Linear workflow question

[DartFrog]

I'm trying to keep my process as clean as possible and saving out 32 HDRs when the render is complete. Lately I've been setting the camera response curve to 'linear' and then opening up the HDR in Photoshop and editing the file with camera raw to finalize the shot before I begin with masking and curving, etc. Is this the best way edit a shot? I know there are plenty of camera response curves available in Octane, but is it a quick cheat to use those? Are they eliminating any of the rendered data? A lot of them look really nice, but I feel like I'm not working in a true linear workflow if I end up rendering with one of those response settings.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Ian

[Rikk The Gaijin]

If you want a clean Linear image you need to set the camera response to Linear/Off and set the gamma to 2.2

[itsallgoode9]

If you want a clean Linear image you need to set the camera response to Linear/Off and set the gamma to 2.2

that's setting the gamma of the camera to 2.2? no gamma adjustments need to be made to the textures at all?

[Rikk The Gaijin]

that's setting the gamma of the camera to 2.2? no gamma adjustments need to be made to the textures at all?

AFAIK no, in this way you will have exactly the same output as VRay's Linear Mode.

[itsallgoode9]

ok thanks. I'm working in Maya but i'll compare your suggestion to the maya linear workflow tutorials. I'm having trouble nailing down linear workflow in general but on top of that, how maya handles it when working with octane.

[stratified]

Hi,

When you're saving out to HDR (i.e. exr), you need to save with a gamma of 1. Have a look here for more info.

cheers,
Thomas

[itsallgoode9]

Hi,

When you're saving out to HDR (i.e. exr), you need to save with a gamma of 1. Have a look here for more info.

cheers,
Thomas

After reading through that link again, does this sound like the correct program generic workflow:

1. create texture in photoshop
2. import texture into program. gamma for texture needs to be set to 2.2 for most 8bit (png, jpg etc). if it is not, adjust gamma
3. make sure camera gamma is set to 2.2. make sure Octane Imager is set to linear/off
4. Render
5. if saving as 32bit, make sure render image's gamma is 1. If saving as an 8 or 16 bit image, make sure gamma is 2.2

[stratified]

Hi,

Looks good to me. Just to clarify point 3, you don't have to set up the camera imager before rendering. You can still change all the imager settings without restarting the render (So in principle you can experiment with this without the need to re-render all the time). Octane's film buffer on the GPU is always 32-bit floating point, untonemapped and tonemapping is orthogonal to the rendering itself.

cheers,
Thomas

[DartFrog]

Thanks everybody for the responses. Seems like what I'm doing is the proper way. Thomas - How can I change the camera response setting after an image has rendered? I know it's as easy as changing the camera setting if you're doing the preview (live) render, but for a render out of 3dsmax the standard octane way, is there a way to edit it?

Lastly, Octane doesn't have a photoshop plugin, do they?

Thanks again,
Ian

[itsallgoode9]

my renders i'm saving out seem pretty washed out. is this expected?