I highly advise against it, unless you’re working in a pipeline where it’s demanded from third parties.
I found it very useful even while I work alone. It makes easy to import camera capture from different cameras and render layers so every video source is then easy to composite and grade. Also, my camera gear shoot 8-bit channel so I’ve done hack to blender and adjust in camera dynamic range more compressed, depending what I’m shooting and import that compressed dynamic range to linear.
Also I found that rendering in ACEScg colorspace is more accurate in light calculations than sRGB. In my opinion, CGI often look crap because they work in limited color gamut, and you can’t avoid that when using ready assets or cycles sky textures.
That’s why I’m not invested better camera equipment while I composite to renderings, rendering will look crap. So I shoot on sRGB gamut, I use sRGB assets, calculate direct light sources and some materials from spectral to ACEScg to get light calculations a bit better, and then color grade and output in sRGB. This way I can lower the difference between rendering output and camera.
Big drawback is that rendering in this workflow exports OpenEXR frames and cheaper renderfarms may support only mpeg-4 that already has compressed dynamic range.
Being friends with two of the top colorists in the world, I have it on good word that they don’t work in ACES unless the client insists on it. That’s not to say that they don’t use ACES transforms when getting ACEScg shots back from the VFX team, but the color grade portion of it typically doesn’t.
Many colorists working within the Blackmagic Resolve pipeline tend to prefer working in the Resolve Color Managed workspace which is similar to ACES but “feels” better to work with and in the way the wheels respond.
You haven’t worked in film I suppose. That’s where I come from, 30 years of experience in production and post. Technical language isn’t a thing most of the time, and I’m not even quite sure what exactly a “technical artist” is nowadays as pretty much every single creative out there leverages technology in some way, shape or form.
I was working on a sci/fi project about a year ago and I ran some tests using Cycles, Octane (in Blender) and 3Delight in Houdini of the same shot. There were substantial differences between the look and feel of the 3 render engines. Out of the 3 Cycles looked the most “cartoon-ish” if that helps. They way the materials looked, and the way the light reflected off of them seemed the most artificial. 3Delight and Octane were considerably closer to what I would expect to see on a studio-level film.
The catch is that Cycles was the fastest, easiest and far best integrated with Blender. This is why I said that the pros outweigh the cons for me. At the end of the day, the best renderer in the world isn’t worth it if you’re not able to reach your production goals.
Ironically, for some type of shots (particularly sci/fi exteriors), I actually believe that EEVEE can look more photorealistic than Cycles due to the relative unreliable on GI and a certain “grit” to the look that makes it well suited for some of those shots.
I’m a big fan of Paul Chadeisson. I believe he works in Blender but renders in Octane if I’m not mistaken. I think his artwork and his style would be difficult for Cycles to match exactly, I would love to see something rendered in Cycles that matched this level of cinematic quality…but I understand that we’re stepping heavily into subjectivity here.
Being friends with two of the top colorists in the world, I have it on good word that they don’t work in ACES unless the client insists on it. That’s not to say that they don’t use ACES transforms when getting ACEScg shots back from the VFX team, but the color grade portion of it typically doesn’t.
This is getting too much offtopic so maybe we should discuss that color grading stuff in other thread.
My point was that when rendering, ACEScg gamut gives much better results in calculation than sRGB, even when output is targetted sRGB. So tuning procedural textures/volumetrics using RGB values calculated from spectral and same to lightsources, gives CGI what is often missing there. You need to take this account when comparing path tracers.
Sure, but if we’re comparing apples to apples, then working in rec709/sRGB in other render engines should also result in non-photorealistic results, but it doesn’t.
My typical pipeline is render out to linear EXR and then all of the post processing happens in Resolve.
P.S.
I’m also comparing not just my own work, but what I see posted in the gallery on a daily basis vs. what I see posted on the Octane or the Arnold user groups.
P.P.S.
Out of all the Cycles renders that I have seen, the one who gets perhaps the closest in terms of realism is Ian Hubert, and I don’t believe he’s working in ACEScg.
I think his artwork and his style would be difficult for Cycles to match exactly, I would love to see something rendered in Cycles that matched this level of cinematic quality…
Uh… I love the short film but I read your text first incorrectly, I though you meant to say this video look artificial because it is rendered using Cycles and think that there is some crisp, cartoon-ish look. Then wondering why it look like that.
And I expect to get similar rendering quality out of cycles.
I’ve done space rendering testing too and I can get more realistic look using cycles. I don’t know how much visuals in Migrants is intended aesthetic and how much is result from chosen renderer.
I also read article where some guy told decision to use Octane in his low budget short animation was high performance in rendering, not quality.
I get all of that, and I have seen several side by side renders and there indeed is a qualitative difference between each renderer.
If we are interested in improving cycles, it is important to pin down exactly what the issue is. If you can’t say anything other than subjective adjectives, there is no way forward.
