You not thinking of or considering GC doesn't invalidate GC, aeilkema. It merely means you never considered or thought to try something other than cranking up the lights when your materials appeared to render dark.
Someone comes out with a suggestion (GC your materials), I try it. I publish my tests. Then, if multiple runs of those tests prove conclusive, I change my practice. When something even better comes out (corrected-sRGB) I try it. I run tests. etc etc

Now, I'm going to have a go at Esther's suggestion. Or do you consider that a bad idea too?

BTW, what have your tests shown?

 Hi Robyn,
sounds like a good way to do things (familiar too)
Love esther

The scientific method - I do listen to my anaesthetists when they give handover, and when they explain their rationales, I absorb it - I love in-depth explanations. And we have been known to change practice in how we recover patients accordingly.
We used to pre-medicate (routinely!) any patient about to receive Tramadol IV via pain protocol (as an adjunct to some narcotic pain protocol) Metaclopramide 10 - 20mg, until listening to a relatively exhaustive explanation by one of our more clued-up registrars about the slight but significant chance of Seratonin syndrome using those two together changed our approach. That registrar felt that it was best to wait to see how the patient tolerated the Tramadol and give one of the -trons instead of Maxalon if the patient needed it.

Sage advice.

It boils down to best practice.

Quote - You not thinking of or considering GC doesn't invalidate GC, aeilkema.p the lights when your materials appeared to render dark.
.....................
BTW, what have your tests shown?

Hi Not trying to be contentious as I dont even use poser for rendering,
but I dont see where  aeilkema is required to have performed some GC "tests" to have an opinion about what His/her  own eyes see  posted by others today and in the past.

if GC is actually improving your images that's great for you
but I have noticed a trend here where people  post Wip's etc for comments and
Immediately being interrogated about GC&VSS.
and even admonished for not having used it.
it has become almost like a new religion here.

someone recently posted  one of those
"Guess which figure" renders and instead of the usual "Alan Alda" , the first  respondent Demanded to know is VSS was used on the skin.

GC is a constraint filter which controls the maximum saturation differential allowed in a render.  It can have the effect of rendering a sharply lit scene more bland.  It can also bring out details which were too dark to perceive in the uncorrected render.  If one is going for a daylight look, GC will probably help.  If one is attempting a darkish, noir effect, then it will more likely detract from the desired atmosphere.

Personally, I never use it.  Despite the fact that I "have to".

Klebnor

Going back a few posts...

Discussing GC and realism together is just confusing two different subjects. Explicit use of GC is not a necessary ingredient of realistic renders, nor is realism a guaranteed result of using GC. 

We have clear evidence in this thread that we can get an ugly render (with aeilkema's so-called GC 'side effects') by adding GC to a scene where the materials and lighting are already giving reasonable results without GC. 

That's pretty obvious, isn't it? But don't make the mistake of blaming GC. The problem is that the material shaders and/or the lighting don't obey real-world physics. In this case, there is a clear choice open to everyone - either don't use GC with these materials and lighting, or use GC with correctly-modeled materials and lighting.

ghonma's post hits the nail right on the head - if your render looks correct on your screen, it needs no explicit GC. But using GC does simplify the process of attempting to represent real-world objects and materials in real-world lighting conditions, by giving us two things:-

1. Material shaders operating in linear colour space, like the real world;
2. Final renders adjusted for (approx) sRGB colour space, like your computer display.

GC is not 'compensation' for anything. It is just accurate modeling of the real world.

 "And we have been known to change practice in how we recover patients accordingly."
Robyn, you mean to say you no longer recover them in the starfish position and have switched to the coma position.  (I'll believe that when I see it)

Yes, I have definitely noticed my renders don't look as sharp with GC, and also the colours don't look as rich.
But it does make the render look brighter which is nice.

Love esther

Have you considered corrected-sRGB, Esther? Darker colours and low lighting renders beautifully.

As far as believing what my eyes tell me, Wolf... things that look good on my monitor (reasonably new 5000:1 contrast ratio Flatron Wide LG) may look like poo on my business partner's monitor. That's comparing an image or colour or shader effect on two different monitors: one in Australia and one in Denmark. I look at the same image or effect on my laptop, and it looks different again.

So, to me, seeing isn't adequate evidence that something is right. I could show you images that look brilliant to me, but you'd find them flat and lifeless, or over-the-top saturated. I simply can't use that as a reliable measure anymore.

When I go into my galleries and see blown-out skin detail (yellow bloom) because of excessive lighting to compensate for incorrect colour processing, I now know it for what it is. I didn't, before. And I know how to avoid it. It's not about throwing more, less intense lights into the scene, which increases render time to over-nighters. I get quicker, better results with less lights.

I can't afford Poser Pro 2010, and even if someone gave me $250 for the sidegrade, I don't know that I would pay that kind of money for software GC (the only feature that even vaguely interests me), especially when new ideas are coming out about managing material renders.

It's not about bandwagons: it's about trying new things.

 the other good thing about poser pro 2010 that you would probably find useful is the render to queue.  then you can leave a whole lot of renders going whilst you are at work etc.
Love esther

Quote - You not thinking of or considering GC doesn't invalidate GC, aeilkema. It merely means you never considered or thought to try something other than cranking up the lights when your materials appeared to render dark. Someone comes out with a suggestion (GC your materials), I try it. I publish my tests. Then, if multiple runs of those tests prove conclusive, I change my practice. When something even better comes out (corrected-sRGB) I try it. I run tests. etc etc

Now, I'm going to have a go at Esther's suggestion. Or do you consider that a bad idea too?

BTW, what have your tests shown?

This is so typical....... reading half a post and then making an assumption. I you would have read my post you would have known better. I've tested CG a lot and if you would have read my conclusion I stated it isn't a one stop miracle solution. Both Poser Pro versions have CG, I've years of experience with CG already, not a new kid on the block when it comes to that.

