In general do you think renders look better with or without a little gamma correction?

Better. But you have to make sure that all the bump, displacement and transparency maps are at 1.00. Only the diffuse maps should be at 2.2. Some folks forget to change those and then wonder why the bump looks so subtle or the hair looks extra sparse ;).

Laurie

Quote - Better. But you have to make sure that all the bump, displacement and transparency maps are at 1.00. Only the diffuse maps should be at 2.2. Some folks forget to change those and then wonder why the bump looks so subtle or the hair looks extra sparse ;).

Laurie

My dilemma is this. If it's supposed to make renders look better why not force it by default?  I'm wondering if gamma correction is there just to FIX or REPAIR a scene that wasn't setup or lighted properly. 

Is gamma correction truly amazing or is it just a bandaid to fix an improperly lighted scene?

Well, in the vanilla versions of Poser you have to sort of "fake" it by turning all the diffuse values on the textures down to about 0.85 rather than 1.00. And I guess it's not on by default in the Pro versions because not everyone uses it. Those that use it can turn it on if they like. I don't think it's a fix for bad lighting. It's quite different from lighting as far as I'm concerned. Even good lighting can't give you proper contrast.

Laurie

Renders are better WITH Gamma Corection.

But as said before, transmaps, bump and displacement maps have to stay at gamma 1.

If you get a grayed image, you have a problem with light setup.
Most often when you use an older light set with way too many lights.

PP2012 with IDL+SSS+Gamma Correction need very few lights.
There is only ONE sun out there = One infinite light.

In principle images with GC should look better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction

But, the proviso relative to Poser, as I undertstand it, as Laurie has explained more fully, is that this is only true if the sub elements of the scene, shader nodes, lights etc. are not already set up in a way that is designed to compensate for a lack of gamma correction...

...otherwise you will be double-compensating (as that's what Gamma Correction is... a correction, or compensation).

Cheers ;-)

I did an in-depth tutorial on Gamma and Exposure correction in Poser and Vue, see the Missing Manuals link in my signature.

In Poser, in most cases, the Gamma Correction after the rendering is an improvement. But it comes with some cons and the Anti Gamma Correction that takes place before rendering comes with some artifacts that can spoil the fun considerably. At least it pays off to be aware.

And indeed, various artists have compensated for the lack of CG-abilities by adding lights and adjusting textures, and are facing "wash out" effects when rerendering their scenes having CG switched on.

A false dichotomy in my opinion.

Gamma correction is a workflow choice: I wouldn't be without it because it makes things simple, consistent and predictable. Others might enjoy pigging around with extra lights, strange shader setups and goodness knows what else - all of which are to compensate for the lack of a gamma corrected, or 'linear' workflow - and achieve really good results.

It has nothing intrinsically to do with 'render quality'. If you switch GC on and your renders look like crap, you have understood nothing of the implications of and requirements imposed by a linear workflow.

If that's the case, in addition to the huge amount of info peppered about here and at RDNA, you head over to this page (designed for LightWave users, but highly relevant), watch the video, download the PDF.

There really seems to be a mixed bag of opinions regarding Gamma Correction. I've read posts on other Forums warning everyone to stay clear of GC, uncheck it. Here on this thread there are some positives mentioned. All of this has prompted me to do a little experimenting. -TOM-

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2850813&page=3#message_3941630

There is also a discussion going on here about using only emitters to light the scene. It may be worth a look.

Laurie

Quote - My dilemma is this. If it's supposed to make renders look better why not force it by default?  I'm wondering if gamma correction is there just to FIX or REPAIR a scene that wasn't setup or lighted properly.

GC is turned on in the default scene of all versions of Poser Pro. For existing scenes that are loaded, Poser Pro will not force GC on them, because nothing is more frustrating than updating your software and having everything look completely different.

Quote - Is gamma correction truly amazing or is it just a bandaid to fix an improperly lighted scene?

In my personal opinion, it's a necessity.

As one who is bruised and bloody from the GC wars, allow my $.02...

GC does not work with many characters "out of the box" because they were designed to FAKE Gamma Correction out of the box. All of the ambient tricks that are built into those shaders are FALSE and first have to be turned off/down/etc to get rid of the faking they are doing before they will look right using GC.

