DeGamma - Linear Workflow Plugin

#1

Just a little teaser for you guys, there will be a new linear workflow plugin appearing in the near future from yours truly.

If you do not know what linear workflow is then I thoroughly suggest you check out this thread and educate yourselves! In a nutshell what linear gamma workflow does for you is that it will help your rendering and lighting no-end, it will help you get rid of your blown out highlights and over-contrasty renders, your light falloffs that decay way too fast, your anti-aliasing that’s somehow always thin and jagged or even dark, your color blends that just seem to go through odd colors, in essence it simply gives you better renders, it cannot be achieved by simply applying Gamma to the output, you must make sure that what goes into the engine is corrected against that otherwise all your colors will be washed out, and that’s where this plugin steps in.

As a little taster of what linear workflow does, here’s a couple of very basic preliminary images that show the difference between the default C4D render and a linear workflow render, these have been corrected to PC screen space (gamma of 2.2) rather than Mac (1.8) so on Macs they may appear a little bright, but take note of the smoother brightness falloff and less hard blown out areas (detail in light areas):

Standard Render, designed to try and push negative render effects (over-contrast, blown out areas)

Partially Corrected, note much better light distribution

Standard Render

Linear Workflow

And of course the obligatory chequerboard that shows what using a non-linear output is doing to your anti-aliasing, as a clue - where the checks combine you’d expect a grey that is the same overall luminance as the cheques, i.e. half, working without linear you get the value of 50%… but that’s not how your monitor sees it! Take a look at these images from a distance or just screw up your eyes to get an idea of how bright the horizon should be versus the closer ground in them. This example shows why you have to target the color space you’re aiming for unless you want to be working with perceptual artifacts :

Standard (note darkening towards horizon)

Corrected for the Mac

Corrected for the PC (on a mac this should look like it’s lightening a bit towards the horizon)

The plugin offers a full customization and restriction for how it is applied should you need it, but is also a very simple to use one too, install and hit render and it will do the rest, it also offers an in viewport preview of the gamma corrected result with EOGL for helping with lighting.

DeGamma will be available for C4D R11 in the coming weeks at a price yet to be decided and is at this moment in beta testing.

#2

So the goal should be to get the render looking good with linear output? I’m a little confused by all this, but I’ve seen endless debates on cgtalk, mostly over my head.

Would this make my test renders simpler because it avoids the problems you mention (blown out highlights, etc)?

#3

The goal is to make your render look good at non-linear output i.e. on your Monitor, on Film, on Video etc.

Doesn’t make anything simpler (apart from getting better looking renders), just easier once you start to use it. Colors remain truer, you don’t need to pump up those lights so high or push so many GI bounces or the GI’s Gamma up and so on to fill the lighting in a scene which as a result means you get less blow outs. The contrast becomes more photographic in nature and less CG (though of course you can play around with it to make great effects too). In general once you start working with a linear workflow many things seem to become a lot easier because they’re more predictable.

#4

That’s the first time someone explained that to me so simply. Thanks!

#5

Thanks Per-Anders, looks like a worthy addition to an already professional toolkit.

#6

Will it work with VRay?
Or would I still need to implement my current LWF methods.

#7

Looks pretty nice. I’ve been hearing about linear rendering used on Transformers 2.

(You probably know this, but in Snow Leopard, the Mac’s default gamma is changing to 2.2)

#8

I use the filter shader in every channel and set the gamma there to 0.454

The plugin sounds nice. Will there be a demo available?

Peace,
Rich_Art. :thumbsup:

#9

The plugin offers a full customization and restriction for how it is applied should you need it, but is also a very simple to use one too, install and hit render and it will do the rest, it also offers an in viewport preview of the gamma corrected result with EOGL for helping with lighting.

cool! Thanks for development!

// additionally to standard tools of correction, i use xuan’s xsPostCorrector or remotion’s di-parser postfx(with modified presets)…but it’s postfx

#10

Here’s some more information:
http://www.xsi-blog.com/archives/133
Rainer

#11

I’m afraid I don’t have VRay to test it with, however it should work with it provided you set the output gamma correctly in VRay itself.

#12

Most likely not. Once people start using it however the results should start to speak for themselves.

#13

It’s great to hear about this plugin. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

Here’s another example of the benefits of using a linear workflow. The scene below is lit by Vray’s physical sky, without the sun. The wall behind the camera is completely open. As you can see, using LWF portrays light much more realistically when it bounces deep into a space.


Standard workflow


Linear workflow

#14

I’m afraid I don’t have VRay to test it with

I’m happy to test it with Vray if you like.

Peace,
Rich_Art. :thumbsup:

#15

u dont need a plugin to use lwf with vrayforc4d. just do reinhardt, linear or whatever gamma output to 2.2 and fix it with filter shader in the materials. this can also be done with ar…just do color correction effect -> gamma 2.2 and fix ur materials with filter shader. so i gues this plugin do automatically gamma fix on all materials channels?

#16

Correct, and on all other areas within C4D that require it. This is a workflow plugin that means you no longer have to think or worry about such issues and get to see more closely in viewports and editors what you will see in the final render, which is something you do not get by doing this sort of thing manually. It also has a few other nice features for those who find Color Space an important and even creative tool that normal workflows do not easily allow.

Rich is aware of working the manual method (which he already explained he does), that’s why he’s interested in this.

#17

0.555 here but the same idea. I propably missed something but this plugin changes everything to that gamma and thats it?
How does it function with old scenes where I’ve already set everything to my desired gamma? Does it double the amount or just ignore shaders/render settings if needed?
IMHO this oughta be in-built, as Maxon is probably aware of the benefits of LWF, but the plugin is most likely needed to make things easier while such feature is in the core.

#18

Almost, but not quite. DeGamma is applied at rendertime, not before, you get to play around with settings and see and adjust your colors exactly as they’ll appear in the final render, you scene is not cluttered up with filters and the like, and you get to use more than just linear/gamma space. It also gives you a fairly deep level of control for more advanced color space effects should you wish, which can all be adjusted from a single slider/control without having to go through the entire scene to fix, and it is applied to all scene parameters related to output color, not just material channels (there are quite a few more).

How does it function with old scenes where I’ve already set everything to my desired gamma? Does it double the amount or just ignore shaders/render settings if needed?

Existing scenes get no correction, unless you go in and adjust the settings manually so that they do. The idea is of course that if you load and old scene it should render just as it always has done, but if you make a new scene it will be set up for you without you having to think about it.

IMHO this oughta be in-built, as Maxon is probably aware of the benefits of LWF, but the plugin is most likely needed to make things easier while such feature is in the core.

One can argue that all features should be in the core, but they’re not, and that’s why plugins exist. This just allows you to not have to think or even know about linear workflow but reap the benefits, fully automated means fully automated. But don’t worry you’ll get to see it in action soon enough :slight_smile:

#19

looks like a great pluginfor c4d per:-)

 regarding the vray questions in this thread:
 
 vray already has all tools for LWF built in.
 in vrayforc4d 1.2 we also have already built on a "one button LWF" solution to make its handling very easy for all. this all vray users will get as a free update from us, along with other nice new features. you only activate LWF in settings and thats it. vray does all the things for you, also materials and viewport are adjusted nice. so very easy to use:-)
 
 cheers
 stefan
 vrayforc4d
#20

What I don’t understand is why Maxon does not make the LWF as the standard.
We all know this LWF works nicer. Is there a special reason why LWF is not standard?

Peace,
Rich_Art. :thumbsup: