Just as the subject says...

That is all.

~Sabby

Maybe they think it will turn em into the Hulk ... Gamma ray / Gamma Correction 

I heard Gamma Correction sleeps with your car, puts a bomb in the fridge and eats all the cat litter....

LOL... In all seriousness, I just want to understand why many, many, people opt to not use it. Do you dislike the results, do you not understand it, is it too many steps... that sorta thing.

I guess like me they have trouble understanding it. 

when you say afraid of, do you mean render with it switched off ? or not adjust settings ? or something else......... coz it doon't scare me, my dad is bigger than its' dad......oooops x post, was typing whilst the previous two posts appeared

haven't noticed any recent problems, but most common complaint: GC caused scenes set up using poser 4, 5, 6  techniques to appear washed out.  they used sets with dozens of lights to fake GI.  they may still be doing that now.

does it cause wonky shadows blue?

The choice is to either use gamma, or linear workflow, within the Poser Pro series or add it through shader nodes in the regular Poser programs.  Pro series, easy; turn it on in your render settings.  Regular Poser, not so easy if you do not understand the math involved to convert textures and colors to linear workflow.  This answer should explain a lot.

To amplify what hborre said...

I hated it until I disciovered EZSkin, Scenefixer, and found out how to acurately calibrate my monitor so ITS gamma setting was correct. Before the above, I always got washed out renders from GC and was a high profice GC hater here in the community. After, I won't do without it!

Quote - haven't noticed any recent problems, but most common complaint: GC caused scenes set up using poser 4, 5, 6  techniques to appear washed out.  they used sets with dozens of lights to fake GI.  they may still be doing that now.

I bought an environment set by a very well respected set maker recently that came with such a light set. Numerous infinite lights, named "ambient".

Likewise, a material set, from another vendor, specialising in textures, which seems to have all the ambient channels, in each shader, set to ambient = 1.0.

As far as I understand it, neither of these approaches will work well with GC, or indeed IDL... and are old school Poser workarounds, from the pre-GC, pre-IDL days??

These were from two of the biggest vendors in their respective marketplace categories. I'm not saying they didn't know what they were doing. I guess they were maybe just targeting the majority?

So, perhaps no wonder most Poser users are still struggling with this... it seems to me that perhaps the majority of marketplace products are quite likely still not properly compatible out the box??

Many of BB's older shaders include GC for pre-GC built in Poser users.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2856674

http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2010/11/what-is-linear-workflow-and-how-can-it-help-your-renders-look-better/

...Ummm, monitor calibration and postwork in photoshop are also considerations.

Don't imagine the average Poser user gives it much thought...

The average Poser user introduced to this art typically expect out-of-the-box renders with good to fair results without understanding the why's and how's.  Once the technical aspect becomes evident, they shy away from learning the software better because it is too difficult understand the math or set up the right parameters for anything to work in the other rooms.  And yet, they are caught up in the same routine of creating mediocre renders with all the mistakes we have learned to avoid. 

Numerous individuals posting in the galleries never step into the forum to learn better techniques, and unfortunately, they are encouraged to continue their missteps by rave reviews instead of gently pointing out the mistakes and offering a solution. 

But, this is a topic for a different thread.  I don't want to derail the OP's original intent.

Well said, hborre. Not entirely OT either. Would love to see that hypothetical thread, BTW.

I don't really understand it.

I don't understand it in Vue, even.  They show you one of those boxes within boxes of grey lines, and you're supposed to adjust it so that the inside box matches the outside.

But I generally don't like how it looks when I match them up.  And yes, my monitor is calibrated.  I have a Datacolor Spyder, and use it regularly.

well I use a lot of premade content, textures and lights that were made in the pre GC poser era.  These things look richer in their colours when rendered with GC off.  Also people have to remember to adjust all their trans and bump and displacement maps etc.

Love esther

To me, it generally makes things look worse. That is all I have. I have tried it a few times and it isn't great. If I use it is normally at a lower amount to make it fill in some details but not go full grey.

Quote - The average Poser user introduced to this art typically expect out-of-the-box renders with good to fair results without understanding the why's and how's.  Once the technical aspect becomes evident, they shy away from learning the software better because it is too difficult understand the math or set up the right parameters for anything to work in the other rooms.  And yet, they are caught up in the same routine of creating mediocre renders with all the mistakes we have learned to avoid. 