Most of us dweebs have no clue how to correct all these errors. BB tried to explain this to me countless times and the problem was, I never understood where the controls were to make the adjustments he was telling me would solve my problems. It was not until PP2012 that I found the python scripts that would do it for me! At that point, I became one of the leading proponants of GC... because I WAS FINALLY SETTING IT UP RIGHT!.

That said...

If you are considering GC in your workflow, then get EZSkin and SceneFixer... both free from Snarleygribley. http://snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/ These pyton scripts will do all of the basic fiddling you need to deo with just about anything you're likely to use. I would not be without either script, GC, or IDL at this point. 

Yep, Scene Fixer will correct all those shaders set at diffuse value less than one in a snap ;).

I love Snarly . LOL He makes it so easy for me to be lazy :P Incredibly useful tho.

Laurie

Quote - A false dichotomy in my opinion.

Gamma correction is a workflow choice: I wouldn't be without it because it makes things simple, consistent and predictable. Others might enjoy pigging around with extra lights, strange shader setups and goodness knows what else - all of which are to compensate for the lack of a gamma corrected, or 'linear' workflow - and achieve really good results.

It has nothing intrinsically to do with 'render quality'. If you switch GC on and your renders look like crap, you have understood nothing of the implications of and requirements imposed by a linear workflow.

If that's the case, in addition to the huge amount of info peppered about here and at RDNA, you head over to this page (designed for LightWave users, but highly relevant), watch the video, download the PDF.

I downloaded the Video Tutorial regading Gamma, EXCELLENT! By far this is the best simple explanation of the term Gamma and how it should be used to create a great looking rendering. Although the Video is designed for Lightwave users it applies easily to Poser artists. Thanks for your post! -TOM-

despite what proponents of it claim, GC is not always better.  youll never get deep, inky shadows with it which are desirable in some types of art and photography. it isnt always about emulating realism -- youll note that many photographers will take their 'realistic' photos into photoshop/lightroom and play with levels/channels until they get something more dramatic.

a perfect example was here in the poser forum when someone was struggling to do a 3D recreation of a photograph (Morey? Amelkovich? cant remember) of a woman posed against a concrete wall. no matter what they did they couldnt get it, until i suggested they turn off GC and bam they got it.

there is no 'universal solution' to everything. as an artist -- and dont lose sight of the fact that this is art, not mathematics or physics -- you should use all tools and generously shared knowledge at your disposal but feel free to break the 'rules' in order to get the results you want (not what people tell you you should want).

Quote - > Quote - A false dichotomy in my opinion.

Gamma correction is a workflow choice: I wouldn't be without it because it makes things simple, consistent and predictable. Others might enjoy pigging around with extra lights, strange shader setups and goodness knows what else - all of which are to compensate for the lack of a gamma corrected, or 'linear' workflow - and achieve really good results.

It has nothing intrinsically to do with 'render quality'. If you switch GC on and your renders look like crap, you have understood nothing of the implications of and requirements imposed by a linear workflow.

If that's the case, in addition to the huge amount of info peppered about here and at RDNA, you head over to this page (designed for LightWave users, but highly relevant), watch the video, download the PDF.

I downloaded the Video Tutorial regading Gamma, EXCELLENT! By far this is the best simple explanation of the term Gamma and how it should be used to create a great looking rendering. Although the Video is designed for Lightwave users it applies easily to Poser artists. Thanks for your post! -TOM-

Here is the tricky part.

What I see towards the end of that video is a scene with a time of 6:30pm.

Then when he applies gamma correction I see a 8:30am in the morning on a slightly foggy day.

If you use gamma correction to portray "daytime" your scene, FINE.

But instead of using gamma correction you could of just done the lighting correctly in the first place which will give better results since you're shooting for a realistic lighting position instead of a bandaid/quick fix aka Gamma correction.

That's my opinion. 

Instead of applying gamma correction to the end scene he should of just increased the lighting right?

as I said, GC has pro's and cons plus Poser has a quite specific implementation of the anti-gamma correction before rendering, and GC itself should come in at the right moment in the workflow. And there are "errors" in shaders and lighting of non-CG scenes (like the bluish zombie shine of V4), BasicWiz admitted he had a problem finding and correcting all of them.

