Messages

1

[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / Alternative OCIO config for 3dsMax. ACES 2.0 and a few other view transforms.

« on: 2025-01-09, 15:29:52 »

- ACES 1.0 SDR-video RGC view transform for environments without OCIOLook support: https://docs.acescentral.com/specifications/rgc/
- ACES 1.0 - SDR Video view transform as three colorspaces: for inverting aces view transform to linear rendering colour space (ocio v1 functionality), creating hdr textures
- ACES 2.0 rev060 GitHub - ampas/ACES_ODT_Candidates​
- ACES 2.0 rev060​ view transform as colorspaces: for inverting aces view transform to linear rendering colour space​
- for Max users: Unity neutral tone-map from Maya
- for Max users: hdr displays removed
- for Maya users: OCIO virtual_display - reads ICC display profile (supported in Resolve etc)
- added some texture colour spaces from ACES cg ocio configs (like srgb encoded AP1 texture etc)
- two AgX view transforms by Troy Sobotka: https://github.com/sobotka/AgX
- Display P3 (apple, srgb transfer function)
- view transforms: filmlook, cinemalook, cameralook - mostly remix/mashup of grades/looks/output luts from popular camera manufacturers
- filmlook01: traditional film emulation
- filmlook02: black and white film emulation
- cinemalook01: classic teal and orange look
- cameralook01: famous K1S1 lut from ARRI https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/tools/lut-generator

​
download:
https://piotrus3333.gumroad.com/l/gwavih

2

Hardware / Re: Color space/mode

« on: 2024-12-20, 17:23:38 »

Im just reading a few threads on this topic at the moment trying to ascertain how to get consistent sRGB or AdobeRGB outputs from Corona now that colour management is a thing.
This seems to be the most recent thread discussing it and sorry to hijack it for a slightly different question. But If someone who has a better understanding than I could post some advice on what settings to use within colour management and then what to do within photoshop to ensure consistency between the VFB and the image im seeing in photoshop that would be great.

Juraj, i followed some steps from a post you made a few years ago which were very helpful thank you. But now colour management exists in max is there a better way to ensure consistency? Or does the missing profile assignment in the max save system still dictate that the below is the best way?

This is the comment i mentioned above.

Quote from: Juraj on 2021-03-05, 21:30:18

This is correct workflow for this monitor for 3dsMax/Corona.

1) Monitor OSD Menu: Select sRGB mode. Then adjust brightness to your liking. (Fun fact: Calibration is also done to exact brightness levels, but if you move it +/- 50perc. the difference in accuracy is not drastic).
2) Type Color management into taskbar in Windows, select your monitor, check "Use my settings" and select "sRGB" ICC profile. Set "Use as default".
3) When loading any rendering into Photoshop, you don't need to do anything if your settings are set to "Don't Ask". It will stay unmanaged and you only need to "Assign" sRGB profile at the end of export, for examply when saving to final file. Don't convert to any other profile.

The above workflow doesn't work for high-gamut displaying (DCI-P3, HDR workflow,etc..) or printing (AdobeRGB, LAB,etc.). But since 3dsMax & Corona are not color managed (Autodesk Maya and Vray for example are), this is the best scenario to use right now. Least headaches. Colors are always correct, you're just not using wide-gamut capability, which is ok since most devices are sRGB only, even today.

adobeRGB display is in the default OCIO config.

3

[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: Tonemapping Order/Behaviour

« on: 2024-12-17, 16:42:08 »

a suggestion regarding saturation:
go to Resolve, save a lut from Color page - I’m sure you can find saturation adjustment that fits your needs.
use lut opacity, I think this should be enough.
no need to wait 5 more years.

4

General CG Discussion / Re: Poll - Do you profile your displays?

« on: 2024-12-06, 18:29:43 »

Since you're an expert on this, what's your take - why is OCIO support in Max poor? I have no idea (still on max 2021 here), asking out of interest and would like to hear your opinion.

no idea. I guess not the priority at the moment. Maya has still the same config from 2022 version for example. maybe the idea is ocio configs should be personalised anyway.

the colour focused Resolve only recently got full (or almost full) ocio support so it’s not like autodesk is an outlier.
but for reasons unknown they ship Max with one display transform (aces sdr), Maya with two yet VRED gets a few, AgX included.

important functionality missing:
OCIOLook transform (important for ACES)
virtual_display (important for everybody using icc profile)

5

General CG Discussion / Re: Poll - Do you profile your displays?

« on: 2024-12-06, 17:21:37 »

OCIO sytem has support for ICC profiles. it’s just Max that does poor job supporting OCIO.

one way of going around it is adding the same functionality but with luts in custom ocio config.

6

General CG Discussion / Re: Poll - Do you profile your displays?

« on: 2024-12-06, 11:14:35 »

I'm fairly new to the calibrating / profiling game (if you don't account for hardware calibrating) and what I'm noticing is that calibrating / profiling is just one part of the game. The other part is setting your applications to work correctly according to the profiles / calibration used.

to be fair the ICC system is in theory quite "behind the scenes". profiling software usually takes care of loading the profile into Windows and done. everything just works. obviously it works as long as you stay within the ICC ecosystem...