Btw.... you know what's most funny about your post...... CG your materials, now that's what Tone Mapping is for! From all my tests I've found that TM does a much better job on that, since it has been made for that purpose. If your materials tend to render dark, TM will do a great job fixing that problem, without affecting the rest of the scene. If your whole scene tends to be too dark then CG comes in handy.

I do run tests, of course I do, I wouldn't even participate if I didn't use the feature at all. All I saying is stop over using the feature, a lot of images are wasted by it, there's a lot more to a good scene then CG only.

Besides, running tests is never conclusive, you cannot use the same approach on every scene, different scenes need different approaches to get the best out of them.

While you suggest I'm set in my ways, sounds like you're the one that's really set in your ways once your test are conclusive.

"While you suggest I'm set in my ways, sounds like you're the one that's really set in your ways once your test are conclusive."
Um no:
"Someone comes out with a suggestion (GC your materials), I try it. I publish my tests. Then, if multiple runs of those tests prove conclusive, I change my practice. When something even better comes out (corrected-sRGB) I try it. I run tests. etc etc

Now, I'm going to have a go at Esther's suggestion."

Seems like I'm not the only one reading only half the post.

BTW, you mention tone-mapping: how is that done in Poser 7? Or is that an option in Poser 7?

One of these renders was made using 5 infinite lights.

The other was made using everything what PoserPro 2010 could throw at it. (IDL, tone mapping, etc)

I guess my "Standard Poser lighting skills" must be exceptional then, because, even though I really tried, I can't really see any advantage in those new "features".

The real problem is that GC and multi shader skin nodes would only work properly if we all use standardised textures for everything as well as identical monitors.
(And have all the same color perception)

The caucasian skin textures I use look perfect if viewed outside of Poser on my CRT monitor.
(Which displays 99% of all the photographs I find on the web correctly. Unlike my overly bright LCD)

If I crank up gamma, they look bleached out.

Now the lights I use in Poser neither add nor substract from the skins' original "lightness".

So why  would I want Poser to artificially "correct" a texture that already looks perfect ?
Either by shaders or global GC ?

Yes, of course, if you just use those default deep orange caucasian skin textures most people sell (Including DAZ), they will look like cr*p unless you seriously crank up Poser lights or add a gazillion of shader nodes to "compensate".
(Or use an LCD monitor with too much gamma)

Same for any other textured item you use in your scene.

So the first step is to look at all those textures OUTSIDE of Poser and, if necessary, correct them until they look right on your monitor.

Once you've done that,  working "inside" Poser will be a lot easier.

I believe tone mapping came in PP and P8.

As I understand tone mapping, you would still have a linear response in the new colour space; or am I missing something?

EDIT

JP,
I like the top one a bit better, as the bottom one lacks a lamp post shadow and has some artifacts on the steps.

BTW, I wish there was a really good VW model available-I tried the one from DAZ and didn't like it-it needs more polys in the fenders...

Quote -
As far as believing what my eyes tell me, Wolf... things that look good on my monitor (reasonably new 5000:1 contrast ratio Flatron Wide LG) may look like poo on my business partner's monitor. That's comparing an image or colour or shader effect on two different monitors: one in Australia and one in Denmark. I look at the same image or effect on my laptop, and it looks different again.

Hi which only Demonstrates Why some arbitrary CG formula is Not some holy grail of poser rendering

also see "Joe pubilc's very informative post .
Gamma correction in poser renders is sort of like a color managed workflow in the print business
except the "final output will be  viewed on various monitors.
Not  on a standard 4 color press using certain standard inks with a certain paper stock that has a certain "white point" that will give you predictable color results for everyone that holds the finished print in his/her hand.
again im not trying to discourage the use of GC

I dont care I render in Vray for C4Dand sometime C4D's own AR3

Im just commenting on the perceived notionby some that it is now the only way to get a "numerically Correct" poser render today.

In a nutshell, gamma correction is about having contrast in an image. That's not everything to know about gamma correction, but it's essentially the desired result. There should be a deep black in an image and a bright white in an image (if the image has a black and a white). A typical Poser render tends to not have either and the end result is a murky look to an image that lacks the kind of crispness that it should have.

It's something that can either be corrected in Poser to a degree or through a photoediting program. My preference is the latter because there are more controls that allow the correction to be made in real time and allows a great deal more experimentation. Doing it in Poser is a global render. If that doesn't look right, something has to be tweaked and rendered again in a non-real time process.

Attached Link: http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch24.html

Always obey the #1 rule of computer graphics: whatever looks right, is right. Whatever helps you getting good looking images, use it.

Math however, is not a matter of opinion. Rendering is all math, and the mathematical necessity of gamma correction in rendering has been explained in many places (I linked one of them).

 Whether to exercise the artistic freedom of breaking the rules or not, that's up to everyone's own opinion. My favorite paintings are far from physically correct and that's what I like about them.

If, on the other hand, you're trying to get perfect photorealism, then doing the same things a photo camera does is essential. And every single digital camera on the market is converting linear luminance data to an sRGB or AdobeRGB color space in a process commonly called gamma correction.

Interesting. Are we trying to emulate the camera lens, or human vision? Would they be the same?

Quote - if GC is actually improving your images that's great for you
but I have noticed a trend here where people  post Wip's etc for comments and
Immediately being interrogated about GC&VSS.
and even admonished for not having used it.
it has become almost like a new religion here.

someone recently posted  one of those
"Guess which figure" renders and instead of the usual "Alan Alda" , the first  respondent Demanded to know is VSS was used on the skin.

This is the sort of thing I noticed, which is why I wondered what it was all about. I wondered whether I was doing everything wrong and had been doing everything wrong by, first of all, using a piece of clearly inferior software that lacked the Most Important Feature Ever, and second of all by not compensating by using excessively complicated material nodes.