That's why I made the tuturial. It's all in there. If not, tell me so I can improve upon it.

Start here: http://www.book.artbeeweb.nl/?p=317

Just my $.02

Quote - That's my opinion. 

And you're certainly entitled to it.

So, why did you ask exactly? I have my theories. That's my opinion ;).

Laurie

Quote - Here is the tricky part.

What I see towards the end of that video is a scene with a time of 6:30pm.

Then when he applies gamma correction I see a 8:30am in the morning on a slightly foggy day.

If you use gamma correction to portray "daytime" your scene, FINE.

But instead of using gamma correction you could of just done the lighting correctly in the first place which will give better results since you're shooting for a realistic lighting position instead of a bandaid/quick fix aka Gamma correction.

That's my opinion. 

Instead of applying gamma correction to the end scene he should of just increased the lighting right?

Every rendering has it's own demands. Bright lighting, deep shadows, the artist makes the final decisions. It's true, you could correct the lights and not worry with Gamma. Very possible that method would have good results. Here's the important feature of correcting the Gamma at the "end" as mentioned in the Video. When you render to HDR or EXR you can then take the 32-bit image into PhotoshopCS4, 5, or 6 and make some incredible adjustments using the Gamma setting. I urge everyone to try rendering an image in either HDR or EXR and then take it into Photoshop or any software that supports these two formats. I use Photoshop CS5 and have upgraded the plugin to the new "OpenEXRalpha" version available free from Adobe. You can take a rendering that has given you some trouble getting the right FireFly settings and easily tweak it to look perfect. Also there are some amazing special effects available but for now we're focusing on Gamma.

Here I have loaded an .EXR file rendering into Photoshop CS5.

**You can adjust Gamma on jpg's, png's, etc but you'll get the best results using HDR or EXR as they are high quality industry standard filetypes.
**

Follow the menu and open the HDR Toning Window.

Now you can begin Gamma Correction on your rendering. When you "Save" your final image choose which filetype you want and now you have a corrected Gamma image.

Note: To keep your image in 32-bit format you will have to use the "Save as" feature and keep it either as an HDR or EXR. If you use "SAVE" (even though it's already in 32-bits) you will loose the 32-bits.

Enjoy!

-TOM-

Yeah,  HDR toning -- and some third party plugins -- can do some spectacular things with photographs (assuming they're in 14 bit raw format), including repairing some pretty borked exposures. It's addictive.  I've never tried it with a render, though. Will have to do that right now. 

For those of you who have never rendered in the above formats don't be alarmed when you view the results. The render will likely appear "washed out". This is because these formats contain more information regarding the intensity of white than other filetypes. Try out the HDR Toning and you'll be amazed at the crisp quality of the colors you can achieve along with other corrections such as Gamma. Do some Google searches on these filetypes and you'll quickly learn just how valuable they are in the commercial environment. You can even take a Poser rendering and create a Stereo3d image! -Tom-

if OP's question in re: Poser RenderGC, then it will usually look better.  however, better/worse in eye of beholder.

May depend on the viewer's monitor as well. For me, the windshield in the GC version is opaque, whereas I can see the interior through it in the Non-GC version and that looks 'better.' The Neon? green in the GC version looks better, it is pale and washed out in the Non-GC etc. I've seen pictures posted here (presumably using GC considering the source) where features mentioned were invisible unless I saved the image and boosted the Gamma in XnView. My monitor though is set the way that is most comfortable for my eyes.

Renders are better WITHOUT Gamma Corection.

I'd agree with lmckenzie. I think it can vary significantly based on monitor being used to view the image and how thats set up.

I've been using GC habitually for recent stuff. My stuff all looks a lot better on my Apple imac display, gamma corrected. Nice rich blacks, etc.

But the same image looks perhaps a little bit washed out when viewed on the Acer screen in front of me currently...

GC is better.

But is is NOT a click and forget solution.

You have to adapt your lights, shaders and nodes and sometimes the textures.

It is , or is not in your workflow.
But you have to keep it in the back of your mind for what you are doing.

