Doubts regarding Linear Workflow and V4S
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I've been using vray for sketchup for many years (mostly for hobby and general geekiness), and never really given gamma correction any thought at all. But lately the concept of "linear workflow" have been brought to my attention - read this - and i'm not sure what to make of it.
Different sources state that most modern renderers take care of this for you, but i cant find any information on V4SU and LWF. The top google links takes me to a two year old (a bit outdated) post on this forum, so i hope its alright i bring this up.
I guess my questions are this:
- Does V4SU take care of LWF for me? If yes, cool. If no:
- Is it worth my time / will it change the esthetic quality of my renders?
- I would really appreciate any information on what values to change where (Global settings, material slot and bitmap import settings etc.).
I'm using V4SU 1.90.03 and Sketchup 8.
Regards
Douchvech -
I assume you mean to say you have 1.90.03 is the version of the VRay core but I assume you are using 1.49.03 version of the plug-in.
As for LWF I have read about it a lot but always was under the impression that this doesn't work in the SU environment. Maybe I am wrong.
My opinion is the LWF is not a magic button. Switching to it will not make renders better. I think a lot of people use it because its a set it and forget it type of thing and provides well exposed images.
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Yes, I meant 1.49.03
Could you maybe elaborate on what is missing from the SU environment for LWF to work? As i said previously, im not realy sure what to make of LWF, but the gist of it seems to be that you should gamma correct everything (textures and colors), and as far as I can see, there is a gamma-value inputbox on textures (bitmap) and colormapping.
I see now that the colormapping pulldown even have a "linear workflow" checkbox with tooltip: "When this option is checked Vray will automatically apply the inverse of the gamma correction that you have set in the gamma field to all VrayMtl Materials in the scene. This option is intended to be used only for quickly converting old scenes which are not set up with proper linear workflow in mind. This option is not a replacement for proper linear workflow."
Dunno.
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I have seen the workflow setup for MAX which requires you to setup how max treats textures for gamma 2.2 I really dont know if VR4SU does this. If it does, I dont know of anyone who uses it.
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Ok, I understand. A post over at the chaosgroup forum (I lost it, sorry) stated that V4SU already gamma corrected colors and textures by default, so i guess V4SU pretty much covers the linear workflow stuff if you use linear colormapping?
I've also read that the sRGB colorspace is the "most realistic" and should be activated in the vray framebuffer if you want to utilize LWF... any opinions on this? sRGB seems sort of washed out and dull, but I might do something wrong.
regards
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This is the best explanation I have seen from the many I have read.
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Thanks for the link, Vale, simple and clear.
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This setup seems to be working for me. Make sure to save as an EXR to take full advantage of this workflow. I ran a test with an interior scene lit only by a small 4"x 6" hole in the wall using Skylight. Rendered clearly with minimal tweaking.
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