So here I go throwing my virtual hat into the gamma ring. I’ve seen a ton of great posts on other sites that explain why a linear workflow can help your renders no matter what 3D application you use. When I am asked about gamma and listen to people that ask, “why should I work in this new linear space, what’s in it for me?”, I simply reply, “well, you don’t have to light as hard”. That’s the easiest way I can explain it. I’m here to implor you to stop pushing your lights into oblivion.
The best explanation I’ve found was by David Johnson
“What we see on a monitor is almost always the sRGB color space. What comes out of the maya or mentalray by default is a linear color space. When you display the linear color space on an sRGB display the darker parts look too dark. Instead of compensating for this by adding more lights a better solution is to apply a gamma correction to the output of the renderer to convert the colorspace to sRGB.”
There it is. I’m not sure how I can elaborate on that. I will say that by working this way you end up using fewer lights in your renders. You also instantly see how much more real your renders become. The human eye is cabable of seeing quite a bit of detail in the shadows and working in a non-linear fashion makes your renders appear crunched, dark, and with no details in the shadows. The solution used to be, crank up the lights and turn up your fill. So essentially your fighting your render to appear as if it were seen through a human eye. Well stop fighting, and abusing your lights!
If any of you would like to see how I work this way in 3DS Max via Mental Ray and V-Ray or how I work this way in Maya via Mental ray, please reply and force my hand to give detailed instructions.
This entry was written by , posted on March 23, 2009 at 8:43 pm, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
I always love learning more about better lighting, and have definitely experienced a sort of counter-intuitive over-lighting… I’ll take it in either maya or max, mental ray junkie here.
I would like to know for Maya+mental ray. Thanks!
[...] Thanks to Chad Ashley at CGPOV, I finally understand how working in 2.2 gamma space can help achieve more realistic results. For the story, visit his post on the subject here. [...]
I think most 3d artists have no clue about Gamma, both what it is and why you should use it. I’m working on some writing about Gamma, and would love to hear more about your thoughts and experiences. The help in Max 2010 has a lot of good information on a Gamma workflow, but is probably too technical for many.
- Jenni
I’d like to learn more about your workflow in Max using Mental Ray. That’s what I use most.
Thanks!
Would love to see your Vray setup.
hey chad,
lets see your mental ray work-flow and vray work-flow, i’m a finalrender junkie myself but i’d really be interested in seeing your process. I nabbed the gnomonology mental ray lighting tutorial but they didn’t really go into specifics. thanks man
I would love to see your gamma work flow. I have adopted a work flow that allows me to work in 2.2 gamma in max using the Vray frame buffer and baking in the gamma correction through the color mapping rollout in Vray. It is a little annoying to have to set the images you bring in as textures to 2.2 gamma every time to avoid problems and the minute you jump out of Vray my work flow is shot without the Vray frame buffer. I would like to see your work flow to try and be more efficient and see if it is worth saving out in 1.0 gamma and changing my work flow at time of composite.
Thanks!
I’m an avid linear workflow user myself. Especially if I need to match Maxwell renderings, which also lives in the 2.2 colorspace. I seem to notice non 2.2 gamma renderings almost immediately now. The transition from shadow to light on a white ground plane always seems to look burnt. Also, Nuke loves vray exr linear workflow.
Hi Chad!
I use max with mental ray - would love to see your workflow for that! Thanks for the info!
Thanks for the post. I did a quick tutorial of this stuff a few months back for maya and mental ray, if anyone’s interested in that workflow (http://williework.blogspot.com/2008/09/te.html). There are some links at the bottom to some real render ninjas (djx, 3dlight and floze) for more linear workflow stuff, too.
Didn’t mean to imply, btw, that the lovely purveyors of this blog aren’t real render ninjas:) Just that those other dudes rock too.
Would love to see some more on workflows in all apps, when you get a moment!
I am an authentic render ninja. How dare you question me! Watch your back zeth.
thinking of you
http://williework.blogspot.com/2009/04/got-to-keep-your-eyes-open-for-render.html
Thanks for the info Chad. This ties in alot with Stu Maschwitz’s discussion of linear workflows over on prolost.com. I would love to know your thoughts on how to achieve a linear pipeline with mental ray. I am currently using Max 2010 after a long break from using it way back during version 4. So basically, back to square one with a lot of things. Always love to learn new skills.
Linear in Mental Ray is now very easy in 2010. I’ll try to do a vid soon. Thanks, -chad