Numerous individuals posting in the galleries never step into the forum to learn better techniques, and unfortunately, they are encouraged to continue their missteps by rave reviews instead of gently pointing out the mistakes and offering a solution. 

But, this is a topic for a different thread.  I don't want to derail the OP's original intent.

I´m guilty if this ._.

I don´t know what Gamma Correction is...

I repeat: You MUST have the gamma set right on your monitor. It took me a LONG time to get mine right. I am running an Nvidia GeForce GT520. I use the Nvidia Control Panel's Optimization routine to get the gamma set correctly. You must do it EXACTLY the way the instructions say. If you skip a step or say "I can't make it look this way" you are not doing it right and you will get off kilter results. Work with the brightness and contrast settings on your screen until you get the results that the routines says you should have. I cannot stress how important this is!

Moving on to Poser.

I had no luck at all before getting Poser2012 using GC. I am quite certain it was because I had no clue what to turn on/off/up/down/etc in the material room.

Since the advent of Poser 2012:

1. Load a character, preferably one you have owned for a while and are familiar with.

2. Render it using no GC, but with raytrace lighting turned on, so the shadows are good.

3. Render it with GC turned on. (Looks faded... right?)

4. Run EZSKin2 on the figure.

5. Run Scene fixer (if you have anything else loaded other than the figure... like clothes.)

6. Render with GC on.

7. Be in awe of how delicate and natural the colors and shadows look.

Quote - I don´t know what Gamma Correction is...

In a nutshell, Gamma Correction makes the lighting behave in a linear fashion.

To me the extra cost of Poser Pro is justified by Gamma Correction alone...

EZSKin2 Is for Poser 9+ only =/

I´m Stuck with Poser 8, i don´t have a credit card anymore... can´t buy online...

Quote - EZSKin2 Is for Poser 9+ only =/

I´m Stuck with Poser 8, i don´t have a credit card anymore... can´t buy online...

If you are in the States, Go to one of these stores and buy some Amazon gift cards. 

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000465651

Then go here and get Poser 9 shipped  for $65...

http://www.amazon.com/Smith-Micro-Software-Inc-PSR9HDVD/dp/B005LXIJ7M

Probably most of the above. Imagine that in order to change fonts in Word, you had to use a font editor - or that Notepad was the onlyy tool to create a web page. A useful feature implemented/documented in a way that expects more than the average user is capable/willing to go through to achieve the result.

"These were from two of the biggest vendors in their respective marketplace categories. I'm not saying they didn't know what they were doing. I guess they were maybe just targeting the majority?"

That is probably true at least to an extent though I wouldn't necessarily assume that being good means that they understand it anymore that the customers they are catering to. Even an easy one click solution provided by some plugin is only going to achieve limited penetration. Put it in every version of Poser. Making it a 'Pro' feature or requiring people to convert things manually means they'll continue using the 'legacy' techniques. Its as simple as that. Musing about how people are lazy, dim, ill informed, backward etc. passes the time, nothing more IMO.

Location: México

Careful, Poser 9 does not have render gamma correction which complicates the issue.  You only get that with the Pro series.  However, you can still perform gamma, or linear workflow, by adding a few mathematical nodes to each shader.  It is tedious work to convert every single texture but it is the best alternative if you are unable to upgrade to the Pro series.  There is a Python Script available somewhere to add the nodes in the Material Room and Bagginsbill's VSSPR3 Prop has Gc already built in.

My best suggestion, read all you can about it.  Wikipedia has a good general explanation.  Understand the principles and what it involves.  The Poser Pro series has it built into the render settings, just check the box.  Regular Poser does not have this feature and everything must be converted mathematically, otherwise your scene will not look correct.  But it involves a good deal of work for it to work properly.

If this methodology does not work for you, then by all means continue with what works for you.  There are countless beautiful renders that were created before gamma correction became a household word in Poser, but those images became possible because the artists took real time to learn how the software worked for their purposes. 

Expand your horizons and have fun learning how to be creative.

Not afraid, just don't see the point of doing it inside Poser.  If I want to adjust gamma, I can do it with Irfan on the finished render.

