Gamma correction with distributed rendering?

[Macer]

I recently upgraded to max2008 (on win xp 32) accross 6 machines. Backburner is up and running without too many problems, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to implement gamma correction. After loads of research I enabled gamma correction under preferences, and set the gamma, input, and output to 2.2. Both affect colours and affect materials are checked. With a bit of tweaking and using the new mr photographic exposure control, I managed so good results.

 

But my problems started when trying to send an animation through backburner. The frames on my pc came out right, but all the other frames came back overly bright and washed out. For test purposes I saved the files as jpegs with gamma overide of 2.2 to a central server.

 

I tried changing the gamma settings on one node to match my pc and rendered a few more frames, but the problem is persisting - no change at all in brightness etc.

 

Is there a setting somewhere that I'm missing?

 

Any help would be appriecated......

 

Cheers, Mark.

[Macer]

I've tried saving the files with no gamma overide and different file types like floating point tif with gamma of 1.0. Still no luck! Has anyone come accross this before? I'm pretty sure its not a mr thing - just gamma??

[JamesTaylor]

if you are rendering with max's frame buffer you'll probably be burning the gamma into the image twice. Once by setting the preferences gamma value to 2.2 and then a 2nd time by saving the file out with an override value of 2.2

[Macer]

You see this is where I get confused?

 

With the gamma preferences set on my pc there doesn't appear to be any difference at all between an image saved with system gamma or saved overidden at 2.2 (on my pc). So I am unsure as to what the correct setting should be?

 

I tried both settings on the nodes and they don't make any difference there either (well they at least look the same in windows image preview). If I disable gamma correction on my pc the render nodes return images the same as my machine (both washed out). Ideally I would really like to use gamma correction because I could get much better results with regard to correct material results. I must be missing something that will enable it to work correctly with backburner??