Filmic color configuration for more realism

Metin Seven · February 27, 2017, 03:50:58 AM

Hi,

Recently there's a buzz of excitement in Blender's Cycles renderer community, surrounding an OpenColorIO wide dynamic range color configuration that can significantly help to push the impression of photographic realism in rendering output.

It is called "Filmic Blender", available at GitHub. It's created by an independent developer, but its potential has already been recognized by the core Blender developers, and will be included in Blender version 2.79.

Example renderings and an informative breakdown of the Filmic Blender color configuration can be found here. More info and examples can be found with a web search.

I would love to see this color configuration added as an option in Keyshot, preferably with Keyshot's characteristic accessibility / ease of use.

Many thanks in advance.

DriesV · February 27, 2017, 10:35:26 AM

Tonemapping in general is on our radar. We are looking at how we can support it.

Dries

Metin Seven · February 27, 2017, 01:12:02 PM

That's great, Dries! Bedankt voor je reactie.

HaroldL · March 07, 2017, 05:56:07 PM

I just saw a couple of videos on YouTube about this: Photorealism Explained and The Secret of Photorealism.

Metin Seven · March 08, 2017, 01:17:45 AM

Yes, it's an exciting tonemapping technique. I really hope it will be added to Keyshot soon.

DMerz III · March 08, 2017, 01:54:30 PM

+1 for the False Color LUT (look up table). That would be SUPER useful.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, there's an option to show the lighting "strength" with a mapping from black (zero light reflecting) to pure white aka 'blown out' with heat map like colors in between. Makes adjusting the strength of the lights a little easier to notice what is actually being blown out vs. what is still within gamut. At least, this is my interpretation.

(Yes I realize in real-time rendering you can see when something is blown out, but if you're working with a material which takes sometime to 'res' up, you do not always see the blow out at first.)

DriesV · March 12, 2017, 05:08:47 AM

Quote from: dmerziii on March 08, 2017, 01:54:30 PM
+1 for the False Color LUT (look up table). That would be SUPER useful.
...

Yes, that would be great to have as a tonemapping option.
Actually, this kind of output is already available in the VELUX Daylight Visualizer, which Luxion also develops.

On a more general level:
What kind of tonemapping control would you guys want to have?

Dries

Metin Seven · March 13, 2017, 02:55:50 AM

Quote from: DriesV on March 12, 2017, 05:08:47 AMWhat kind of tonemapping control would you guys want to have?

I don't have technical knowledge of tonemapping, but it should give a better result than the usual standard Burn and Gamma level of control. I'm thinking of real-life like camera film filters that give a certain look / atmosphere / contrast balance to a render. The Filmic Blender color configuration goes a bit further than that, pushing linear Gamma workflow to a more sophisticated level, using a wide dynamic range. I'm quite impressed by the results I've seen, and would love to see something similar added to our beloved Keyshot.

TpwUK · March 13, 2017, 04:57:17 AM

As I said to Claus a few hours after it was posted to YT - I think it would be a super option for Interior Mode if it can be merged into it.

Martin

Metin Seven · March 17, 2017, 02:37:22 AM

Here's another interesting comparison of an image rendered without and with the Filmic Blender approach.

DriesV · March 17, 2017, 04:00:16 AM

There is no magic to this or anything. :-)
The workflow is fairly ingrained in the film industry, which is also why it's called Filmic Blender.

One issue with this highly flexible tonemapping is: What does color mean?
In that example, you can see that the overall color of the shell completely shifted. That is not obvious. And maybe it's not even the look you want.

Dries

Metin Seven · March 17, 2017, 05:27:25 AM

Are you trying to talk this out of my head, Dries?

I haven't used Filmic Blender yet, because I've shifted from Cycles to Keyshot several months ago, but I'd love to have the controls Filmic Blender offers, to match the results it achieves.

DriesV · March 17, 2017, 06:12:06 AM

No, not at all.

I guess I am trying to imply that tonemapping requirements vary widely across different industries.
Industrial designers are more concerned with accurate color reproduction, with colors not being shifted or altered in hue much beyond the specification or physical sample. In film, mood is the primary concern and individual color fidelity is arguably of lesser importance.

Dries

DMerz III · March 17, 2017, 07:35:41 AM

I am by no means, an expert with this subject, but I do think people expect this Filmic thing to be a bit much of a magic bullet. It is helpful, but it isn't really changing things under the hood, but more or less, changing the way people 'work' and make decisions within the program.

My understanding is that the underlying calculation of color is not changed. If you were to render your image out as a raw EXR file using any 'tone mapping' you'd still have full control in post (?)

The big difference using this Filmic LUT is the way the hues/saturation/value are represented within your working program. Working with sRGB, you're limiting your overall gamut/range; it'd be similar to printing an image on yellowish paper and wondering why your 'whites' aren't very white.

In reality, the image (output) has white values, but your medium (paper or in this case application i.e. blender/keyshot/whatever) is giving you a limited representation of what lies within.

This was a problem because the default in Blender/Cycles was sRGB, so everyone was making 'decisions' within the program about lighting/color with sRGB 'blinders' on. I'm not sure that's a problem in Keyshot? When we output our images from keyshot and open in photoshop, the image is untagged RGB, we then assign a profile (translation of how the colors should be represented). Most of the time, we assign the Adobe RGB 1998 profile, and we get images that look very similar to what we saw within Keyshot's realtime output.

Again, not an expert! Just passing on info that's been fed to me about this subject. Please help me if I've been misinformed

Metin Seven · March 17, 2017, 08:19:30 AM

Thanks for your reply, Dmerzii. A good elucidation.

Quote from: DriesV on March 17, 2017, 06:12:06 AMI guess I am trying to imply that tonemapping requirements vary widely across different industries.
Industrial designers are more concerned with accurate color reproduction, with colors not being shifted or altered in hue much beyond the specification or physical sample. In film, mood is the primary concern and individual color fidelity is arguably of lesser importance.

I agree. But Keyshot is used by both product visualizers and CG artists, so having this kind of advanced color processing as an option would be great, in my humble opinion. I would very much welcome it. It could save me an extra round of Photoshop or After Effects, and more advanced color post-processing options than Burn and Gamma are becoming quite common in other high-end renderers these days.