I haven't changed any of the default settings for the hair, but I am able to see through the cones, and also see the scalp through the hair. It's my understanding that the promo pictures for items don't have any postwork done on them, so I'm wondering why my Chrystalline Hair doesn't seem to behaving itself.

I'm also using ToXic for Chrystalline.

This is probably a really lame question, and for that I apologise but I was wondering if someone would know what is going on, if it's a lighting thing, or something in the render settings that needs adjusting to make the hair look solid.

I have raytracing enabled and I have a high resolution output 3000px @ 300DPI, approximately. I'm not sure what else it could be.

(Product page)

Have you recently upgraded your version of Poser to any version of Poser Pro? If so, are you rendering with Gamma Correction enabled? Hair trans maps (and indeed any non-colour maps: bump/spec/etc) need to have their gamma value set to 1 in the Texture Editor.

I'm using Poser Pro 2010 - haven't upgraded my Poser program.

Is the Gamma Correction in the Render settings option window? Or do I change the gamma value in the Properties tab, in the main Pose window?

There are quite a few threads featuring the sage advice of one Bagginsbill on the care and feeding of Gamma Correction, so I won't go into whether you should use it or not: that depends a lot on your workflow and preferences. However, to use it implies some workflow changes. Pay-for lights - even the popular ones - don't really take GC into account. Neither do any materials.

For lighting, I'd develop my own.

and click Okay.

I just changed the GC to 1 on another render, using the same character and hair, and it made a MASSIVE improvement! I always thought there was something wrong with my lights, because I wasn't doing something properly with them, not having enough lights in the scene... but I can see now it was the Gamma that was causing problems, not the lights at all.

I didnt understand what the Gamma Correction was in the Render settings, so I left it at Default, which was pretty high at 2.2 (I think). I will have to remember to drop it down to 1 from now on. I prefer the results.

Thankyou again!! I learned something new today big grin

You are quite welcome!

You might want to experiment with gamma correction with a 2.2 setting and following that rather quick non-colour map change from 2.2 to 1 via script eventually... again, you'll find messing with lights and all that a bit of a challenge but Bagginsbill has left a lot of information about how to achieve good renders using gamma correction.

For instance, this image was done with gamma correction on:

Click on the image for a larger version

This also features his scatter/diffuse with blinn shader and IDL, rendered in PP2012.

Keep in mind that almost all lights - commercial and otherwise - were developed before gamma correction was readily available or even somewhat understood. So no, the problem wasn't really GC - it was your lights AND gamma correction. As you can see in the image above, you can achieve reasonably decent results with gamma correction but your approach to lighting will most likely need to be revised.

Now I know what the Gamma Correction will do when I play around with it, I'll adjust the settings and see what different results I come up with. Changing the 2.2 in the Render settings window to 1 got me a result I'm very happy with, but there is always room for improvement.

My approach to lighting is still very very basic and amateurish, but with the GC adjustments, I know my lighting will need tweaking because I'm getting different results.

You have referred to information left by Bagginsbill - do you have a link where I could find this information so I can have a read?

This thread should get you started...

Thanks very much!!!

Should I even bother explaining about enabling GC with gamma=1 everywhere?

I'm going to just not bother unless the readers can follow and understand the difference between the following words:

some

all

So, using renderer gamma for colour maps is not on? New information to me.

I guess the implication is that if the texture Editor setting says "Use Gamma settings from render settings" that that is what is going to be used as opposed to something else. So, why is this wrong?

See, none of this was explained anywhere before. So, please preface with "oh, by-the-way, new information!" if this is what it is. First I heard that colour maps are meant to be set to gamma of 1.

Quote - Should I even bother explaining about enabling GC with gamma=1 everywhere?

I'm going to just not bother unless the readers can follow and understand the difference between the following words:

 

some

all

 

I am sorry but I didn't know that my query about the hair was related to the Gamma Correction. I'm new to Poser and still getting my head around the settings. The vast majority of the Default settings I leave them alone- only a few I understand enough to change.

No, I think that remark was addressing my recommendation to select "all of the above" instead of "all materials" which is brand-new information to me. Still need to hear the justification for 1) why and 2) why was this not shared before.

JK - you have no need to apologize. I'm actually speaking to a wider audience. But you said something now which triggers a revisiting of the same topic that came up last week in another thread.