Quote - If, on the other hand, you're trying to get perfect photorealism, then doing the same things a photo camera does is essential. And every single digital camera on the market is converting linear luminance data to an sRGB or AdobeRGB color space in a process commonly called gamma correction.

This may be true, and it's a decent point, but if you're aiming for perfect photorealism, and you do say "perfect," I still can't help wondering why you're using Poser?

 I liked the look of the bottom image best

Quote - If, on the other hand, you're trying to get perfect photorealism, then doing the same things a photo camera does is essential. And every single digital camera on the market is converting linear luminance data to an sRGB or AdobeRGB color space in a process commonly called gamma correction.

If it's automatically being done on cameras, which aren't software intensive, I wonder why it's not a given in Poser. It's less likely to get used in Poser if people have to learn about it and put in extra effort to get it.

 Not all of us are trying for photorealism anyway.  I'm into making comic toons.
But the gamma in poser may work differently. As I mentioned earlier, it seems to take some of the richness of the colours away and also "seems" to me to make my images less sharp.  It could be my imagination though.
Love esther

> Quote - Interesting. Are we trying to emulate the camera lens, or human vision? Would they be the same?

You cant Emulate human vision... its impossible.

Actually so called
photorealistic 3Drenderers  are just Emulation what the scene would look like if a professional photographer took a picture and handed it  to you
if you  use a  truly "highend"
render engine that used a "physicaly correct" workflow you can recognize this right away in your settings ( see pic)
but these of course are way more $$Expensive$$$ than poser

Quote - One of these renders was made using 5 infinite lights.

The other was made using everything what PoserPro 2010 could throw at it. (IDL, tone mapping, etc)

I guess my "Standard Poser lighting skills" must be exceptional then, because, even though I really tried, I can't really see any advantage in those new "features".

And that proves...pretty much nothing actually, other than that by using 5 infinite lights and unmentioned setting on the render, one can get something that looks approximately the same as another render again using unmentioned settings with other stuff.

Most of this discussion has been at cross purposes almost from the start.
On the one hand, trying to explain, in response to the OP, the simple, plain fact of what GC is.
On the other hand, presenting good and bad renders as reasons to either use it or not use it.

GC does nothing more or less than enable us to use physics-based maths in our shaders. No GC means that shader lighting calculations are not based on physical reality. But that simple fact in no way implies any pressure on anyone to use it. There are other ways to compensate for these inaccuracies.

The fact remains, though, that many ugly Poser renders are ugly simply because the contrast and/or levels are all wrong. It is in such circumstances that those people who recognise the symptoms are likely to recommend GC as an appropriate way to improve things.

On the subject of realism:

what you would actually see can not be accurately captured by a camera, recreated in Poser (or anything else) or made in any other way.

So we're left with what we'd expect to see. 'Photorealism' is what we'd expect to see if a scene was captured by a camera - but what kind? Digital? Film? What sort of sensor? What sort of film?

Have you ever watched some of that colour footage of World War II, and thought it looked a bit weird? That's because you expected to see it in black and white. If you were creating a scene set in the 1960s, you'd probably light it to emulate what you'd have seen in magazines and TV shows / commercials of the time. You might well do some post-processing to emulate the shortcomings of the colour film, TV or colour printing technologies of the time, to make it seem 'genuine' (i.e. to meet the viewer's expectations).

If anyone wants to delve into this in more depth, a recommended read is Umberto Eco's Travels in Hyper-reality.

Some very reasonable comments. I think some confusion has arisen from the fact that some of the comments advocating the use of GC  have, as others have stated, come across rather as absolutes - with the implication that if you're not using it, you images are clearly, inevitably, metaphysically doomed to inferiority. I don't think anyone is pushing a hidden SM agenda, whatever their affiliations, but rather expressing their honest opinions. It's certainly refreshing to read some discussion of the pros and cons and when GC may or may not be the most appropriate technique. So, while the ecumenical spirit lasts:

1. In Vue, Kerkythea and some orher renderers, GC is implemented as a post-render effect. Is there an advantage to GC in the render process as opposed to post-render?

2. I rendered a scene in program x specifically designed to show the value of GC. I did two renders, one with and one without GC. Applying GC 2.2 to the non-GC image in an image editor, I can see no difference between it and the render GC version. Am I missing something or is there no difference? 

3. I often render in Vue using HDRI lighting. Does the use HDRI effect the need for GC in any way or is it still a case by case issue?

4. There still seems to be some suggestion that at least for certain scenes, GC is a must, or at least greatly preferred. What non-GC techniques can be used to mitigate for its absence?

Read the chapter Stewer posted above.  It will clarify some of your questions.

In many cases GC seems to be the tail wagging the dog... users have been told they should use it, but they don't understand why.

Sounds like there's a requirement for non-technical guide to GC. OK, a very lightly technical guide. It'll take me a while but I'll put something together over the next few days.

Quote - I Dont render in poser so I never Gamma correct
But it seems like this GC/VSS combo is mainly for Figure portriats
showing alot of skin.
is it relevent to poser users who Do Sci fi with Mechs/machines etc?

Yes it is. It probably even works better, since generally non-skin shaders are not as complex, and don't have kludges built in to fake some of the effects of GC.

Quote - Interesting. Are we trying to emulate the camera lens, or human vision? Would they be the same?

No. For one thing, cameras usually have depth-of-field effects, and human vision tends not to. If I take a photo of a person standing in front of a tall building in the distance, the person will be in focus and the building won't be. Because the human eye can move about in a scene, and re-focus, if I am looking at the person he will be in focus, and if my attention shifts to the building it will be in focus.

"I'll put something together over the next few days." 

