MR A&D render pass (compositing) issue

[postite]

Hi,

 

I have to make some arch images but I'm not allowed to use Vray. With Vray, there is no problem having nice render pass.

 

But I'm not able to have good results with MR and the A&D render elements. All pass are in really poor quality. Impossible to work with that.

 

I used linear workflow, A&D mat, MR sun/sky, MR photo. exposure, and rather high render settings.

 

I attached my test scene in max 2009 format.

 

Does somebody have a workflow, some tricks or advice to improve that ?

 

Thx for your help

[SandmanNinja]

Looking at the last render, your photons are huge blobs on the wall.

 

Mental Ray is a fine render engine and I'm sure the designed results are possible with it.

 

Perhaps post your render dialog settings?

 

You also say "A&D Render Pass" - do you mean AO?

 

Cheers

[mattclinch]

its an issue in 2009 that the render elements do not pay attention to the exposure control settings. try saving your elements as a 32 bit format - HDR or EXR - and you should find all the data is in them if you bring them in to PS.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

This is a major problem that I wish would be fixed. MR Photographic exposure is not compatible with render elements. You can get close(er) by adjusting your physical scale, but it will not produce the same results as the beauty pass, and it will not reflect white point balance.

 

I have not mastered Thorsten Hartmann's BO Exposure Shader, but it is supposed to be compatible with render elements. And white point balance. If you need to use these, I would start by testing with that.

 

Edit.. if you use something besides Photographic exposure in the exposure control slot you will not have this problem, but you will need to adjust the output of you lights so they are compatible with whatever tone mapper you are using.

Edited September 4, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[DanGrover]

This is a major problem that I wish would be fixed. MR Photographic exposure is not compatible with render elements. You can get close(er) by adjusting your physical scale, but it will not produce the same results as the beauty pass, and it will not reflect white point balance.

 

I have not mastered Thorsten Hartmann's BO Exposure Shader, but it is supposed to be compatible with render elements. And white point balance. If you need to use these, I would start by testing with that.

 

Edit.. if you use something besides Photographic exposure in the exposure control slot you will not have this problem, but you will need to adjust the output of you lights so they are compatible with whatever tone mapper you are using.

 

It is indeed fixed in 2010. I had this problem on a project last year on 2009, but I have no encountered a problem in 2010.

[Jan]

Is not solved in max 2010. If you use photographic exposure, it occurs

[DanGrover]

Is not solved in max 2010. If you use photographic exposure, it occurs

 

 

There must be some other variable causing it - I know there are instances where it can work. I don't doubt that you're telling the truth, but if you go and make a sphere in an empty scene, throw in some lights, and mr photographic exposure and put an A&D material on the sphere with an HDR in the environment slot, the passes will all work as expected.

 

This is with mr photographic exposure enabled.

 

Edit: Sorry, I've added it as an attachment so it doesn't stretch. Also, I just tried it with both Daylight system & MR Exposure and it works fine with that, too.

 

Edit2: Just enabled Gamma/LUT @ 2.2 and it worked with that, too. What IS it that's causing it to bork?!

Edited September 5, 2009 by DanGrover

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

The Level A&D render elements work for me in 2010, but I do not think all of the elements that I would need to do a proper composite are available with just the Level render elements. The Raw and Output are still extremely over/under exposed. Which I would expect from the Raw elements, but I would expect the Output elements to work. Which they appear they are for you.

 

Is it possible to post your scene for other to look at?

[DanGrover]

Sure thing. It's literally as I mentioned - just bang in any old file into the environment slot, I just used a jpeg on my desktop in the end.

[thorsten hartmann]

Hey,

 

all Renderelement calculate without mr_phographic, because mental ray don´t cut the colors in the picture and you have the full 32Bit / full Quality. When you have in vray correct Passes with exposure, is your result not 100% 32Bit and that is not good for the Post. But believe me Vray can the same and than have you the same Problem as in mental ray. *smile* But it gives a trick to eliminate over/under exposed.

 

this don´t work:

Shadow, Highlights burn, Whitepoint and Saturation don´t work with Renderelements. This is that i do in the Post.

 

this work to eliminate over/under exposed:

Iso, F-Stop, Shutter and EV-Mode work with Renderelement, when you adjust the physical Scale correct. Photo Studio Pro have a "delete Overbright " Button. This Function calculate the physical scale for the exposure.

 

mfg

hot chip

Edited September 6, 2009 by thorsten hartmann

[postite]

Thx for your replies.

 

So, no A&D render elements with max 2009 + MR Photo. exp. Control

 

It’s a bit incredible that Autodesk sells products with new functionalities which don’t even work together.

[luckymutt]

So, no A&D render elements with max 2009 + MR Photo. exp. Control

Your statement is correct, but it isn't much to frown about.

All it means is that you have one more step to do in post.

As was mentioned in post #3, just make sure you save to a 32bit image, and all the data will be there. Exposure control is only tonemapping the render in the framebuffer. That's all.

I opened your scene, checked to make sure you had it set to use a 32bit framebuffer. So far so good.

Then I saw that you were saving out to an 8bit image. No bueno.

I switched to a 32bit *.exr and rendered it off. The result for the render element appears blown out. However in Photoshop (or whatever) all you need to do is adjust the exposure and the gamma (yeah, I believe that render elements also discards gamma correction)

This is the result of the beauty pass:

 

Yes, I totally agree that it is lame that these things are not respected by Render Elements. It would be nice not to have to save it out as 32bit images if you don't want to (they can get big after all.)

However, drive space is cheap, so until this is corrected, you can still make good use of Render Elements.

[postite]

Thank you very much, really !

 

I've ever tried with *.exr 32 bits but missed the Exposure step.

 

Let's rock

[DanGrover]

I'm slightly let down by Photoshop's exposure controls. I much prefer editing 32bit images in my post-production compositor (Eyeon Fusion). It allows me to just use the Colour Corrector node, with the usual brightness/contrast values, and I find it a much easier way of editing the colour of an image without forfeiting the 32bit benefits. I'm not sure why Photoshop doesn't do it like that.

[luckymutt]

Totally agree. Photoshop (at least CS3) is kinda lame with exposure, but also it doesn't treat 32bit nicely, in particular the alpha channel.

I wish I was using Fusion...

But still, I'll sometimes use AE for post work on a still, just because it works better with floating points and exposures.

One could also use AE or even another tone-mapping editor (there are a couple apps task-specific for this) just to get the passes clamped down how I want and then continue in PShop for the final composite.

[milfora]

Hi,

 

I am using Max 2009, mr sun & sky (incl. photometric lights), mr Photographic Exposure Control, A&D materials and rendering elements without any problems. I'm still exporting to 8-bit images (png and tga) and rendering out the elements using the mr A&D Output settings.

 

I also found that the elements were rendering out overexposed. Just change the 'Physical Scale' setting in the mr Photographic Exposure to 'Unitless', and set the value in Unitless between approx 90000 to 100000 to compensate for the sun intensity.

 

Hope this helps

 

AM

[Ingsoc75]

I saw this post and wanted to resurrect it with a question.

 

I'm using 2010 and trying out the linear workflow and would like to try out the render elements for putting my renders together in AE CS4.

 

First off, which of the A&D render elements are best to use? Raw? Output?

Second, do I disable the exposure control to render these out or has this been fixed in 2010?

Third, could anybody explain their workflow in AE? (taking in an exr, layer modes etc.)

[Ingsoc75]

I opened up DanGrover's sphere attachment and saw that he is using the 'Output' render elements. So, if anybody can share their Photoshop or AE workflow that would be helpful.