Somebody else also claimed that they liked the results of gamma=1 in render settings. I pointed out that GC=1 in render settings is the same as not using gamma at all. Then as proof, images were shown where it was clear that not all the gamma values were gamma=1.

As Robyn has shown, it is possible to set the assumed gamma on individual images and shown that when GC is enabled, you really should set the gamma=1 on transparency maps, bump maps, and displacement maps. This is because such maps have a gamma of 1 and assuming they have any other gamma causes them to be messed up.

However, the color maps have a gamma of 2.2 and gamma correction needs to know that. As well, the final color image should have a gamma of 2.2 and that is the value of the render setting.

Now - the assumed gamma of incoming images, unless you tell it otherwise, is the same as the value you set in render settings. That shows in the texture manager - the default gamma assigned to an image is "Use gamma value from render settings". This means that the incoming image gamma is equal to whatever you set in render settings unless you change it.

Is that clear? If you start with a new system, in a scene nobody where the number of individual color map changes have been manipulated is zero, then the individual color map gamma is the same as the render setting gamma.

In such systems, where

1. all color maps have the same gamma setting as the render setting

2. you set gamma=1 in render settings

You get exactly the same outcome as:

1. Turning gamma correction off

Robyn - Your reactions should just be deleted. Eveything you wrote before I wrote was fine. The reason I wrote at all has nothing to do with what you said.

I wrote something in this thread because I saw another person saying "I like gamma = 1" and that is the same as saying "I do not want to use gamma correction".

Why do I say this?

1. Gamma = 1 does nothing

2. There's no need to learn all this altered workflow and then set gamma = 1. Just don't enable GC. It's the same thing.

The reason I'm worried about speaking at all is in the other thread, it got nuts. My words were not understood, and the reaction was very negative. I'm nervous about it.

For the gamma correction operation (which is really selective gamma change), a gamma value of 1 is a null operation. It doesn't do anything. If you perform the null operation everywhere, then you're doing nothing.

The key is are you really doing it everywhere, always, etc. In the previous discussion, I and a couple others asserted that when the person said "I have gamma=1" they did not - they had some places where it was not 1, but some other number. Under that condition, i.e. some were gamma=1, not all were gamma=1, then enabling GC shows something changes. But if you really have all gamma=1, then enabling GC does nothing.

Quote - No, I think that remark was addressing my recommendation to select "all of the above" instead of "all materials" which is brand-new information to me. Still need to hear the justification for 1) why and 2) why was this not shared before.

That's not what I said at all.

I am writing about the color maps.

I am writing in response to anybody who says

"Oh - I like gamma correction now. I enable it and set gamma=1 and it looks good."

This is either a nonsense statement, based on incorrect perception, or inaccurate based on the fact that gamma is not 1 in all places.

If GC is on with all gamma=1, there is no difference than if GC is off.

How do you get all gamma=1?

You get that if you never modify an individual image gamma, and in render settings you place a 1.

And by "you" here I mean anybody (plural) who configured the content. If an image gamma  was individually configured by a vendor and "you" bought it, then "you" (plural) have modified an individual gamma value. "You" cannot say gamma = 1 in such case, because "you" (plural) did two things, not one thing.

Gotcha. I apologise. I misunderstood what you were on about. It sounded like I should be setting all maps (colour and non) to 1 - and this was the first I'd heard about it.

No question; gamma correction is poorly understood. Lots of people prefer - and insist that this is the right thing to do! - to just disable it. They obviously hadn't read your thread(s) on the topic, and if they did, either didn't understand it or dismissed it as either "too-hard" or "doesn't fit my workflow: I've done okay without it so why change now". Which is like saying: "oh, I'll upgrade to the new version of Poser but since I don't understand the new features I'll just go ahead and disable the lot". Bloody hell - makes no sense at all: why bother getting PP in the first place? For the Collada support? 64-bit rendering?

But I do try to stay up on information you bring to the forum, following every new thread you post in, so imagine my frustration at this post (one that I totally misinterpreted / misunderstood).

I do have my own workflow. My use of matmatic would make you cringe. But it's an incredible tool (one you should be charging for!) and as you know, everyone does weird stuff with the tools they are given. matmatic is brilliant at automation. It's brilliant at a bunch of other stuff too, but that's the bit I get.

