Mari colorspace options (export)

#1

Hi, so far with Mari 3.2, I had used the following settings with working between Mari and Arnold:

Color Textures: (Color, Reflected Color) - 8bit
Color Data: Automatic (sRGB)
Mask Data: Automatic (raw)

Scalar Textures: (Bump, Roughness, Masks, Normal Maps,Curvature maps,AO) - 8bit
Color Data: linear (With ‘Scalar Data’ enabled)
Mask Data: Automatic (raw)

Exporting: Just export all channels as linear.

After this, I used to import into Arnold (Maya 2018) as linear again and everything seemed to work as per expectations. Now however, while using Mari 4, I seem to have some problems with the colorspace. If i import into Arnold as linear, the colors look slightly lighter and it looks accurate if I set the read file node in Maya as “sRGB”. (This is for channels like color,spec color where the channel space is set as sRGB and not channels like specular roughness where its set as linear)

I know a lot of people paint everything in 16bit and leave it as linear and let the system handle it but my computer isn’t powerful enough and I need to stick to 8 bit.

Could anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong? Have there been any changes in the way color is now handled in Mari?
ie: Should I export color channels as sRGB and import into Arnold as linear, or export color as linear and import into Arnold as sRGB? Or just both as linear?

Thanks
Arnav

#2

when you export from Mari 4 what is you colour setting on export?

#3

Hi!

so when i paint, channels like color, spec color etc are in sRGB and channels like spec roughness etc are in linear ('Scalar Data’ enabled).
During export, I export everything as linear.

This was because I read that Mari does everything linearly internally and only the view transform has the sRGB enabled for color channels. So to prevent Mari from baking in the sRGB transform on export, I export everything as linear. (The ones highlighted in yellow are the ones painted in sRGB and exported in linear)

So is my approach completely wrong or I just have to apply the sRGB transform in Maya for the channels with color?

#4

Check that your textures are properly linearized out from Mari. Like your col being darker and saturated. Another thing could be maya doing strange things with colour management as well.

#5

Thanks, I’ll check that. But is my workflow correct? export everything as linear and then apply the color transformations in Maya?

#6

Okay, I re-exported all my textures in linear form and imported them all as linear in Maya (including colored channels) and now everything seems to be matching between Mari and Arnold’s render.

This is how I’ve always handled the color management between Mari and Arnold(Maya), but I’m still confused as to what is the correct approach?

#7

exporting everything out as linear is what I always do. In maya this means you should not apply any additional gamma to your textures. all textures need to be linear to work correctly. The gamma rules in maya is to be able to apply a linearisation if you have material that is gamma encoded

#8

Got it! Everything seems to be working now. Thanks a lot! :slight_smile:

#9

ok cool. I will make a few episodes on my channel doing lookdev of the last texture asset. so I will deal with some of the topics you highlighted.

#10

Great! That would be really helpful!