All my renders come out dark and without adequate contrast.  They did before GC and they still do.  I run all of them through curves adjustments and some sort of adaptive exposure in Photoshop and it fixes the issue.

Mostly I prefer GC.  In very dark renders, not using it obscures a lot of details that are hard to recover, so it gives me a few more postwork options.

This evening, after reading this thread, I tried an HDR render. Wow. That gives me A LOT more options.

Yeah... since I have Photoshop, I really should be doing the HDR render output option and using that!

note to self...

;-)

You all know that transmaps, bump and displacement have to stay at Gamma 1.

Quote - You all know that transmaps, bump and displacement have to stay at Gamma 1.

Depends.  I like to use the M4 displacement maps from Daz.  At gamma 2.2, they turn M4 into a zombie.  It's rather cool.

Quote - You all know that transmaps, bump and displacement have to stay at Gamma 1.

Yeah. I keep meaning to save a copy of BB's envsphere with those defaults changed... so I don't need to remember to change the two nodes every time...

;-)

Like I said earlier, it's a workflow choice, not a magic switch that suddenly produces great quality. 

Once you've made the Linear Workflow choice, it becomes a Linear Workflow commitment:  you have to understand that most bought content and freebies were created & tested in non-linear workflows, and that some work will be required to make them suit your workflow. There are many excellent scripts and utilities (mostly FREE) to help with such chores, but you should really attempt to understand what's being 'fixed' and why.

If you're a 'load and render' type of Poser user, a linear workflow isn't for you. 

What I like about Vue's GC render option is that it is actually a post-render option. Well, seems to be...

With Poser you're kind of committed to it pre-render?

Same with the Post-filter (Gaussian or Box filter option)?

Actually, on this point... I'm a bit unclear as to how that Post-filter option differs from applying a gaussion or box blur filter in Photoshop? Does it?

Face_off said in the current IDL thread:

Quote - For my simple test scene, 3 raytrace bounces and IDL quality of 50 took about 5 mins.  Then with DOF on, it took 3hrs.  Then adding post filter 2 gaussian, the render took about 9hrs.

Which puzzles me a bit... because applying a light gaussian blur, even to a substantially high resolution image in Photoshop takes a matter of a few minutes...

...does that mean the post-filter in Poser is applying as each "bucket" is rendering out... or something?

cheers ;-)

Gamma correction is just what it implies. It is a correction factor that is being applied to an image. this does not mean that you will always need it. It will always be a conditional thing when editing an image.

However, when it comes to a render engine, that can be a different story. With things like, tranparency, bump, and displacement maps, you can adjust where zero falls in the range with it.

There is the argument that certain render engines are setup specifically for certain gamma settings to be used, but that also assumes that everthing is setup to use it as well. That would mean that all the lights, shaders, textures, render settings, etc; are set up for it.

And as most of us already know, there is plenty of debate on what is the proper way of doing it.

Is one way better than the other when it comes to gamma correction?

That depends on who you ask, and what they want in the final output of the image.

Certainly at present, I tend to go with Gamma Correction on... more often than not that's giving a better result for me.

I then can always adjust the levels in Photoshop if not happy. Last couple of renders I did, the only postwork was to shrink and compress the images to post up here.

Having that option in poser to output an HDR is great though...

I've been using the HDR output option in Vue, to produce spherical panoramas, for use in BB's envsphere, back within Poser (with Vue's Gamma Correction disabled, per BB' instructions, as I'm, of course, then likely correcting the Gamma in my Poser render).

But there is an issue apparently with Vue rendering out a full range HDR image... that I'm still looking at working around... for as much as that matters, in practice...

As I understand it, Poser's HDR output does produce a full range image?

;-)

Quote - Here is the tricky part.

What I see towards the end of that video is a scene with a time of 6:30pm.

Then when he applies gamma correction I see a 8:30am in the morning on a slightly foggy day.

If you use gamma correction to portray "daytime" your scene, FINE.

But instead of using gamma correction you could of just done the lighting correctly in the first place which will give better results since you're shooting for a realistic lighting position instead of a bandaid/quick fix aka Gamma correction.

That's my opinion. 

Instead of applying gamma correction to the end scene he should of just increased the lighting right?