And conversely, said individuals, unaware of individual image gamma settings, are dismissing GC as "washed out" exactly in the same scenarios.

Consider this:

I have a chair. I have pretended to be clueless and I set the image gamma for the chair texture to be equal to 1. Meanwhile in render settings I enable GC at 2.2.

What do I see? A washed out chair with improved shadow luminance. I erroneously conclude that GC washes out colors.

It does not wash out colors. This is not GC. This is gamma change, not correction. When you misconfigure the gamma values, it is no longer correction. It is an arbitrary change.

Quote - I wrote something in this thread because I saw another person saying "I like gamma = 1" and that is the same as saying "I do not want to use gamma correction".

That was me - commenting on the results I got, with the corrected hair and the brightness on the lights in the next render I did after doing as Robyn suggested with dropping the Gamma Correction in the Render settings scene down to 1.

I think I understand the Gamma Correction a little better now - although I am still a bit confused about it, as it does strike me as a very complex and convoluted thing.

I did understand that the GC value of 1 = GC being nullified... but I still consider the results with GC in Render settings set at 1 when I did my render with the Chrystalline hair and the overall lightness that I plan on doing some more experiments with changing the values in the GC when I do my next renders.

I still feel I should apologise, as after you have offered a long explanation about the GC, and I'm still coming back with saying that I liked the results I had with GC on 1, it seems ignorant of me.

You need not say "that was me". I didn't use the phrase "another person" because I didn't know it was you. I used it because it didn't matter who it was, it was another person saying it.

Let's clarify this, then because I need to understand what you see and what you do, so I can fix this (communication and understanding) problem forever.

If you "like the results" with GC on 1, compared to GC off, you must have a difference. Can you show me the difference? The last time I did not get past this step, but there are more steps after that. First we have to establish a difference. Then we find out why it exists, and discover that gamma is not 1.

Every time we get into a GC understanding discussion, the person I'm dealing with goes off and does hour-long renders. You don't need to do that. Is that what you're doing? While I was waiting for a response, I did 30 renders with GC off, GC=1 and GC=2.2. Want to see some?

GC off

Quote - Every time we get into a GC understanding discussion, the person I'm dealing with goes off and does hour-long renders. You don't need to do that. Is that what you're doing? While I was waiting for a response, I did 30 renders with GC off, GC=1 and GC=2.2. Want to see some?

Heh, no I wasn't doing hour-long renders. I did a couple of test renders very early this evening (probably about 3 hours ago) before you posted in this topic, and the test renders only took me about 10 minutes at half-size- I was adjusting my lights after dropping the GC in Render Settings down to 1.

In my opinion, they turned out rather nicely- will post one after I shrink it down (3000px is a wee bit big for forums) And after I postworked them, I've been banging my head against Photoshop, trying - and failing - to paint fire.

Your example renders highlight the difference in the settings very clearly. Thankyou :)

The only GC value I editted was in the Render Settings dialogue window. I adjusted it to a value of 1

Are you coming back with the comparison render where GC is disabled? One image alone does not demonstrate why you prefer GC=1 versus GC off.

going back  to the orignal  image of the thread I would have taken  a stab that  render is not set to  render back  facing polys

Quote - Every time we get into a GC understanding discussion, the person I'm dealing with goes off and does hour-long renders. You don't need to do that. Is that what you're doing? While I was waiting for a response, I did 30 renders with GC off, GC=1 and GC=2.2. Want to see some?

atleast one other thread follower goes off for long renders

Creach needs GC and SSS luv.

One of the models I use rather frequently is LittleDragon's Krystal model. Of course, I wanted to see what GC and possibly other tweaks can do for her, as her material settings are rather basic. Inspired by BB's comparison pictures above, I tried the same with Krystal, and I'm wondering if there are other suggestions.

Here's the model with GC completely off.

Obviously, the middle one is way blown out, and strangely, just for the head texture. (the head and body textures are separate).

Any thoughts, suggestions, mailbombs?

i like the outfit colours in the 1st Krystal, looks vivid on my monitor.  The 2nd and 3rd gives her skin tone a matte look.

Exactly, and I know that gamma correction is a good thing, but I'm guessing some changes need to be mad to the texture or material settings, but I don't know where to start.