Saving one from the vfb itself, however, will pop up the TIFF format settings, and all ought to be good.
