Author Topic: Max Rendering - darker than original?  (Read 2416 times)

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Offline JGZinv

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Max Rendering - darker than original?
Pretty much what the title says...

I'm trying to do a render to texture on a ship and the way it looks in the viewport initially and the resulting
ship after the RTT is noticeably different in brightness. I'm using mental ray no gi, as I don't seem to have other
presets that would produce anything near the realm of "close."

Examples:



Pretty much I followed Nuke's notes ala 2006.

Quote
collapse to the top-most modifier on the ship mesh
open the rtt window
pick a renderer (i tend to use something with raytrace and hi in it)
make sure the ship is selected
make sure projection mapping is off
select automatic unwrap (use the chanel it gives you)
in output, add a diffuse map
in selected element common settings, check enable choose a name and make sure its in the diffuse slot
disable automatic map size, instead use 1024
in baked material settings, output into source
select keep baked materials
hit render
ship may look whack, dont be alarmed
youl find a new modifier applied to your ship, click on it and hit edit, confirm your uv map to make sure its not a jumbled mess
under the edit button theres a save button, click it and save the uvw file
collapse to the new modifier
add an unwrap uvw modifier
set map channel to 1
hit load, find that uvw file you saved
collapse to the new modifier
open the material editor
select the first material, should be the baked map
apply it to the whole model and turn it on in the vewport
and youre done, conver the mesh to poly, ad goodies and save as pof


I'll admit I'm a noob with texturing and RTT in particular...   are there better settings to use to get better output here?
I'm using Max 2009. Using the UV mapping that Max has assembled from our OBJ source. Which looking at it in the UV editor
after the RTT, shows it being quite inefficient space wise. Though with nearly 1200 models yet to process, I'm not sure I'm inclined to
spend a ton of time on each one, tweaking the UV.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
Are you rendering on a base white material with a sunlight?
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Offline Nighteyes

  • 211
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
it looks like a gamma correction problem, check your gamma settings...

 
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
I'd guess that what you're seeing in the viewport are the highlights. They would make the texture seem washed out. Are both the original and the baked texture using the same material properties? For instance, is one Arch and Design, while the other standard?

 

Offline JGZinv

  • 211
  • The Last Dual! Guardian
    • The FringeSpace Conversion Mod
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
Are you rendering on a base white material with a sunlight?


There are no added lights in the scene. and it comes up as a Multi material composed of 8 textures.
Ambient according to the mat editor is black.



[/quote]
it looks like a gamma correction problem, check your gamma settings...


Are you referring to the monitor or somewhere in Max?



[/quote]
I'd guess that what you're seeing in the viewport are the highlights. They would make the texture seem washed out. Are both the original and the baked texture using the same material properties? For instance, is one Arch and Design, while the other standard?


Far as I can tell, in both the RTT and Mat Ed boxes there's no different pre or post conversion.  Not sure where I'd find Arch and Design....
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline Nighteyes

  • 211
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
in max go to preferences->customize->gamma and LUT
there make sure that either gamma correction is off, or make sure the output gamma(in the bitmap box) is the same as the rest, should probably be 2.2, although when texturing its advised to have gamma correction turned off.

 

Offline JGZinv

  • 211
  • The Last Dual! Guardian
    • The FringeSpace Conversion Mod
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
Correction is off, Affect Material Editor is unchecked, and bitmap files input/output is 1.0.
Seems to be all defaults.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline Nighteyes

  • 211
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
It might be that your output is Diffuse channel in the RTT?
make sure Complete map is selected, this might be it... if its not, its not such a bad thing to brighten it back up to normal in photoshop :)

 

Offline JGZinv

  • 211
  • The Last Dual! Guardian
    • The FringeSpace Conversion Mod
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
Complete map appears to have fixed it... color wise, but the bottom of the ship is totally black.
Seems only the side viewed is rendered?
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

  

Offline Nighteyes

  • 211
Re: Max Rendering - darker than original?
It must be your scene lighting setup, the easiest set up is to use max scanline render, place a skylight(make sure its color it white) and in advanced lighting in the render tab select light tracer.
place your texture on a standard material.
when you render to texture have the ship selected and it should render it all according to the UVW map layout.

completely black polygons might also have to do with flipped normals, so make sure all your geometry is good