Looking forward to it. Personally, I would like something in between Maxwell's equations and 'just use it.' I've started reading Birn's Digital Lighting and Rendering, and I like his practical approach, though strangely, he doesn't seem to say a lot about gamma correction per se other than using the histogram for adjustments. Maybe he didn't get the memo.

just a few things that people seem to be misled about:

as far as i can tell, using Vray does not automatically make gamma correction unnecessary.  i've seen tons of yellow bloom and overly dark shadows in too bright ambient light renders posted by people saying they use Vray.

Tone Mapping does not do Gamma Correction.  it doesn't replace it.  it just does something else entirely.  you might like what it does, and you can get good results with it, but it's not GC.

CG is computer graphics, which we're all working with.  gamma correction is abbreviated as GC.

gamma correction is a very, very simple concept with lots of implications.  your textures are in sRGB space.  the colors you see on your screen are in sRGB space.  this includes the colors in your final render and  the colors in your color picker. your renderer makes linear mathematical calculations.  not just Poser's renderer, every renderer.   like 1 + 2 = 3.

gamma correction or linear workflow means translating the sRGB input into a linear form so that the linear calculations have input that makes sense, then translating the final calculation to sRGB so that the output makes sense to your digital display. 

regular workflow means you're feeding the renderer what to it is gibberish, then producing something that's gibberish to the screen.  even if you do decide to correct in photoshop, you already have gibberish from your sRGB input processed linearly.  and unless you've been very careful about lighting, which most aren't, you've already lost information to blow out and  shadows that are too dark.

if you notice, in a graphics app that doesn't apply its own correction as Photoshop can, if you take something at 50% opacity and overlay it with a duplicate of itself, you won't get  the color at 100% opacity.  in non-linear space 1 + 2 does not equal 3.  treating it as if it does is not "unrealistic."  it's simply incorrect.

can you tweak your lights and materials to make it not look like gibberish?  yes, and lots of  people do.  what you're basically doing then is translating between linear and sRGB space by hand and eyeballing it.  it's more work to do consistently than just using the correct math to translate, but people have done it for years.  once you've learned to make the gibberish look like you want, is it more work to change?  yes, but again, the issue is consistency.

i've seen lots of people who do one type of lighting without GC fairly well.  i've seen very few people do lots of different types of lighting well without GC, and again, that includes people who use Vray.  flipping it around, which is where it really counts, i have textures with shaders that compensate for not having GC, but they don't work well at all outside of a certain lighting range.

even with toons, most people expect light to behave like light.  just like, even when you write fantasy, you can't get away with people not acting like people.  most of what makes your average Poser render look just plain bad and poorly done is bad lighting, and a lot of that bad lighting is just due to the gibberish renderers produce without linear workflow.  most of "learning" to light is learning to compensate for lack of GI and GC.  get rid of that, and you can focus on how lighting should work in general.

can GC have a problem in low light?   it depends on your perspective.  if you look at my gallery, you can see 2 low light GC images.  i'd say they work very well, but at the same time, i wasn't satisfied.   because i kept saying something about it, bagginsbill checked and learned that a simple gamma curve isn't quite as accurate as a slightly more complex sRGB  equation that i use instead now.  in brighter results, it's almost identical, but in darker results (meaning dark from diffuse color, diffuse shading or cast shadow), i find the difference easy to distinguish.  his tests comparing GC to sRGB are here in the forums.  i have a 3rd image up i'd say was kind of low light, and it uses sRGB.  i prefer its reaction to lights.

did people start using GC and suggesting others do the same just because someone who knows both math and optics said so?  no.  if you read the threads, we asked questions, did our own research and tests, and saw major improvements.  i personally was working on my own skin shader at the time, and went from basically having to have two completely different shaders for different lighting extremes to having one that worked everywhere.  i like very white ambient scenes, and very dark, directional light scenes, and every time i took a skin shader i thought worked well and switched from one scene to another in tests, i had to drastically alter the shader. once i switched to linear workflow, that was no longer necessary and i could easily make materials that performed reliably regardless of the type of light.

tons of merchants use VSS PR3 because it makes their textures look better in more situations than their own shaders.  there are a lot of features built into VSS PR3, but GC is one of the more important ones.  another important one is conservation of energy, but that's another discussion.

does using GC change your ability to do postwork?  in my experience, it improves it.  i've been using Poser for years, and you can see lots of my work before i started using GC.  it's not bad.  but i know how much i had to do to get it to that point, and the problems i didn't like that i couldn't eliminate until i switched ot a linear workflow.  it's really easy for me to increase saturation.  i've literally never needed to (i have no problem getting uber saturated colors), but i could do that fairly easily.  changing shading on my whole image to something that worked the way i wanted it to at every shading level was really unpleasant, imho. 

do you personally have to use linear workflow?  of course not. 

i just did some research  taught myself a few different ways of modeling braids in Blender.  imho, they're all plodding and generally a bad practice.  i shouldn't be doing something that's really obviously a repetitive and mathematical task by hand.  it takes me a while and is prone to me making mistakes.  if i instead either find a script (which i haven't been able to do so far) or learn to write my own script, i would be using a computer as it's meant to be used.  that said, it would be a lot of work to begin scripting in Blender.  and i'd have to actually understand the math instead of having a sort of fuzzy idea.  lots of time, lots of effort.  so i'd have to have a very particular project in mind to make it worth it. 

the point being, even though there's lots of stuff it can be easier in the long run to let the computer handle, it still has to be broken to be worth fixing.

In the article stewer linked to, GC is discussed in an enclosed game enviroment.

There a single person has control over:

1. How the textures are created
2. What shaders are used
3. The settings of the render engine
4. The lights used

So there is absolute control from texture to finished render.
And despite all that control the article still suggests a (crude) means of "dialing in" gamma necessary before playing the game to compensate for different monitors.