There was a mention in another thread about the pros and cons of post gamma correcting some time ago.  The final concession about it, by the time a rendered image is exported and Gc'ed in a 3rd party program, image detail would have already been lost.  There is an acceptable level for compromise, but, again, that is up to artist to determine.  Clearly, this workflow works for you and you are satisfied with your results.

In my case it's not about the skin, but rather that I always tend to get a washed out effect on clothing textures.  So I can use skin with a good GC setting but the rest of the scene is washed out looking.  Since time matters & going through to adjust everything in the scene is a PITA I don't bother.

I see mentions of "Scene Fixer" here, but I don't honestly know what it is?  Info?

I regularly use some complex materials which I've had to develop experimentally, over several years of trial and error.  So far BB and the mathematically-correct shader folks have failed to explain how the same effects can be had using the "proper" methods.  I have been unable to replicate the effects I need using GC-compatible shaders.  These shaders are more important to me than any benefits that can be had from use of GC in Poser.

That's really it, for me.  Give me a way to convert my oddball frequent-use shaders for GC and I will happily start using it.

And that is the exact issue, users who have not invested into any of the pro series Posers miss out on the feature.  Robynsveil converted a good deal of texture files before PoserPro became available.  I think she threated to shoot herself after going through all the hard work.

Quote - I see mentions of "Scene Fixer" here, but I don't honestly know what it is?  Info?

It is a free multipurpose Python tool to do odd jobs, such as mass-adjusting material nodes, hide/unhide dials, set texture filtering and such...

http://snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/viewforum.php?f=8

I don't us scene-fixer (pretty sure I never installed it, tho I have it someplace, cause I did download it.)

What I do is go to scripts tab at top of poser, go to materialMods > changeGamma ... then enter 1 in the first window, select all props and figures in the second, and all of the above in the last window.

Keeping in mind, if someone has made hair badly, this will screw up their hair, you have to go into one of the hair zones and manually change the color map back to 'use render setttings' - but most hair does not have the color maps plugged into a bump/transparency/displacement zone so its usually  a non issue. Once you change one of the hair zones the rest fixes it self.

If you want scenefixer, I believe its on snarly gribbly's site.

Quote - In my case it's not about the skin, but rather that I always tend to get a washed out effect on clothing textures.  So I can use skin with a good GC setting but the rest of the scene is washed out looking.  Since time matters & going through to adjust everything in the scene is a PITA I don't bother.

 

I see mentions of "Scene Fixer" here, but I don't honestly know what it is?  Info?

Scene fixer is at Snarly's Space: http://www.snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/viewforum.php?f=8

Edit: missed the second page of this thread, so redundant info now

This tool to be found there and lots of other excellent tools

Scenefixer can do a number of things. Make scene or figure wide settings for gamma correction, show hidden dials and make morph injections amongst others.

Just some comments...

Readme's for products can say Render with Use Displacement maps checked or Raytracing on or Raytracing on and bounces set a a given number.

Some skin textures come with and without SSS sets.

Some products even come with a screen cap of the render setting used to make the promo images. Never seen one with Gamma On.

I can't remeber a product where the set came with a Gamma Off and a Gramma On texture sets.

Nor can I remember a set where the readme says render with Gamma On or even one that says render with Gamma Off.

So the average end-user sees what the artist provided. Loads and renders with the settings recommended by the artist which did not include the use Gamma.

I have to guess the end-user's thinking is the Poser Artist is supposed to be smarter then me (knows more about Poser), since I paid for their product, hence the lack of use of Gamma Correction.

Quote - So the average end-user sees what the artist provided. Loads and renders with the settings recommended by the artist which did not include the use Gamma.

I have to guess the end-user's thinking is the Poser Artist is supposed to be smarter then me (knows more about Poser), since I paid for their product, hence the lack of use of Gamma Correction.

I use GC in my promos. And it's stated in the product that all promos use GC, IDL, and SSS enabled. I however do not have it in my read me that best results require gamma correction enabled, I suppose that would be an error on my part. I could also provide my render settings for people.

Thank you for that feed back.

