Washed out render on PC

[mitchino]

I am rendering an old job on my PC and the render is looking washed out and lacking contrast.

I originally rendered the job on my mac a year ago and the contrast was fine.

I just re-rendered the job on my mac this morning and the contrast is fine.

The settings in Octane and c4d on the mac and pc are the same as far as I can see.

Is there a system setting on the PC I need to change to get the same results as I do on the mac?

[elsksa]

Hi,

Assuming Windows OS and GPU monitor settings are default/correct, this is likely coming from Cinema 4D and highly depends on the encoding (export) workflow.

Are you exporting an integer encoded image like a JPG (or worse, PNG), a TIFF or an EXR?

There might be a double-encoding happening when using Octane and Cinema 4D's Picture Viewer. This page covers the whole subject, including the C4D part.

[mitchino]

The image looks washed out in the live viewer on the PC, but not on the Mac.

[elsksa]

Understood!

Double-check everything via the links I've shared.
It's technical but there is no way around it.

[mitchino]

I had a look at your link, and I do not want to go anywhere near OCIO/Aces or any other complex colour management system.

I work in srgb with linear workflow ticked on, and I'm perfectly happy with my results. I just want to know why, when I have identical settings on c4d and Octane on both PC and Mac, the contrast on the PC version is wrong.

What is really odd is that if I create a new simple file (spheres of different tones on a plane) on the Mac and render it with Octane, copy the file over to the PC and render with Octane they look exactly the same.

However, if I copy the problem file from the Mac to the PC, it renders differently, i.e. washed out.

[elsksa]

The links I've provided cover non-OCIO/ACES cases as well.
The OCIO part is only a (strong) recommendation.

Did you see the Cinema 4D screenshot?


Perhaps, sharing screenshots of your Octane render settings (the one in the Cinema 4D renderer window, Camera Imager but not the Kernel ones) could help.

[mitchino]

I've discovered what's wrong:

On the mac I'm using 2020.2.3-R7 and on the PC I'm using 2021.1-R6

On the PC version, any image textures get set to Colour Space : Non-Colour Data

When I change these to Colour Space: sRGB, the render matches the mac version

So relieved to have figured it out!

Thanks for your help.

[elsksa]

Thank you for sharing the solution you've found.
Curious case, though.

[aoktar]

It's probably intermediate version without processing the new parameter and save it non-color data. And you hit this version with some luck. But it should not give an output fully washed out, just for on the textures. You might notify that on the textures if you have compared carefully.

[elsksa]

Joining Aoktar, I thought the same. Perhaps the whole scene is all about this texture / asset?
There wasn't further scene information shared.

If not, I would be surprised.