The article also admits that in many cases GC can't be actually SEEN because two "wrong gammas" cancel each other out.

Poser, otoh is not a controlled game environment.
You have different artists creating textures using different cameras, processing these textures using different programs while using different monitors.
Then you have users sitting in front of different monitors, using different light sets, using different textures, using different shader setups, using different render settings.

In short, you have a mindboggling variety of variables that determin the final render and that you have no control over whatsoever.

So, running around and telling people that using a certain shader set and a certain PRO feature (Available at extra cost, thankyouverymuch), will turn their work from the usual Poser fare to CGTalk feature worthy, is....well....a little stretching reality IMVHO.

I don't argue the underlying math behind GC.

But I very much argue the conclusions drawn here.

With all due respect, but mentioning "Poser" and "Photorealism" in the same sentence reveals a lot of wishfull thinking.

There's not a single truly "photorealistic" human mesh available for Poser.
Not a single.

So the FIRST thing you'd have to do is sit down and learn how to sculpt and rig.
THEN, and only THEN you can start worrying about lights and textures and shaders.
But you'll soon find out that Poser isn't even remotely capeable of doing the things that need to be done to create "True Photorealism".

There is a reason MAX is so expensive and it takes years to master.

So, right now, as much as I love all the things the Poser team did with Poser 8 and PP2010, I will dismiss GC and most other new light features right now as pure marketing hype, similar to "All textures must be 4000x4000 minimum" and "A quality figure must have 70000+ polygons".

TRUE Photorealism takes the right equipment, talent, and years of honing that talent.

Maybe in five years Vicky 7 will actually look like a human being without extensive re-sculpting and rigging.
Maybe in five years PP2015 will have a "perfect sunny day" default light and all the bits and pieces needed to create realistic skin instead of wax candles.
Maybe even a way to create large outdoor scenes with real grass and trees.

I really, truly wish Poser will be like that some day.
Click, click, click, render, and the result will look like a photograph.
(If you WANT it to look like a photograph)

But these days aren't even close.

If SmithMicro REALLY want's to "promote TRUE PHOTOREALISM", start paying some real professional figure sculpters.

Make head to toe laser scans of some adults and kids, then let a real CGI artist create quality meshes from that data with proper detailed edgeflow and sensible UV mapping.
Then have those meshes rigged using the latest Poser tech by someone like Phantom3D who actually knows what he's doing.

Don't try to imitate Vicky. Imitate LIFE.

James 1, Koji 1 and MIKI 1 were ALMOST there.

This will do A LOT more to raise the quality of your average Poser render and promote Poser as a PRO tool than some esoteric feature that actually most CGI PROFESSIONALS haven't even heard of:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=2&t=610790

Again, I don't argue the validity of the math behind GC.

I just think this constant "hype" is at best a waste of time and in the worst case counter productive.

Clearly, an artist needs to understand the tools they are using or they will produce nothing at all. However, at times it seems that understanding Poser has become an end in itself eg, how many boxes can be linked together in the materiel room and still get a picture, rather than what it can achieve for an artist.

Poser or any pogram can only ever be a work in progress so we can't expect everything to be included within Poser at this time. Now, while some seem to like playing with shaders they scare me half to death. Procedures such as VSS, GC or IDL should work in the background, with a list of tick boxes - IDL Y/N, VSS Y/N etc, because otherwise people like me just won't use them.

Until they are made to work in the background then such as me will contine to adjust the render (or merely antialaised) in our graphics packages - and as such it means Poser is nothing more than a posing programme - having read LW's introduction in P3 I think that was all it was meant as.

Quote - Now, while some seem to like playing with shaders they scare me half to death. Procedures such as VSS, GC or IDL should work in the background, with a list of tick boxes - IDL Y/N, VSS Y/N etc, because otherwise people like me just won't use them.

That would be ideal yeah but the problem is that these features are pretty technical to begin with and difficult to simplify beyond a certain point. I mean you could reduce it all down to on/off choices (and a lot of this has already been done for poser) but then you'd run into situations where you're getting 10x the render time or 1/10th the render quality because on/off doesn't cover your particular project properly. It's generally easier to just admit that computers are dumb and leave it to their human masters to figure out what all numbers/buttons to use.

JoePublic - but GC isn't about realism, exactly.  which has been pointed out.  it's about correct.  and all those different monitors and cameras are sRGB.   see my image for an example of sRGB input in linear calculations displayed on an sRGB output (your screen).  that's a color picker blue (0, 20, 140) at 50% opacity (linear divide) overlayed ( linear add) on another square of blue at 50% opacity (linear divide).  in the center the color at 100% opacity. on no screen will the overlap (which is (0, 15, 105)) and the unchanged square be the same color.  (0, 15, 105) isn't a _bad_ color, it's the wrong color, and not by a little.

here's the same image, but with just the wrong result corrected.  notice that it's way, way too bright, because the input was never linearized.

@kobaltkween: thank you, I really enjoyed reading your post (edit: I mean the long one!). Facts, common sense, and experience. Recommended reading for everyone.

@JoePublic...

Quote - So, running around and telling people that using a certain shader set and a certain PRO feature (Available at extra cost, thankyouverymuch), will turn their work from the usual Poser fare to CGTalk feature worthy, is....well....a little stretching reality IMVHO.

This nonsense of mixing up the subjects of linear shader calculations and photorealism is entirely of your own making. No-one has ever claimed that using real-physics based shaders will produce photorealistic renders.