Given that the world at large still do not use linear workflow due to the non-pro Poser versions available, it would stand to reason that vendors would not bother mentioning Gc at all.  Maybe Pro users are in the minority; we technically know how to use it and how to change material node settings to achieve better renders.  But I'm just generalizing, of course.  I have seen some users, owning any pro series Poser, refuse to set any gamma just because it made unacceptable chances to their routine.

The problem with spoon feeding settings is that they can be misinterpreted as definitive settings for all lighting conditions, which they are not.  Frequent users have their own routines, but newbies have not developed enough experience to recognize what will or will not work for them.  Even mentioning Gc to a frustrated user would be enough to discourage any endeavor into 3D art.

But, again, are Poser Pro users in the minority?

Haha...the Gamma can of worms.

In all honesty if your system isn't set to a correct gamma, it doesnt matter what "in software" settings you use, images will often look awful....and many users (you may be surprised), have never even set a system gamma...lets not even talk about colour profiles etc.

Now a system Gamma standard of 2.2 is generally accepted as a standard now....even with Macs. It's a good place to start.

The best utiliity I have found for Windows is QuickGamma. It's easy, well documented and free.

Attached Link: http://andrulisart.com

The purpose of gamma correction is to get the proper accuracy of brightness and color ratios. For PC monitor viewing the GC is 2.2, but for printing (if you do have a high-end color printer) the GC is 1.0. Usually washed-out renders are due to IDL set up too high. Turn it down or, in-between buildings or indoors, turn it off. I rarely use IDL lights.   

Quote - LOL... In all seriousness, I just want to understand why many, many, people opt to not use it. Do you dislike the results, do you not understand it, is it too many steps... that sorta thing.

My thoughts: you have to learn how to redo your lighting.  People turn it on, see it have bad results, and never play with it again.

Then you may have to add it to all your other materials if you are't in Pro.  That takes time.

Quote - Macs have hardware gamma correction so they have no need for software gamma correction. NVidia cards have a "sort of" gamma correction because the card doesn't actually sync gamma with the monitor. 

No.  All modern video cards require Gamma Correction, because the monitor response is nonlinear.  

The purpose of gamma correction in Poser is to make lighting behave linearaly, as it does in the real world.  That is, if the the light intensity is doubled, what you see in the render output is doubled.  However the monitor response to the input signal is not a linear function, but a power function; the exponent for most monitors about 2.3.  That exponent is Gamma...

I somehow work through my terror and use it. :-)

Quote - Just as the subject says...

That is all.

~Sabby

GC is only one little checkbox in your render settings.

But?

When you click that ckechbox, you have to dig in the advanced material room and remove all the faking that was done in the older shader setups.

When you do NOT dig into the advanced materail room, and when you do NOT remove all the old style faking, then you are in render trouble land.

When you use IDL + GC and you add all the old style faking to it, then you get grayed out and washed out renders.

You have to clean out all the faking nodes to render correctly with IDL + GC.

Most end users are terrified of the material room to remove the old style faking and leave it all "as is".

Then put the blaim on IDL and GC.

Or they just continue to render with GC left OFF.

Quote - Most end users are terrified of the material room to remove the old style faking and leave it all "as is".

Many, if not most, of us learned to use the Material Room through trial and error.  BagginsBill and a couple of others have been educating us about the mathematically correct way to build shaders, but some areas haven't been covered.  Tell us how to get rid of the "faking" and maybe we'll start doing things "properly".  While there's no documentation, it kind of sucks to slag off the user base for not guessing the right answers.  We're largely hobbyists and artists, with comparatively few of us being genuine math geniuses.  :lol:  I know I'm not.

I'm not griping.  I can't use GC because I'm not a math genius, so it's just a useless whizwham to ignore.  Fine.  3D graphics isn't necessarily easy.  Please don't kick us for doing our best to fill in the gaps with creativity, experimentation, and guesswork.  Where is there a proper manual for advanced Shader construction, done the brainy math-type way?

Hello Cage

Some steps here below : but a lot has been written about the subject, here and on other forums.

IDL and GC.

With IDL, every object in your scene diffuses some of the incoming light back into the scene.
As happens in real life.

Before IDL we did not have this, and had to add AO, or ambient, or extra lights to get this effect.

