"St." <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote:
>     So what you're really saying is adjust my monitor to 2.2 and then add it
> to assumed_gamma 2.2 in my scene

Noooooo! Stooooooop! (*grabs & pulls away keyboard*)

Phew, that was close...

No, *please* don't set "assumed_gamma" to 2.2... I have the theory that it
should be set to 1.0 actually; Set "Display_Gamma" to 2.2 instead, and see what
it does. Check with that "Gamma Test Scene" I posted.

And I wish people would leave that freakin' ambient alone, and use *proper*
lighting, like radiosity and HDR light maps and stuff like that... no surprise
people keep fighting with material settings...


You remember that "Immortal Game" scene? Well, bet you do ;) In case you forgot
where to find it:

http://www.tc-rtc.co.uk/imagenewdisplay/stills/index185.html

(Okay, that's actually for people reading this thread and wondering, "what the
heck is he talking about" ;))

Look at the white knight's mane (upper part, that's a raytraced square).

Guess how long I've been struggling to make good gold or brass textures?

I tell you - for hours on end. And I bet I'm not the only one.

Now guess how long it took me to get the gold material in this shot right (not
talking about the bump mapping here, just color and reflection and all)?

Just a freakin' five minutes; once I had gone for the HDR image for background,
it all came just naturally.

How long do you think I did tinker with the materials for the marble pieces?

Not much work there either.

I think there's a secret here: You can toy around with reflective materials for
ages and ages - if they don't have anything good to reflect, they'll always
look like something else than you intend them to. But if they do have proper
surroundings, it's all a piece of cake.

The same goes for dull materials and a proper lighting model. Radiosity makes
*so* much of a difference. Image-based lighting works good, too (except that
POV doesn't have it). Even if you don't really *see* it in a shot: You *feel*
it, somehow.

(And likewise, to get proper results, the gamma settings need to be right... ;))

Having spent a bit of time trying to sort out the whole gamma smash, I guess
your setting of "assumed_gamma 0.75" isn't so bad after all - in combination
with a "Display_Gamma" of 1.0 it should have roughly the same effect as the
combo "assumed_gamma 1.0" and "Display_Gamma=2.2". However, the drawback is
that you can't properly render other people's scenes that have an "assumed
gamma 1.0" statement, and others can't properly render your scenes either.

And defining translucent materials with an "ambient" term... yuck! I bet you do
that for a purpose, but... well, I guess it's time POV learns how to do fast
subsurface scattering instead, 'cause I bet that's what you try to emulate...
(did I mention that I don't think too much of that "ambient" thing? :P)

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