Quote - I will dismiss GC and most other new light features right now as pure marketing hype

You are dismissing these real advances in Poser's feature set (GC, and from the sounds of it IDL) purely on the imaginary notion that someone is telling you they will fix all your renders. But no-one is.

and here's the whole thing with linearization of color, linear calculations, and correction of output.  exactly the same color.

in my experience, from reading comments and feedback here and elsewhere (CG Society, app specific forums, etc.), most people don't have as good an eye for bad anatomy as bad lighting and bad materials.

how you arrive at good lighting and good materials is your own choice.  GC is a tool for letting the computer handle color correction universally in a mathematically precise way. like any automated tool, it's only as useful to you as your workflow allows.  no one's suggesting GC to people who aren't having material or lighting problems.  but  when i see yellow bloom and muddy shadows, and i see it in render after render, i suggest using it (among other techniques).

just to clarify, i think GC is a tick box in Poser Pro and Poser Pro 2010 render settings (i don't have either, but i've seen screen shots).  i don't have Poser 8 or PP 2010 either, but i know IDL is part of the render settings.  they seem more complex.  

VSS is not the sample skin shader template distributed with it (a very common confusion).  VSS is the Versatile Shader System, which is for making it easier to control all the materials in your scene.  if you wanted, for instance, to implement a toon shader on everything in your scene, while retaining your color, bump and displacement settings, VSS would be very useful. the sample skin shader template for VSS implements a skin shader on your figures with the goal of realistic skin.  that skin shader has GC in it, and a lot of other features.  but VSS doesn't actually have anything to do with GC.  it would be great if VSS had a slick interface and was simpler to create templates with, but it's still in alpha or beta or whatever.  it's also one of the many tools bagginsbill works on in  his spare time.

"However, at times it seems that understanding Poser has become an end in itself eg, how many boxes can be linked together in the materiel room and still get a picture, rather than what it can achieve for an artist." 

LoL. It does seem that way at times. Ultimately however, it is always about the individual user. Just because a relatively small(?) group of users choose to tout a particular feature or SM wants to try make Poser into more of a high end application doesn't mean anyone has to buy into it. New advances are almost always good and it's good that we have people who take advantage of them and try to help others understand their use. Take what you find useful. If you find yourself doing something just because it's the new revealed wisdom, that IMO is a mistake. 

The CGSociety thread JoePublic posted is informative. If a substantial number of working professionals in 3D don't full understand or utilize a feature, how can the average hobbyist Poser user be expected to respond. The difference perhaps is that the Poser user may be more influenced by suggestions that they are missing something essential. That in itself may actually be a good thing if it leads people to adopt better practices. To the degree that the presentation can be  more practical, less technical and less dogmatic  it will succeed  beyond the minority..

Poser evolves as does the community here. The current enthusiasm for its more technical aspects may or may not wane and it may or may not lead to a schism. If the past is any indication however, there will always be room for everyone and anyone can choose to chart their own course.

Quote - Ultimately however, it is always about the individual user. Just because a relatively small(?) group of users choose to tout a particular feature or SM wants to try make Poser into more of a high end application doesn't mean anyone has to buy into it. New advances are almost always good and it's good that we have people who take advantage of them and try to help others understand their use. Take what you find useful. If you find yourself doing something just because it's the new revealed wisdom, that IMO is a mistake.

The tone in these threads gives one the impression that the majority of Poser users read the forums. Seriously, how many Poser artists actually read these forums? I've read posts by Poser users with posting numbers under 10 who claim they've been using Poser for years. I think we might be flattering ourselves to think that we're reaching a large part of the Poser community.

I have bought into the concept that Poser colour processing has issues which users (successfully of unsuccessfully) compensate for with adding more lights. That's just a fact. My issue is this (one that I've repeated a few times before): why is gamma-correction considered a pro feature? If a renderer processes linear colours correctly and sRGB colours incorrectly, why hasn't this been fixed within the software?

If an operating system has a major security breach which makes it unsafe to use, most OS makers (whether MS or Canonical or whoever) put a lot of resources into fixing this problem.

Poser processes colour for a living. Well, FireFly does. FireFly processes colour for the casual Poser user incorrectly, but for those who decide to invest in Poser Pro 2010 the corrected method is considered a "Pro Feature". Just look at this: it doesn't make sense. If something core to a programme doesn't work properly, it needs to be fixed for all users, not just those willing to pay the extra amount. That just smells bad, to me.

And on the basis of that I can see where people might see this whole GC thing as just a ploy to get Poser users to invest in the upgraded product. But it's just not right.

Here's the thing... for the rest of us unwashed Visigoths using Poser 5-6-7-8, we need to either GC all our materials or find some other solution so that colours are processed linearly (i.e., correctly). Fair enough... and so we invest hours and hours 1) learning how to work in the material room - which I'm quite fond of but MOST artists find about as appealing as going for a dip at the local water treatment plant 2) put a node-set together that deals with straight colour (diffuse)... then 3) put a node-set together that deals with colour (diffuse) and and specularity...

Sheesh, let's just look at that "3)" for a minute. I've been mucking around a fair bit now with linearising colours (and there was some discussion whether each colour should be individually linearised before blending or anything else that involves the use of colours), then processing with Diffuse() then correcting before handing over to PoserSurface(). But now, we've got a new wrinkle: specularity. There's a few more nodes available than what's inside the Specular_Colour channel. Blinn() is supposedly the most accurate, but for what? And then, you need to subtract that value from the diffuse value (Conservation of Energy) ... and suddenly, at this point, almost all Poser artists run screaming into the night.

But I'm still there. Even if things are getting a bit grey, now. Simply because One Node Set cannot hope to satisfy all material needs.

And the instruction set for where to go from here is sketchy, disjointed and fraught with "It Depends". I'm starving for more concise information. I'm pretty sure something is in the pipeline, but in the meantime, are my shaders bogus because I'm not "being physically accurate"?