You seem to be misunderstanding something vital.  Gamma correction isn't about good or bad lighting.  It's about not feeding the renderer gibberish (according to it) nor letting the renderer pass gibberish (according to the monitor) to the monitor.

Gamma correction is correction, not a band-aid.  Renderers understand and produce linear content.  They perform linear calculations, and pretty complex ones at that.  Digital images and monitors are in sRGB space, not linear space.  Colors don't mean the same thing to the renderer as they do to the monitor or the camera or software that produced the textures.  Linear workflow means translating sRGB textures into linear ones so the renderer can understand and handle them properly, and then translating the renderer's work to sRGB so the monitor can understand and handle it properly.  It's no more of a band-aid than, say, translating a Spanish text to an Italian, and then translating the Italian's response to Spanish for the author to read. 

All realistic renders incorporate some form of linear workflow.  You cannot do realistic shading in general without translation between linear and sRGB space yet use linear calculations and sRGB textures.  You can come up with cheats and workarounds that work for a specfic scene, but then you have to create a new compensation for incorrect results each time you make a new scene. 

Which isn't to say that no renderers use the more correct sRGB equations (Mitsuba does), nor that they don't have additional ways of adjusting your color space.  Poser itself has ways that bypass its GC option.  If you download Tate's free product rendering scene at RDNA, you'll find he does some really funky stuff with render settings that create a similar color space translation.  Blender has composite nodes to pass your render through before final output to screen (which is more useful than I can express).  Luxrender has all sorts of settings to mimic different types of physical film, which is awesome if you've ever experienced the difference film types can have on the richness and hue of skin tones or even polished wood.    But that issue of sRGB input, linear calculation, and sRGB output on the screen is always at the heart of producing realistic shading results.

Changing the lighting can only address part of the symptoms and won't touch the basic problem problem.  You can't actually correct the whole response with lighting, because sRGB content processed linearly and displayed in sRGB space produces a non-uniform effect.  It's not simply a matter of everything being brighter or darker or even more high contrast.  I can often spot those who don't use linear workflow by the yellow bloom, the way surface color and saturation overpowers ambient lighting effects, and the incorrect light fall-off, not just by the dark areas.  I myself had medium shades that looked as if grey had been dumped into that part of the image. 

You also lose information when you render with regular workflow.  There are steps between values and colors that are simply no longer there.  So even if you do lots of postwork, it can be easier if you start from a linear workflow basis because you have more to work with as a base.  Also, the way that regular workflow shades is fairly obvious and consistent across applications ane even machines.  So it can get in the way of producing work that has a specific and individual look, rather than a tool-based look.  It doesn't have to, but it can. 

That said, I've seen some great works that use regular workflow.  Many of my favorite artists use regular workflow, and produce stunning works with it.  Looking at my own work, I actually don't think it's a matter of one workflow producing better or worse results.  As Blackhearted said, it's more about having a vision and going with the easiest way achieving it.   The issue is more on the creation side.  If lighting is important to what you want out of your work (as opposed to, say, intricate objects and textures, narratives, etc.), then fighting the lack of translation in each image you make with materials and lights will generally mean a lot more work and probably more problems.  Just like it's generally quicker and more correct to turn on IDL and use some form of environment lighting (environment sphere, IBL, etc.) than try to imitate bounced light with lots and lots of spots, it's generally quicker and more correct to address the color space issue at its source with render settings.

I've gotten great shadows with linear workflow, even in the dark, just not so much with GC.   Gamma correction is an approximation that doesn't account for darks, whether through shading, color, cast shadow, etc.  For low light works, you have to fight the flattening of the exponential curve of gamma correction response.  It would have been way easier if Poser had implemented more accurate sRGB equations that have a linear portion for low values.  But they didn't, so I tend to use my less accurate but still (IMHO) a lot easier to work with materials with sRGB correction built in for very low light scenes.  They give me rich shadows just fine.   That said, material correction introduces errors with IDL.  So I find I have to balance the effort I need to take to correct the issues with using GC and losing a range of lower values, and the effort I need to correct the issues with using material-based correction. 

Oh!  And true HDRI are different because they're linear by nature.

