Black and White

[Scotty T]

Ummmmm...heres one for you.

 

I want to render some scenes in black and white. Like a scene in the fifties.

 

Something so simple....o the humanity. Help.

 

Using max 7

[AJLynn]

Photoshop it.

[Scotty T]

A scene?

[AJLynn]

A render. If you've got your scene in color, your textures in color, why not just render in color. You can use Photoshop to black&white it with easy control over everything, and later if you decide you want the color render, you already have it.

 

If it's not a scene that's already set up in color, and you really want an all-B&W workflow, just don't give it any inputs that are in color. Use grayscale maps and lights and swatches and think in B&W. This really isn't that complicated, what's more difficult is making something in B&W look really good - hence Photoshop.

[Ernest Burden III]

There are some great workflows for Photoshop for turning color images into B&W. I could probably find a link if you want.

 

The idea is that B&W (which is based on film since we see in color by default) responds to different wavelengths in a non-linear way. Also, with old B&W photos the contrast is usually higher and there is noticeable grain. Just remember that the higher the contrast the higher the grain, but also highest visual impact. Slower, lower contrast films also have lower grain.

 

But very important is to render to at least 16bit color, since going to grayscale reduces your file to luminance-only, and at 8bits you go from having a few million colors in the gamut to 256 shades of gray.

[Guest nazcaLine]

play with RGB channels in photoshop, to enhance or vanish certain colors.it works. i read it in jeremy birn's book DIGITAL LIGHTING AND RENDERING.

it's a bit tricky, you have to try many times.

good luck.

 

Eduardo

[Scotty T]

What about a walkthrough though, is there a quick setting in max to change to BnW. I got the still render in BnW from photoshop which is really great looking.

 

The project is a client proposing to investors to build a 50s soda shop (diner). I thought of rendering a walkthrough in BnW to sell the idea.

 

The client is on board with this....if I can manage my time well. This is all after the fact I have already rendered in color.

 

Thanks in advance for all the help.

[BrianKitts]

what are you assembling the animation in? if you are using premiere, aftereffects, etc.... you can just add the adjustments there....

[Scotty T]

what are you assembling the animation in?

 

Premier.

[Ernest Burden III]

Premier.

 

Premiere has a lot of video effects, you could just use a desaturation. But the way I do this sort of thing is to work out exactly what I want on a test frame and record the steps into a Photoshop action. Then after rendering the frames (in TIFF format) I copy the folder and run the PS action via 'batch' on all of the frames. You will process several thousand frames in an hour or two. Then load those into Premiere for final assembly and output.