So, I made this.

[Professor Moriarty]

I'm on the horns of a dilemma. I've been staring at these all day and can't decide, so I'd appreciate some second (and third) (and twentieth) opinions.

Today I was editing a new test clip (it's at the bottom of this post) and accidentally hit the wrong button on the color space settings in my NLE, DaVinci Resolve. Except now, I'm not so sure I hit the wrong button.

See, for the past several videos I've been rendering in LightWave/OctaneRender using a neutral ("linear") response and a gamma of 1.0, and I thought I'd been rendering in DaVinci to the sRGB color space (necessary for publishing on the web) and a gamma of 2.2.

Except that's not what I've been doing--the gamma was all messed up on the output and has been for a while now. What you're seeing in these before-and-after images are what I stumbled into this evening.

The first image in each pairing is what you get if you don't specifically tell DaVinci to convert the color space to sRGB and gamma 2.2. The second image of each pair is the correct sRGB color space and gamma 2.2. I didn't regenerate any of these CGI assets; all that I did was re-encode them with the correct settings for publication.

So here's the video from seven months ago, with default color space and gamma 1.0:

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And here's the same video with conversion to sRGB color space and gamma 2.2 explicitly selected:

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I don't think I realized just how dark my videos had gotten, but to my eye the color- and gamma-corrected version looks better... if a bit flat. Keep in mind that the lighting setups and what I've been looking at from start to finish is the what you see in the first version. I could adjust my lighting and textures to replicate the look of the first video while retaining the correct workflow (render in neutral/gamma 1.0 but encode for sRGB/gamma 2.2), but honestly I'm kinda liking the look of this "mistake".

Oh... and here's that other video I was talking about. Which, BTW, is also encoded correctly.

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[Tallguy]

Terrific work. But there is something that is keeping your ship from being part of the bg. It keeps it looking a little video.
Some of those look like viewmaster shots. That's a compliment.

 

[blssdwlf]

The uncorrected version (dark) is pretty contrasty and moody. The corrected 2.2 gamma (bright) reminds me more of the episodes. It does look a bit flat and like it was pasted into the scene but I think you can play with the lighting to correct for that.

Out of curiosity, in LW+Octane preview does it match up to what you were seeing in Davinci?

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Terrific work. But there is something that is keeping your ship from being part of the bg. It keeps it looking a little video.
Some of those look like viewmaster shots. That's a compliment.

In which version, all of them? Or only the re-encoded version? I kinda see what you mean in the re-encoded for sRGB/2.2 version, but that video (and the latest phaser test) both are using a very simple starfield background for now that hasn't been "fluffed". I also haven't employed any tricks such as applying dust/scratches, adding Gaussian blur, etc... maybe that's what you're seeing.

And the ViewMaster lighting setup is exactly what I was trying to replicate, so I will take that compliment!

The uncorrected version (dark) is pretty contrasty and moody. The corrected 2.2 gamma (bright) reminds me more of the episodes. It does look a bit flat and like it was pasted into the scene but I think you can play with the lighting to correct for that.

That's probably what it is--I'm looking at the re-encoded video (and today's phaser test) and some small part of my brain is whispering that these look closer to what I saw as a boy growing up. (Well, maybe not the dynamic camera moves! )

Out of curiosity, in LW+Octane preview does it match up to what you were seeing in Davinci?

It does IF you click the correct buttons. So, like I said above I should be able to get more contrasty/less TOS-ish and see what I'm doing while I'm setting things up in LW/Octane, and still get a correct output in DaVinci without crushing the color curves. What I'm having trouble deciding is how dark/contrasty I want to go.

 

[BK613]

@Professor Moriarty Hmm, the brighter one has an AMT plastic model feel to it (even though it also reminds me of the original FX TOS E.) The brighter one did make me identify something that had been nagging at me about your E: your lighting (especially the reflections) does not convey a sense of size. I really see a small lit model rather than a 1000+ foot starship.

@blssdwlf I think that once the Professor starts playing around with depth of field ( i.e. not everything in the image is focus) then the pasted-on-the-background feel will be gone.

 

[publiusr]

This happy accident gives a feeling of warmth to the thermocoat—that is good.

Have the dark version as the ISS Enterprise in a battle

 

[Psion]

Scott, the effort you're putting into these renderings shows, and I'm grateful you're sharing so many test renderings with us! My takeaway is that you are bracketing the sweet spot in lighting and gamma without hitting it.

Without gamma, your renderings come out too dim. It's probably a bit more realistic lit this way, but the deflector in many of these shots looks black. The result looks nothing at all like TOS. It looks more like lighting on The Expanse; dramatic, pensive, hiding something.

With the gamma, you get a brighter overall tone, but it's too much. You've gone past TOS and now the ship looks like it's built out of glow-in-the-dark materials. Or there's an odd, plastic-y sub-surface scattering.

I suggest no gamma, sRGB color space, and an additional lamp to fill in the dark areas a little more

 

[137th Gebirg]

Some of those look like viewmaster shots. That's a compliment.

And the ViewMaster lighting setup is exactly what I was trying to replicate, so I will take that compliment

If that’s the look you were going for, then it completely worked, as I instantly remembered that exterior shot they did for the ViewMaster Omega Glory intro with the Enterprise and Exeter next to each other, looking at this.

I am curious why they did that back then and not use actual footage for that one slide, but that’s completely off-topic.

Well done!

 

[Tallguy]

I am curious why they did that back then and not use actual footage for that one slide, but that’s completely off-topic.

Because none of the actual footage was shot stereoscopically.