I use some complicated shaders for very specific effects, and I and others have tried and failed to replicate the desired effect with GC-compatible shaders.  Until there's a way to make the transition to GC more accessible, I can't use it.  So I definitely prefer the non-GC for my own work.  I've seen what it can do in more capable hands, however, and I know from that how impressive GC can be.  Right now I feel like it isn't quite ready yet and it's one of those frustratingly tricky new features, like the Morph Brush in the early days.  It took a few versions to get the Morph Brush into a consistently useful and accessible state.  I have hopes that GC will follow a similar pattern somehow.  :unsure:

I have a major correction to that long-winded post.  I said "All realistic renders incorporate some form of linear workflow," when I meant all realistic renderers.  Totally diffferent.  The point being that if the primary goal of the renderer is realism, then it has some form of correction in general, just because that's more accurate.  The same way such renderers also have caustics and GI.  It's all part of realistic rendering features.  Realistic renders can be made with renderers that aren't optimized for realism, it's just more work for the artist.

Cage, I could totally be off, but I think the development in Poser you're talking about can't happen.  I don't think GC is hard to use for some people because it's not full-featured or developed.  Again, this is just a translation between renderer and sRGB devices.  I mean, yes, it would be nice if certain nodes that are presently included were excluded, or if you had to say whether an input needed to be linearized explicitly with the default being not.  Color_Math, Blender, and EdgeBlend nodes don't quite work properly without protection from GC when they're fed already linearized input.  People work linearly, so it makes more sense to have most of a material work linearly than have most of it treated as if its sRGB.  That said, I don't think that this makes a big difference in most materials.  EZSkin, which everyone uses now, doesn't have protection from this problem and it works fine and everyone loves it. 

I think, unless I'm misunderstanding, the big problem you're talking about is reworking materials made for regular workflow into ones that work the same in linear workflow.  Unfortunately, that's an individual problem, not a universal one.  That is to say, sure, lots of people who have spent ages developing their own look in shading and lighting have had problems converting that shading and lighting to a new workflow.  Unfortunately, that's not a single problem but a large collection of individual problems. 

Again, I could be totally wrong, but I haven't seen a single answer for that.  I've spent a lot of time studying materials- both my own and others'- and I've never seen a consistent approach or look that could be addressed programmatically.  RobynsVeil shared her many and long experiments converting other people's materials to a more accurate and GC-friendly workflow, and it was always a whole lot of trouble and not much reward.   She's more into other stuff now, and I just wholesale replace materials now (and have for a long while).

People mostly made- and make- materials by eyeballing them.  They tried stuff, saw how it rendered, and tried other stuff.  There's not a consistent node combination or behavior to convert.  It's all a bunch of individual kluges that happen to have created a certain look given what is usually a fairly specific set of circumstances.  In my experience, just changing the lighting would often make them behave much differently.

It might be easier to start from scratch, and make an entirely new version that has the same overall goals than to try to force it to have the same specific look and feel as the original.  It also doesn't make sense to try to use GC to change how renders come out but then try to make the render come out the same as it did without GC.  If you liked how it looked originally, then just leave it and save yourself the effort.  Again, it is all about the easiest way to achieve your own artistic goals.

For the general population to use GC comfortably, the big transition that needs to occur is in content creation, not software. Content made to fit linear workflow needs to be available.  In my experience, stuff that looks good with linear workflow looks just fine without it (compared to materials made for regular workflow, that is), but that's just my opinion.

Maybe I'm cranky these days, KW, but I find myself reacting emotionally against posts which try to assert what "everyone" does and what the "general population" needs.  That could just be me being irritated because I've been handed the spiel about "linear" workflows before and it reads to me like a lot of garbledygook which is intended to shift the topic slightly while not clearly stating much of anything.

All of which perhaps indicates that my self-imposed withdrawal from Poserdom may not be ready to be ended yet.  :lol:  Back in my hidey-hole, then.

