Camera mapping trouble

#1

I’m having some color issues with a camera mapping project that I’m working on. If I look at the map in photoshop the colors appear more saturated then when I look at the rendered image after it comes out of EIAS. I have the same map applied as diffuse and illumination and I would expect that rendered from the same angle these two images should look pretty much the same colorwise. There are no lights in the project at this point and it’s rendered phong. Can anyone shed some light on why these two images are so different? Also, lately I’ve been getting the gradient background shown in the rendered image, how do I eliminate that so that it’s solid black?

#2

Concerning the gradient, it looks like you have the sky and ground colors active. Look in the world object, backdrop tab.
For the camera mapping, try applying your map as luminance only, and make the material for the object youre projecting on 100% luminant.

#3

That’s what I thought originally but when I apply it as luminance only the object renders black and white. Thanks for the sky and ground thing, that part is fixed. See below for the luminance only camera map:

#4

What format is the map saved in?

If it’s an IMG, try .tiff - or vice versa.

Quicktime gamma correction is used in version 7 and sometimes causes this effect. If this is the cause of the problem, you may be interested to know that this gamma correction has been disabled for v8 to stop this kind of thing from occurring.

Best,
Ian

#5

Hmm. That could be it, the file is currently IMG. I’ll try converting tonight and see if that makes a difference. Thanks Ian.

#6

Well, I converted to tiff and there is no difference in the render. Any ideas? I’m runnnig 7.1, I might try going back to an older version to see if the problem is isolated to this version or if there is something else going on.

#7

I finally had some more time to look into this. Same problem in 6.5. :banghead:
BUT if I add a light to the scene set to “ambient” and a strength set to 1 it appears to fix the problem. Strange. Here’s the latest image, rendered with diffuse camera map only and a single light set to ambient.

If I add the map as luminance is just blows the scene out.

Thoughts?

#8

I resorted to screening my camera maps in post…

I think we need to get an answer from EITG about this one…
Ian

#9

I’ve opened up a new thread over on the EITG support forum. Thread is located here:

http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/541/

#10

Check your color settings in Photoshop.

The problems are most likely related to the color profiles, or missing profiles! (EIAS)

Pick a working profile, and use this one on all project files.

Take a good look at the Color management Policies, click all checkboxes, so you get a warning when there is a mismatch, or missing profile.

Cheers

Hans

#11

Thanks for the suggestion but even when I use the original un-altered file as it came out of the camera I still get the issue so the photoshop color settings shouldn’t have anything to do with this issue. Problem occurs on Mac and Windows, two separate systems with the same results.

#12

You could do a simple test to be sure.

  1. Open a Photo and be sure that the document colors are working space colors!
    (The easy way is to check Ask when opening for ‘Profile Mismatch’ and ‘Missing profile’ in your Color Settings.)
  2. Save as .img
  3. Create an empty EIAS scene
  4. Add the saved .img file as Background image to your Camera (Roto TAB)
  5. Render and save as .img
  6. Compare both .img files

Cheers

Hans

#13

Thanks for the Idea Hans.

If I take the exact image file used for camera mapping and bring it into an empty EIAS scene assigned as “background” in the Roto/background tab of the “camera info” popup for the camera and render it renders as it should iwth no gamma problems. Apply the exact image file as a projection map to some geometry and I have the issues stated above.

#14

OK no profile mismatch, good to know!

How did you use the camera map?

I render them separate, or as part of a selection set to which I apply the camera map as luminance, and exclude them from scene lighting, I don’t encounter your color problems.

Cheers

hans

#15

Checking the “Map visible surface only” switch for the image file seems to have solved the problem.

#16

I’ve done a lot of camera mapping in EI7, no issues to report. I apply the projection as Luminance and set my receiving material to diffuse amount=0.0, Luminance=1.0.

I just rechecked a recent project under EI701… works fine.

If you can post a file, I’d be glad to take a look to see what the issue may be.

Peter

#17

I just checked, that doesn’t work. The Camera map is blown out when I try that here (about 50% brighter than it should be). I simply can’t get it to look like the original map.

Ian

#18

Hey Ian,

Matt had a solution for me: when I check “map visible surfaces only” or if I set the luminance color for the object to white instead of black it renders properly. You can get the specifics in my topic over on the EITG forum.

#19

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