I think this is a super idea! I’ll contribute mats.
I don’t know about the LWF thing either. I currently don’t use it. I have those ultra bright (light your whole room) Dell FPW2005’s, and I tried using the LWF, but the gamma correction on my monitors made it difficult to get right on other monitors. I just decided to give up on the whole thing and drop back to basics. Just eliminate the monitor from the mix.
I mean, look, we’re all using different monitors, so the mats are obviously going to look different to everyone anyway, so why try to make it so scientific?
You guys are bordering on the maxwellian (must match reality 100%) ideals, which drives me crazy. We’re in the business of making pretty pictures, not replicating reality to the nth.
Telling someone to turn the gamma off in max is no harder than telling them to switch it on to 2.2 - I dont use LWF in most of my scenes either, its on a case by case basis. Sometimes I use 1.8 gamma, sometimes 2.2. But I always start with gamma turned off, and I assumed most other people did too.
My point is not that people use LWF necessarily. That’s up to each person. I’m only suggesting that it be used for the representative renderings to show these materials with as little bias as possible.
LWF is bias though… Its just brighter. Closer to reality, it may be, but its further from the max/vray defaults and could cause problems for a number of users who have never heard of it.
Those that know it know how to work with it and around it, those that dont are still in the dark. All you’d end up with is 10 threads a day saying ‘why doesnt this material look like the one on the site preview, whaa whaa whaa’
Good point, I guess those people who have gone LWF will know exacltly what to do to make their matls look good for them, and therefore are less likely to post questions.
Thorsten - oops, typo. I meant to type ChaosSquid! This sounds like an ultra cool idea - can’t wait to see it up and running.
But *all* of the color mapping methods intriduce bias. That’s what they do. If you suggest Linear, then Larry will suggest Exponential, and Bruce will demand HSV. Do we then thumbwrestle to pick? :lol: I am only suggesting LWF because its whole purpose is to compensate for the response of a monitor, and other than that is fairly neutral. Also, when I create a material and render it with the different methods, LWF returns an image that most closely matches whatever I had in the diffuse channel. That is one of the things I like most about it. It is predictable.
I don’t really care what is chosen. I am just suggesting what I think is least biased for this purpose. I’d like to hear from some of the heavyweights here too. Especially people who have honestly tried *all* methods and settled on one or another. After all, should we rule out SSS and caustics in materials because most people haven’t “got their head around it”.
I’m not trying to start a flame war here. I’d just like to see the test scene set up correctly rather than with the lowest common denominator settings. Otherwise it is of little use. Whatever system or material adjustments each person makes to their own setup is completely their choice.
I’d just question what is generally accepted as the norm in gamma correction, and go with that. Can we start a poll to see who uses what gamma correction techniques, and who uses none, then use that as the basis for the mat object scene?
What if we use all of them, depending on what the image looks like and what works best? There is no norm - if its too dark, make it brighter. Too saturated, take it down. Not satura.. etc
Its a question of knowing what to use and when - which is why I suggested defaults. If you dont know shit youll have no suprises and can just get it in your scene, if you do you’ll know exactly how to tweak it to your scene having made the transistion before already.
I’ll take a back seat now though (sorry CCS), this is only a vague suggestion.
I’m inclined to suggest going the non-lwf, linear color mapping 1-1 route. Like was previously said, those that use LWF know what to do to the material to make it look right in whatever gamma they’re using. I am die-hard LWF now and have converted a few existing scenes over and it’s not that big of deal to do. I even wrote an excel spreadsheet to convert my RGB color values so I don’t need the color correct plugin.
As for the scene suggestions, I vote for 2. One like the maxwell test for a neutral environment and one exterior. As to the exterior lighting, I’d suggest vray sun/sky with the sun halfway between the zenith and the horizon. The maxwell scene would take care of the interior materials as far as I’m concerned. That way any color cast is eliminated and can be added by the ambient lighting when a person uses that material in their scene. I don’t know how many times I’ve made a material for a specific scene’s lighting and when it came time to use it in a different scene, it looked terrible. A neutral test would be beneficial.
I don’t like the idea of using different scenes/studios for different material types. I think the Maxwell repository has got the scene setup just right. I don’t have to see a glass material on a window to have a good understanding of how it will react when I use it on a window. IMO, the focus of the studio should be on a single object with other objects in the studio used only to show off the different properties achievable with VRay materials applied to the object of focus.