Quote - despite what proponents of it claim, GC is not always better.  youll never get deep, inky shadows with it which are desirable in some types of art and photography. it isnt always about emulating realism -- youll note that many photographers will take their 'realistic' photos into photoshop/lightroom and play with levels/channels until they get something more dramatic.

a perfect example was here in the poser forum when someone was struggling to do a 3D recreation of a photograph (Morey? Amelkovich? cant remember) of a woman posed against a concrete wall. no matter what they did they couldnt get it, until i suggested they turn off GC and bam they got it.

there is no 'universal solution' to everything. as an artist -- and dont lose sight of the fact that this is art, not mathematics or physics -- you should use all tools and generously shared knowledge at your disposal but feel free to break the 'rules' in order to get the results you want (not what people tell you you should want).

Agree! do some test, have fun, use what you think is right for you, don't become crazy trying to get things the way others say shoud be, I've spend hours tying to get a mood in a render with gamma just because I've read so many time I MUST use gamma everytime, just to find what I wanted was right without gamma, and others renders came out great with gamma.

Quote - You also lose information when you render with regular workflow.  There are steps between values and colors that are simply no longer there.  So even if you do lots of postwork, it can be easier if you start from a linear workflow basis because you have more to work with as a base.  Also, the way that regular workflow shades is fairly obvious and consistent across applications ane even machines.  So it can get in the way of producing work that has a specific and individual look, rather than a tool-based look.  It doesn't have to, but it can.

This.

This is what I noticed and what convinced me it was worth the effort. 

CAGE!!!  dont go back in the hole yet!  I miss you!  stick around a while

((KittyBrown from poser place btw))

Quote - Maybe I'm cranky these days, KW, but I find myself reacting emotionally against posts which try to assert what "everyone" does and what the "general population" needs.  That could just be me being irritated because I've been handed the spiel about "linear" workflows before and it reads to me like a lot of garbledygook which is intended to shift the topic slightly while not clearly stating much of anything.

All of which perhaps indicates that my self-imposed withdrawal from Poserdom may not be ready to be ended yet.  :lol:  Back in my hidey-hole, then.

There's a pretty noticeable difference in my renders when I started using gamma correction in Poser Pro 2012.  The only thing I don't like is its effect on hair.  It tends to make light colored hair look dull and darker.  This is probably because I have some setting wrong in the material room, but I haven't yet figured out what that setting actually IS . . .

"Maybe I'm cranky these days, KW, but I find myself reacting emotionally against posts which try to assert what "everyone" does..." 

LOL. I think that sometimes the evangelists for a new technology are their own worst enemies in that regard.

It may not exactly be early days at this point by any means but IIRC, Birn in *Digital Lighting and Rendering 2nd Ed. 2006 *didn't even mention linear and only covered levels correction in Photoshop. I think that Vue only got the linear option in the last version or two and I found the following quote in a post at CGSociety from one year ago.

"Don't worry about not being taught linear workflow! Half the professionals in the industry don't know what it is or use it properly! Well, maybe that's a bit harsh but it's only really come to the forefront of peoples' minds in the last few years."

It's going to take some time for content creators to catch up and until then, things are going to be more compled than ideal I would guess.

Quote - There's a pretty noticeable difference in my renders when I started using gamma correction in Poser Pro 2012.  The only thing I don't like is its effect on hair.  It tends to make light colored hair look dull and darker.  This is probably because I have some setting wrong in the material room, but I haven't yet figured out what that setting actually IS . . .

It is advised not to Gamma correct the hair trans maps and bump maps. I force them to 1 and what ever the setting that overrides the render engine not to use 2.2. Not near Poser this very second or I would post a screen shot of what I am talking about. I believe the screenfixer script does this automatically for you.

Quote - Maybe I'm cranky these days, KW, but I find myself reacting emotionally against posts which try to assert what "everyone" does and what the "general population" needs.  That could just be me being irritated because I've been handed the spiel about "linear" workflows before and it reads to me like a lot of garbledygook which is intended to shift the topic slightly while not clearly stating much of anything.

All of which perhaps indicates that my self-imposed withdrawal from Poserdom may not be ready to be ended yet.  :lol:  Back in my hidey-hole, then.

Cage - Please don't retreat from the conversation.  I think I'm not saying what I mean very well.  I'm not talking about what people need to do with their work.  I'm just trying to say what I think is possible and isn't in terms of Poser's programming.  As you know, probably better than I do, programming is good for fixing a consistent problem.  It sucks for fixing an inconsistent problem.  The more inconsistent the problem is, the less programming is able to fix it. 

