bagginsbill opened this issue on Apr 23, 2008 · 2832 posts
bagginsbill posted Thu, 22 May 2008 at 10:46 PM
The background is alternating black (0%) and white (100%) intensity pixels. From far enough away, your eyes can't see them any more and you'll experience a 50% gray.
Then stand far enough away that that happens. For most people 8 to 15 feet is enough.
Then decide which splat looks like its the same brightness as the background.
WARNING:
If you have an LCD monitor, make sure you are not angled away from the very center of the image. LCD monitors produce wierd brightness anomalies at different viewing angles. Try to stay centered. Imagine a pencil sticking straight out of the center of the image. If its not pointing at your nose, move your head or the monitor. To be safe, when you get in position, move your head around - you'll see some of them change brightness against the background. Try to find the midpoint to minimize brightness anomalies.
Then, decide which splat seems most like it has disappeared.
For me, it is #4, or sometimes #5.
You may be surprised to learn that even though some of the splats appear much darker than the background, they are ALL BRIGHTER THAN THE BACKGROUND.
That's right, every one of those splats is more than 50% white.
You are seeing the need for gamma correction.
#4 is 71% white, corresponding with a gamma correction of 2.2.
#5 is 68% white.
If you are on a Mac, you may think #7 or #8 matches. That's why stuff looks different to you. If you think 7 or 8 matches, then change the gamma in the shaders to 1.8.
Nobody should think #9 matches. If you do, then you are not seeing what the rest of us see, either because your monitor/video card has been calibrated very differently, or you have strange eyes.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)