Maybe there should be some sort of contest to come up with the studio, and a poll for the users to choose which would work best. There is plenty of talent here to come up with something equally impressive to what the Maxwell community has.
I would go the LWF route, and linear color mapping 1/1. Especially for translucent materials, the LWF is the key to success, and converting a translucent material to LWF is not just a matter of converting the color values.
Also all hdri’s are in linear space, so if you use a hdri for lighting and reflections in a non LWF scene, it looks wrong and it is incorrect.
LWF is noting more than setting the gamma option in color mapping (new in vray 1.5 I believe, at least in vray for rhin it is) to 2.2, leave color mapping to linear. Then set your max gamma settings also to 2.2. (you don’t need to bother about saving as exr etc if you simply want to have the gamma 2.2 advantage).
If you do these 2 simple things, you can use any material created in an LWF environment. This info can easily be added to the site so users don’t need to post the same question over and over again.
We’re working on a similar thing over at the VizDepot.com and Scott’s in on that discussion as well - in fact, that’s actually what spurred the post here since Scott and I will be dealing with the VRay scene…
I guess my question is - does this really have to be this hard? I’m sure it can’t be completely simple, but still…
The goal is to come up with one (or two) scenes that can test materials on a small scale as well as a larger scale. My thought was to use a simple structure, such as a child’s playhouse like this:
inside the house would be a table perhaps draped in cloth to test those materials, then our little doohickey on the table - lit by either the sun/sky being used on the outside or a preset number of artificial lights. The interior could actually be materialized in the grid like the maxwell test scene and coming up with the thingamabobber would be the “challenge”
the larger issue we’ll face at the Depot is that we’re not just VRay as we are here, so (somehow) we’ll need to get our other render engine moderators to convert whatever it is that we come up with to work similarly to its respective engine…sound like fun?
oh, and if, your God forbid, we start a vote on LWF or not…i vote LWF.
ME
Wow, i get some sleep and the thread really takes off.. :lol:
Ok, well we are all agreed on the lightbox scene. So thats good!! Lock it in.
I think what gilpo said could be sensible. The lightbox scene would take care of the interior materials, so then we just need an exterior scene, something like what base2studios is suggestion with the little kids house.
And as for “to LWF or not to LWF” well thats a tricky one. I can see the arguement both ways.
I would say no to start with I think.
We (some guys from a german 3DsMAX-Community 3dmax.de) saw the Maxwell-Material-Galerie and we wanted to start such a platform for Vray-Materials. We are close to release our platform with a special ranking-system and much more features. We are VERY sure this could be the ultimate resource for Vray materials. Now we saw your thread at the vray-forum and it’s shocking us, cause you guys have the same great idea
So please, if you have other outstanding ideas for that project share them with us - together we can offer the greatest V-Ray Platform on Earth Maybe you can post this Mail in the forum - I can’t. And sorry for my bad English!
Thanks!
The Attachment is just a DUMMY-OBJECT. The final object is much cooler and we build up a light-scene like the dudes from next limit. So stay tuned
Holy…
Shoot, why reinvent the wheel? Looks like they have a cool object. That’s the most important part, right? Part of it would depend upon their business model. Are they doing this for altruistic reasons, or financial?
There may still be room for an archvis repository. (Larger, exterior, etc.) Whether they do it, or we, or someone else…
Those is some nice mats tooooo. Me likey. Can’t wait to spank those smug maxwellians with that!
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On the LWF or not issue - Why not have both? The mats would all be in the same place. The LWF could be in a separate forum, or just have a tag so they can be searched and sorted. It would be a simple enough script. Then people just upload their mats to the proper folder. People who don’t use LWF wouldn’t have to worry about using or even seeing them. Only the people who do would have to bother with that scene.
If you suggest Linear, then Larry will suggest Exponential, and Bruce will demand HSV. Do we then thumbwrestle to pick? :lol: I am only suggesting LWF because its whole purpose is to compensate for the response of a monitor, and other than that is fairly neutral. Also, when I create a material and render it with the different methods, LWF returns an image that most closely matches whatever I had in the diffuse channel. That is one of the things I like most about it. It is predictable.
Part of it would depend upon their business model. Are they doing this for altruistic reasons, or financial?