In my experience, not only does each person make materials in their own manner (outside of people who follow Bagginsbill's style, who probably already use linear workflow), but most people don't even approach different materials in the same way.   Implementing linear workflow is just a mathematical transformation.  Deciding what to apply that transformation to might be problematic, but not the transformation itself.  The grey area of what to transform will only affect materials and lights so much.  The big change will always come from implementing the workflow itself, and I don't see a programmatic way to mitigate that in some ways and not in others according to the particular vision of the material or light maker.

Poser can't analyze a node structure, turn that into an understanding of an aesthetic, and then implement the linear workflow version of it.  It can't guess what someone intends by their material.  It can't guess that this ambient boost wasn't meant to make the material glow, but that one was.  Different people did and still do different things with each material they make. I could see transforming the old face_off RSS or the original V4 skin material trick, but that's the only two norms I can think of off the top of my head.

Maybe I, RobynsVeil, and even Bagginsbill and Snarlygribbly have missed how to programmatically transform materials to more GC friendly versions rather than just replacing them wholesale.  Maybe we've all overlooked some consistent problem to correct, some automatic transformation to perform.  Heck, maybe AI programming is way better (and I know it's really good) and more affordable than I know.

I just don't think any of that is true.

So, for the situation you seem to be saying further Poser development might achieve (materials working with GC onwhile still having the same or similar look as their non-GC version), I think (I don't know, but I think), will require materials made by people who are comfortable making materials. 

Maybe I'm totally misunderstanding the average Poser user, but I think the average Poser user is dependent on content creators and not interested or prepared to create content themselves.  Maybe that's an assumption, but I thought it was a fairly safe one.  I don't have an emotional stake in the answer, frankly.  I think it's great either way.  But I figure it's safer to assume people won't make content themselves and be wrong about that, than to assume they will and be wrong about that.

I am not stating that people in general need to use linear workflow in general or GC specifically.  I am not saying that content creators have to use it.  I am saying that I don't think Poser's programmers or average users can do anything about the existing materials (or lights, for that matter)  that don't work well with GC.  I think that the only way to make lots of content work with GC is for content creators to make new, GC friendly content.  I am not saying people need GC friendly content in general, in case that's what you were thinking. 

I'm truly sorry if what I've written is "garbledygook" to you, but I've really tried to be as clear as possible.  That's why I've written so much.  I don't care about shifting the conversation.  I honestly don't care whether people use GC or not.  As I stated initially, many of my favorite artists don't use it, and produce beautiful works.  I do care, though, if people understand what it is, how it works, and what it changes.   I care that people know the actual limitations of either workflow, as well as what it takes to switch from regular to linear workflows.

I personally never had a big problem switching workflows.  As far as I can tell, that's because I focused on what I was doing, not what I used to do.  Every time either I or other people I know of tried to base linear workflow content on regular workflow content, it was a huge, frustrating PITA.  Thing is, simple stuff works great with linear workflow, so it's not like you have to turn yourself into a material maven or lighting guru to switch.  But it's probably best to either let go of wanting things to look the same as they did before or not switch, because the whole point of switching workflows is to make everything look different.

Quote - LOL. I think that sometimes the evangelists for a new technology are their own worst enemies in that regard.... It's going to take some time for content creators to catch up and until then, things are going to be more compled than ideal I would guess.

Um, I'm not an evangelist for new tech.  I don't know if I would call technology I've been using for four years and learned about from others who were already using it "new" even just to Poser,  but I have literally no stake in how people choose to realize their own artistic vision.  Did you read my post or just react to what you expected it to say?    You said exactly what I did, but without any details about why content creators would need to catch up to make using GC less complex.

Oh, and my works with what I'd consider rich shadows and linear workflow:

Midnight Theatre (I think I actually need make the scenery lighter)

Light Study 07 (deviantART, nudity)

Light Study 06 (deviantART, nudity)

Light Study 05 (nudity)

Light Study 04 (nudity)

Light Study 03 (nudity)

I have another 2 or 3 in the works, as well.   Two need postwork and one needs finishing in Poser.  Using linear workflow has never stopped me from doing low light works.