 

[Arpy]

The uncorrected version (dark) is pretty contrasty and moody. The corrected 2.2 gamma (bright) reminds me more of the episodes. It does look a bit flat and like it was pasted into the scene but I think you can play with the lighting to correct for that.

^ What he said.

Amazing work!

I love the dynamic camera angles/movements btw. We’ve seen the ship in the classic ones. Here’s us seeing it how we’ve only ever could have dreamed of...like playing with the models in hand through the air.

I love the slightly purple phaser shots too. It’s just like in TOS when the ship or weapons changed color episode to episode or scene to scene.

The job is lovingly done, and it shows.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Because none of the actual footage was shot stereoscopically.

Well, sure, but neither were the live-action shots with the actors back then, but they somehow managed to get stereoscopic shots out of those planetside scenes. Never could figure out how they did that before the days of computers that could now dismantle a 2D composition and easily turn it into a 3D picture.

 

[David cgc]

Without gamma, your renderings come out too dim. It's probably a bit more realistic lit this way, but the deflector in many of these shots looks black. The result looks nothing at all like TOS. It looks more like lighting on The Expanse; dramatic, pensive, hiding something.

With the gamma, you get a brighter overall tone, but it's too much. You've gone past TOS and now the ship looks like it's built out of glow-in-the-dark materials. Or there's an odd, plastic-y sub-surface scattering.

Both versions look too extreme to my eyes, too little fill light in one, not enough in the other. It's always an option to massage the lighting to somewhere in-between in the compositing program and use that as a default "look" for the project. They did that on the new Battlestar Galactica. During the miniseries, they decided to change the engine flares on one of the Viper models from yellow to blue (or the other way around, who can remember), and never bothered to actually change the 3D file, they just recolored the flares in post... until someone new took over compositing in season 3 and didn't know about that, and the engines "changed" back to their original color, which they'd been all along.

Well, sure, but neither were the live-action shots with the actors back then, but they somehow managed to get stereoscopic shots out of those planetside scenes. Never could figure out how they did that before the days of computers that could now dismantle a 2D composition and easily turn it into a 3D picture.

Didn't the ViewMaster people just send a photographer with stereo equipment to sit in on the filming of the episode?

 

[137th Gebirg]

Wild! Doing a bit of digging in Memory Alpha for Omega Glory, it seems this was exactly what they did - could have sworn it came out later but I was definitely incorrect. One of the photos shows Nichelle Nichols looking over her script next to Takei as the 3D photographer is taking pics (in the “Production” section at the bottom). Learn something new every day!

 

[Viper]

See, for the past several videos I've been rendering in LightWave/OctaneRender using a neutral ("linear") response and a gamma of 1.0, and I thought I'd been rendering in DaVinci to the sRGB color space (necessary for publishing on the web) and a gamma of 2.2.

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You should always use linear workflow. I recommend taking a look at the documentation on it.

I couldn't find anything from Otoy, so maybe this helps:
http://www.aoktar.com/octane/LINEARWORKFLOW.html

 

[Santaman]

Just keep playing around with the settings I guess, might be that you stumble onto more nice stuff.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

You should always use linear workflow. I recommend taking a look at the documentation on it.

I couldn't find anything from Otoy, so maybe this helps:
http://www.aoktar.com/octane/LINEARWORKFLOW.html

Aoktar’s excellent reference actually *is* the Otoy documentation for OctaneRender. Unfortunately, his online help manual was written with the Cinema 4D plugin in mind, not LightWave. Nonetheless, his manual is by far the best documentation available, and I’ve been following his guidelines. But because he refers to the C4D version of the Octane plugin, there are crucial settings that I’ve had to guess at because no one in the OctaneRender forums (definitely no one who’s writing the LW help manual) seems to know how to set up a proper end-to-end linear workflow using LightWave and Octane. I think I have the LW+Octane formula correct, but what it looks like I have been forgetting to do was preview my lighting setups with a gamma of 2.2 applied (which is what most computer monitors are calibrated to use). What I’m finding out now is that you also can’t just crank up the lighting in a scene with the gamma set to 1.0 to approximate the illumination levels you’d get if you left light intensity the same and rendered at a gamma of 2.2; you blow out your highlights everywhere. It’s fucking confusing and frustrating.

I definitely agree with the majority of the persons who posted here. Thank you very much for the feedback; it’s exactly what I needed to hear. The Enterprise is too brightly, flatly illuminated in the correctly-encoded video, while the original is too Expanse-ish and just too damn dark, period. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. Much to chew on.

 

[Viper]

Yes, you indeed should apply a 2.2 gamma correction on the render. I don't know Lightwave or Octane enough to help you, unfortunately. You don't need to export with 1.0 gamma and then correct for that again in your comp software. Just save with the 2.2 gamma applied and go from there. I save my renders as 32-bit EXRs so I have all the light information available in case I want to do any corrections in post

 

[scifieric]

I'm not sure that your originals are "too dark"! They are certainly different than what most artist post, but I think they are spectacular! I love the dark version of your renders. I think they look great!

 

[ashleytinger]

Just my two cents, but I think a nice place for these would be halfway between, but either looks pretty good.

 

[aridas sofia]

I just want to quickly interject that I’ve long been fascinated by your lighting scheme. It reminds me of the original color two-view render of the Enterprise design by Jefferies. That piece of art very clearly shows why he was so emphatic about keeping a smooth surface - he thought interesting lighting would be used to play off a non-white hull. We never really saw that until, maybe a bit, TMP. And until your work.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb...n/images/7/75/Jefferies_Enterprise_sketch.jpg