To those that see this as a reason to chuck the baby out with the bath water, I say this: in nursing, a good recovery-room nurse lives in a constant state of wariness and uncertainty about a patient's condition. That is why my patients do well: because I am alert to the possibility that I might have missed something and constantly reassess. A lot of nurses on the ward cling to old practices because that is what they are comfortable with and whilst many of their patients do okay, others suffer problems because of lack of vigilence.
So, I am comfortable being in a state of uncertainty. I'm always ready to try something I've never done before. To me, this is what makes Poser such a rich programme (even with the issues): you can find solutions to whatever you want to create. No band-wagon here... nothing easy or click-a-button solution: you have to think, consider what is being offered and see science for what it is. You can chose to ignore it but the fact remains: this is what happens in colour processing. Take it or leave it. Doesn't mean I have an answer on where to go from there, but oh well.

 Hum
[http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch24.html

"For example, by convention, all JPEG files are precorrected for a gamma of 2.2."!!!!
:cursing:
In pp, cheked gamma correction =gamma correction of precorrected gamma texture= gamma error

Solution:not to save in jpeg format, using a format  nondestructive and no gamma precorrected ex. png,. tif; hdr, and other
Or, use gamma inverse node in materials room

Sorry for my bad english

Ps:Jpeg=inadapted format for the 3d applications
](http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch24.html)

Ok, let me say up front that I do use GC and that I'm immensely grateful to those who figured it all out, explained it and showed us how to use it, and all for free too. Kudos to them.

That said, I'll tell you why this issue is so divisive:

Time and again I have seen, in technical threads dealing with GC matters, comments such as 'If you don't use GC all you get is crap' and, "Without GC all you produce is rubbish'. Those are the actual words used.

And for many people that is simply rude and insulting, and possibly demoralising. It's also not the truth, which only makes matters worse.

Artistic merit isn't just about GC (shh!) - it's about capturing somebody's imagination, intriguing them, inspiring them or making them think for a moment. It's about telling a story or touching an emotion. It's about amazing them.

And then somebody who might well have achieved all those things in their artwork has their entire portfolio rubbished just because of some yellow bloom or a few dark shadows! No wonder it gets people's backs up!

The comments in this thread by comparison have been much more diplomatic and considerate, to the effect that good pictures can be made even better with GC applied. Unfortunately that's not the usual message given out by the GC gurus in other threads.

GC should be on everyone's list of priorities, but it doesn't need to be near the top. There are things much more important -  the kind of things I mentioned above.

It doesn't help that all we ever see from the gurus is a blankly staring V4/M4 in a bland setting and no attempt whatsoever at artistry. It must be disheartening (and annoying) for your inspired and carefully crafted image to be relegated to 'crap' compared to these endless series of technical renders (which aren't always that good technically anyway).

I think the GC gurus should marry their undisputed technical wizardry with a little bit of diplomacy, or just common politeness. It can be done, as we've seen in this thread. It just so rarely is in other threads.

On occasion I've seen the most amazingly technically accomplished Poser images posted here, of V4 or Miki or whatever in a simple scene. Beautifully lit and wonderfully rendered. Some have looked almost like a photograph. I've been awed by them, and I mean that sincerely.

But then I've thought to myself, "If this image actually was a photograph, what would I think of it then?"
And usually the answer is: not much, actually. Not compared to the brilliantly creative photography seen here or on other dedicated photography sites. And then I realise that the Poser image's merit lies exclusively in the fact that it looks quite like a photograph. Clever, impressive etc., but not enough to make it a real work of art.

And then I'll see another image by somebody far less technically accomplished that has a bit of yellow bloom or some overly dark shadows or whatever, but see something in it that really excites my imagination.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Me? I'm going to keep trying to make art with cool ideas and use GC to make it look as good as I can. But I'm going to keep my priorities in order :-)

I wanted to mention two items:

• tone mapping (exposure control, poser 8 (non-pro)) can achieve a nearly linear response, like GC, when used with gain, as shown by bill in another thread
• poser 8 (non-pro) writes the Gamma and UseGamma variables to pz3, but when I tried to set these in a script, it gave an error indicating there's no SetGamma nor SetUseGamma in FFRender (poser 8 (non-pro)).  but maybe my script was wrong.

> Quote - tone mapping (exposure control, poser 8 (non-pro)) can achieve a nearly linear response, like GC, when used with gain, as shown by bill in another thread

... and these were his recommended settings, if I recall correctly.

Quote - [The tone in these threads gives one the impression that the majority of Poser users read the forums. Seriously, how many Poser artists actually read these forums? I've read posts by Poser users with posting numbers under 10 who claim they've been using Poser for years. I think we might be flattering ourselves to think that we're reaching a large part of the Poser community.

Totally agree. I've been using Poser since 2003. I've lurked in the forums under the account that is linked to paypal in our household for quite some time. But this forum is not a Poser mecca.

Quote - have bought into the concept that Poser colour processing has issues which users (successfully of unsuccessfully) compensate for with adding more lights. That's just a fact.

This is not true for me. I don't think it's necessarily true for most users. And this description of what GC or does not do is exactly what confused me.

I don't use GC in my renders. But I also don't compensate by adding more lights. I don't see yellow blooms.

What I do see in my raw renders, and in images posted to the gallery, are renders that are too dark, and slightly desaturated.

Most of the time it isn't obvious to me when I view the completed render within poser itself because for some reason poser displays on my machine with a little more contrast than do other image viewing/editing applications. I don't know why.

However, 99% of the time, taking that render and applying a photoshop preset in curves fixes it instantly.

If I'm compositing the alpha channel against another layer as a background, then I might use the exposure adjustment, and compare the two layers in gray scale.

So, thanks to this thread, I've concluded that when I have to do that anyway, adjusting GC ahead of time within Poser itself is really a waste of time.

In the end, it boils down to what I enjoy doing with my time.