7

Hardware / Re: Color space/mode

« on: 2024-12-06, 10:07:50 »

Corona does not embed color profile information, unfortunately, I am not even sure if with 3ds max save dialog (Corona uses it under the hood) it is possible.

For 3ds Max color management - everything should be supported by Corona, unless there is a warning message about it (e.g. specific rendering color space).

If everything is supported than maybe you would be interested in this:
https://forums.chaos.com/forum/chaos-common/chaos-common-public/1221708-alternative-ocio-config-for-max-and-maya-because-there-is-more-to-display-transforms-than-aces-is-able-to-offer#post1221708

it is meant to replace your default ocio config from Max. just expanding on the defaults so this will not break any scenes (unless you are on exotic hdr display, I removed those for now as this config is based more on what you can find in Maya - different display list)

I will add an option to load your ICC into max via ocio config soon.

8

General CG Discussion / Re: Poll - Do you profile your displays?

« on: 2024-12-02, 14:30:48 »

I assumed bias towards profiling among people who clicked the link. so I guess only 1/3 or less (among mostly Max and some Maya users) put in the effort.

but true - interesting.

9

General CG Discussion / Poll - Do you profile your displays?

« on: 2024-11-28, 12:31:42 »

hello citizen of data driven world,
if You don't mind spending one minute of your valuable time I would be grateful. Brace for advertising content as somebody needs to pay for all this.

poll:
https://strawpoll.com/ajnE18evAnW

Thank you.

10

[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / Re: AgX in Corona

« on: 2024-07-08, 15:10:28 »

Another example of using AgX:
Resolve AgX version (DCTL) married to look from famous ARRI K1S1 lut.

11

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-07-02, 13:46:23 »

Yep, using the copy metadata node. I imagine it's because the Cryptomatte fuse is expecting the elements to appear in a certain order but re-shuffling with pioSaver returns them differently, who knows.

I haven't tested a PS action yet but it's on the radar.

to save multichannel exr from Fusion you need to pack channels you need into Fusion's auc channels like Z, mat ID etc.
not convenient and efficient at all.

since Natron is a no go (metadata is lost) - similar free solution would be Gaffer. just delete some channels and write new exr.

12

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-28, 11:34:09 »

Thanks Marcin.

Handy to know for PS, although the ease at which you can re-render a mask for a still means Cryptomatte isn't required as much.

A few tests I tried in Fusion:

1.
exporting just the beauty element from the cxr/exr using a default saver - reduces file size and keeps the metadata.
exporting all of my other passes using pioSaver - reduces file size but loses the metadata
Unfortunately copying the metadata from the single-layer exr into the pioSaver multi-channel-exr doesn't work with the cryptomatte node

2.
rendering a cxr with "Render Only Masks" enabled and only the channels I wanted (crypto/worldPos/normals). Unfortunately you can't get masks from this.

3.
saving a multi-layered exr from max including all the channels at various bit depths and copying the meta-data from the re-saved cxr/exr - unfortunately this also did not work.

I do wonder if this is partly a limitation of Cryptomatte in fusion but based on this I think the best solution would be for Corona to allow users to choose the specific elements to be CXR'd along with bit depth & compression.

This would allow us to have compressed beauty elements at 16bit with beauty & crypto saved together and other elements left at 32bit.

are you copying metadata with CopyMetadata node in Fusion?

are you able to test the speed of Photoshop batch action processing 10 cxr frames (real production size obviously) and deleting everything but cryptomattes? maybe it wouldn't be a deal breaker.

this is the cryptomatte metadata that I suppose should be retained:

13

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-28, 10:35:44 »

Thanks Marcin, we will try that on our end as well! Unfortunately it doesn't sound like a great workflow for animations though, for this we would still need better cxr management at render output stage.

??
this is about animations first. you can probably handle cxr files for few stills just fine but in case of animations this is not realistic at all.
now there is a question of speed of batch processing cxrs in Photoshop but if this is the tool you have - it will work.

14

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-27, 16:48:49 »

deleting layers from cxr in Photoshop and resaving (tested with proEXR plugin) will get you a file with just cryptomattes.

15

[Max] Feature Requests / Re: Choosing specific elements for CXR

« on: 2024-06-26, 16:03:55 »

Reading my post back I felt the need to clarify a few things.

My main reason for wanting this is to be easily able to use Cryptomatte in Fusion.
This already works but the downside is that you have to use a monster sized CXR file for it to work as currently the cryptomatte metadata doesn't get written into normal EXR's (not sure if this is the same across other renderers).

Generally one multi-layer EXR's is slower to load than several individual layers which slows down an artist's ability to work and increases comp render times.

Two possible solutions:
1. Implement functionality similar to 3DS Max's default exr setup, where individual passes can be added/removed and their bit-depth changed per element
2. Write cryptomatte metadata/manifest information to the Cryptomatte render element so that all passes rendered to separate files.

in general what you need for fast exr read is multipart exr (requires exr 2 support). software reads only one part (so one render element) and not the whole file.
assuming you are using cryptomatte plugin from Reactor - this one does not support multipart exrs - so you end up with two exrs per frame (multipart and non-multipart for cryptomattes)

you can basically edit the cxr file (LifeSaver plug for Fusion or Photoshop + Natron I guess), use better compression for colour data (dwab should be ok for LightMix), keep crypto at 32bit.
will save you a lot of disk space.