Step 1 is thus to remove all those extra lights that we do not need any more when rendering with IDL.
For an outdoor scene something like BB's sphere (with a picture on it) and one single infinite light (the sun) is all that is required.
Add a second light, and you wash out shadows making scenes dull and gray.

As in the material room; the same thing.
Some old shaders have ambient on lots of things. => That was to get those objects to emit light => is faking IDL effect.

Step 2 : Those old ambients have to go as they are replaced by the IDL effect now in play.

Step3 : Old shaders have Diffuse_Value at 1
Nothing diffuses at 1. Set Duffuse _Value at a more modest 0.85

Step4 : There can never be more than 100% light.
Diffuse + Specular + alternate_specular and or BLinn, values added up can never be more then 1

Example when Diffuse_value is at 0.85, you can never have more then 0.15 in Specular_Value.

I am simplifying things, but these are some of the tricks as an example.

GC : Gamma correction is a linear display thing.

Set GC to 2.2 on all Diffuse textures in the material room.
BUT!

Set GC to 1 for all textures that go into

• Transparancy
• Bump maps
• Displacement maps
  here GC has to stay at 1

And render with GC set to 2.2

These are some of the tricks that have been discussed in long and wide on all the different forums.

PS, scenefixer, available at snarly's place can do a lot of this automatically.

happy Posering
Tony

PS, we are not discussing special effects here.

On a TV screen, or a PC screen, or a glowing neon light, or a candle, U have to use ambient to get them to emit light.
Because in real life, they also emit light.

Thanks, Tony, but that doesn't address the actual problem.  :sad:  These general adjustments to workflow are well-documented and fairly easy to follow.  They also fail to help at all with some complicated shader effects.  The user ends up back in the position of having to navigate by guesswork, far too easily.  Which leads to more "faking".  I'm asking where we can find a proper guide to accurately creating shaders that will behave appropriately in GC by being mathematically correct rather than "faked".  There isn't one, is there?  There are separate threads, little hints hidden all over the various Poser forums.  Forums which periodically change their formatting, breaking old links and bookmarks or making old sample files, renders, and Mat Room recipe screen grabs inaccessible.  Forums with sadly rather dodgy search features.  This is haphazard documentation, ultimately, unreliable and full of holes.  One can't rely on it consistently to provide needed answers on demand.  We need a reference work, a proper manual.  Until we have one, we have necessary shader "faking".  That's just life in Poserdom, alas.

Another thing is.

Or??
You render with IDL
Or??
You render with IBL and AO.

But you can not drive 2 cars at the same time.....

Again, washed and grayed out renders ..............

Cage?
You remark is completely correct.
There is no GOLDEN GUIDE.

The book of Poser shader whisdom does not exist.
:-(

LOL, as for lights I tend to collect them.  Heck I bought Sabby's Amber (I think?)  character just for the light it included, I've never even looked at the character. (sorry Sabby - some day I might, I'm sure she's pretty.  I do that alot.  I bought Swilly just for the jewelry & have never loaded her either smile).

I will say that though I do not render with GC I do render with SSS & IDL even when using the lights by Fabi & those by Sabby that she included in Amber.  I just like the results better.

There are two problems here:

1. GC didn't work properly in PP-2010, so results were mediocre at best when this new feature was introduced.

2. GC is not enabled in Poser 9, so while "pro"-users can tick a box, hobbyist users are expected to manually add complicated auto-GC shader algorithms to each and any material in their scene.

It would be better if the differences between Poser 10 and PP-2014(?) would be about content creation, not render quality and speed, otherwise merchants will always settle for the "lower" standard.

A whole lot of "legend" about GC. It's entire purpose is accuracy. Whenever I walk into a big advertising agency the designers are on Macs and the room lights are off. Because Mac vid cards sync with Mac monitors on a hardware level, and coloration from room lights is avoided, the Mac screen, in the dark, will give an accurate GC. (No one mentioned you should have your room lights off to get true GC on your screen.)

 The concept of GC was created so that the "golden arches" on one computer was the same color and brightness as on another, and as on a print ad. This is an absolute requirement in the advertising business. With Poser it seems the intention is to get a screen render that mantains the chroma and vibrancy of textures as they were created. This is all GC is -- a type of universal color language. It's nothing else, I promise you. Go research it.