I have the choice of changing some nodes, rendering, changing some more nodes, rendering, changing the first node back, rendering, posting my 3 renders to the forums, changing 22 nodes on advice of the forum, rendering, changing the lighting, rendering, changing the lighting some more, rendering, posting to the forum with 3 more renders, changing my lighting on advice of the forum, rendering, changing a few nodes to compensate for the lighting change, rendering, changing the nodes some more, rendering, posting my revised renders to the forums, changing 17 nodes on advice from the forums, changing those nodes again on conflicting advice from the forums, rendering, posting my suicide note in the forums, hanging myself.

Or, I could render, change the lighting, render, open photoshop, adjust with curves or exposure -- watch the changes in real time in the preview - save, share the finished image.

Some people like solving puzzles and some people like making pictures. There's a lot of overlap between the 2 groups, but when our primary interests don't intersect, I think we have trouble communicating because our goals are different.

Snarlygribbly -- Yes, exactly.**
**

> Quote - > > So, thanks to this thread, I've concluded that when I have to do that anyway, adjusting GC ahead of time within Poser itself is really a waste of time. > > In the end, it boils down to what I enjoy doing with my time. > > I have the choice of changing some nodes, rendering, changing some more nodes, rendering, changing the first node back, rendering, posting my 3 renders to the forums, changing 22 nodes on advice of the forum, rendering, changing the lighting, rendering, changing the lighting some more, rendering, posting to the forum with 3 more renders, changing my lighting on advice of the forum, rendering, changing a few nodes to compensate for the lighting change, rendering, changing the nodes some more, rendering, posting my revised renders to the forums, changing 17 nodes on advice from the forums, changing those nodes again on conflicting advice from the forums, rendering, posting my suicide note in the forums, hanging myself. > > Or, I could render, change the lighting, render, open photoshop, adjust with curves or exposure -- watch the changes in real time in the preview - save, share the finished image. > > Some people like solving puzzles and some people like making pictures. .

Lets no forget there are a few evangelical
users for whom any out of app postwork
is greatest of evils as it is "cheating"

Me??
 I cant wait to get my raw render into post production for adjustment color grading using my NikSoftware "color effects pro"
plugins for photoshop CS3

Cheers

Raw render from Vray attached

...and final comp

OK I have to start commenting SOMEWHERE in a thread that has sprouted three new pages ssince I last read it L So I'll start with this quote:

Quote -

The tone in these threads gives one the impression that the majority of Poser users read the forums. Seriously, how many Poser artists actually read these forums? I've read posts by Poser users with posting numbers under 10 who claim they've been using Poser for years. I think we might be flattering ourselves to think that we're reaching a large part of the Poser community.

Remember that not all forumites are inclined to actually comment. Some are apparently satisfied with *reading" for years and years. I suppose it's like watching television.. there's no need to yell at the TV... Personally (as it's obvious from my post-count) I find the concept alien, but OTOH I know several really OLDTIMERS here with very low post counts. Doesn't make them less active here when it comes to reading and absorbing the reading. They're just not commenting.

And then.. Aeilkema.. How come, no matter WHAT The F is discussed here, you always have to be so negative about it? I seriously pity you. It must be hell always to be looking at the bad side of life.

And you'll probably tell me I'm dead wrong and you're never negative, just sceptical or something. Well it comes out as NEGATIVE. And it's getting tedious. At least to me.

Of course, Gamma Correction isn't absolutely necessary. After all, it was a feature introduced in Poser 7 Pro and saying it is absolutely necessary is the same as saying any render before P7P is crap. Which of course is not the fact. Some people learned, very cleverly, to compensate for the lack of gamma correction, either by carefully selecting the JUST RIGHT lights, or, like me, by postworking the living cr** out of my renders. The end result is what counts.

And there are situations that looks WRONG with GC (bear in mind that I do not own any Poser Pro, except the very FIRST Poser pro which is essentially Poser 4 and thus doesn't really count ;) ) at least the GC you can get by manipulating materials into linear .. er.. thingie (OK I'm cr*p at remembering terms)

but that doesn't mean that GC is neither The Big Thing nor The BAD thing. Just that it's optional and may very well improve your rrenders. If you don't want to fuss with it.. leave it and postwork or whatever you used to do. JP's pic illustrates quite nicely that ok things can be achieved without GC (then again although both renders are NICE, I don't find any of them photorealistic

And that's the next thing. Photorealism. Listen there's a reason why it's called PHOTOrealism. It's not because it should look like something you can see with your naked EYE - it's like something you could see on a PHOTO.

Even a photo isn't realistic. When you look at something with your own eyes you won't have a finite distance blur, because your eyes will adapt. When you look at the horizon, your eyes adapt to the big distance and when you then switch focus to a snail righ in front of you, your eyes adapt.

A photo, being a static NOW can't do both. With a photo you can EITHER focus on the snail, and have a blurry background - OR focus on the horizon and have a blurry snail. Unless you're using CG, which is capable of having both in focu, but for that very reasun tells your brain that "here's something wrong"

And you may not even realise WHAT is wrong. It niggles your brain as "wrong" but the thing is.. a static picture can NEVER react like your eye would. And when, like in common CG, it does, it comes off as WRONG.

For a long time, I've been trying to make *PHOTO" real pictures with Poser. I've found that it requires a LOT of phtotshopping to blur edges, blur distances and in general.. make the thing into B/W. The human eye is adapted to recognize human skin and CG skin will almost always look wrong. In small amounts, but still wrong. Once you make the whole thing into blac-and-white however, your brain treats what you see as a "picture" and is apparently a lot more forgiving. People with Psychology degrees can probably tell you a lot more about the phenomenon.

As I said, I'm a recent VSS/Material GC convert. Now that I've seen what it CAN do, I'm GC'ing textures and stuff.. sometimes it looks better, sometimes it looks worse. When it looks better, I use it. When not, I skip it.