For us, the job of the modern technical artist is to take subjective feedback and turn it into technical improvements. I had a client ask me to make a render more glamourous. I added in some skinny area lights to help define reflections better and added in a subtle glare. I understand that the client (or director) doesn’t always have the full technical understanding of exactly what we are going to do to make the image look more “gritty” or “ambient” or “glamourous”. Since we have that skill, it gives us the ability to translate handwaving into the technical details. Software developers are even deeper into the technical nitty gritty, and even farther away from the subjective side. We can help to serve as a bridge there. It’s tough, for sure, but it’s even tougher for the devs. Pinning down the technical issues turns them into actionable items for the devs.
Not sure if this was meant to be a dig or not, but you are right. I work in an industry that is bigger than film, like most industries are. Hollywood is small potatoes nowaday, and working in film isn’t the same clout hammer it used to be.
For us, the job of the modern technical artist is to take subjective feedback and turn it into technical improvements.
I’m myself software developer so I’m very deep in algorithms.
In my opinion, cycles should aim realism. Replicating that cornell box, adding some chrome sphere and all surfaces measured. Ground truth is measured reality, not “cinematic”. I also understand when certain level of realism is achieved, it can be optimized for performance, keeping same level of quality but using tricks that human eye can’t see. It should be also useful for work.
So when we got realistic output, we can also tune shader to get some intended artistic look.
I definitely thing ground truth reality is the best baseline, and using scientific principles to rigorously define that baseline is a good approach. But we are still artists, and sometimes I just want to have a metal material that is kinda rough without looking up NK values and surface finishing specifications.
At the end of the day, whatever rendering model you are using is just a model and is subject to all of it’s shortcomings. reducing those shortcomings is a noble goal, but there are limitations to the science that we can do. What’s the IOR of garbage juice dripping out of a dumpster? There is no scientific answer to that. It’s a complex material and it would be expensive to rigorously define it, and if someone through a bunch of rotten oranges in that dumpster the science is completely different than if the dumpster was full of rainwater and old chow mein.
What’s the IOR of garbage juice dripping out of a dumpster?
About ~1.42. If it is water, it is 1.33 but it can be also high as 1.47. It varies and depends on wavelength, so accurate modelling requires spectral rendering and diffraction but in Cycles and similar renders it good to take average IOR at 555nm and use that as base, and calculate specular from IOR is 0.376511
There is no scientific answer to that.
That interesting juice is usually cellular fluid from decaying organic garbage, it is measured and it varies, depending what proteins there are.
And there’s the rub. The point I was making is that those variations have a significant effect and those variations are where the scientific method might leave you lacking, so you’d need to approximate based on the hard science and your innate artistic sense of what looks right.
I’m reminded of the spherical cow:
Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, “I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum.”
The real world doesn’t fit nicely into our models. and the tools we use as artists need to have both the realistic underpinnings based on science, and easy + flexible tools to tweak them so that it looks right.
eh, unless you really really need to perfectly look-match a real image in a renderer, being off by a little bit with your IOR doesn’t really matter much at all
Exactly my point. Getting too uptight on physical realism misses the point that being off by a little bit doesn’t wreck your image. in the real world the margins of error will quickly exceed the tight physical reality that we are striving for. Getting caught up the photometric analysis of a cornell box breaks down pretty quickly, which can result in a huge amount of time spend that doesn’t actually make a difference in the end.
Well, I mean, one situation where it makes a lot of sense to strive for perfection is to benchmark your renderer against a known baseline. In that situation, doing a full photometric analysis is a great idea. In order to know whether, in principle, the renderer gives the right result if you attempt to go for it.
If you get very real looking results if you use realistic settings, it means your renderer has a rather desirable predictability.
But in that case, you’ll already know those settings. You’d, in fact, know the sludge’s IOR lol
The point I was making is that those variations have a significant effect and those variations are where the scientific method might leave you lacking, so you’d need to approximate based on the hard science and your innate artistic sense of what looks right.
I know.
I basically put all real data I can get like IOR and spectral data and then just look photo references and adjust until it looks right, starting on those where I don’t have data.
I like to put everything on correct scale/range what it should be because if you just adjust every variable how it looks without any idea what it should be, you can get model that look right in that spot, but may look wrong in different lighting or environment.
Sounds to me like you don’t work in film production uh? I have heard the same exact point you are making by academics and others who have little actual real world practical experience.
I’m not attacking your credentials, but merely pointing out that there is a wide gap between what you’re talking about, and day to day issues that film VFX artists have to contend with.
At the end of the day, when the client says that the water doesn’t look right – there ain’t no amount of scientifically correct IOR that’s going to convince them otherwise – you’re losing that argument!
At the end of the day, when the client says that the water doesn’t look right – there ain’t no amount of scientifically correct IOR that’s going to convince them otherwise – you’re losing that argument!
I’ve actually modelled water in Cycles and Eevee, using all data I got. It is of course approximation as Cycles does approximation. I take account absorption, algae, small particles, large particles, foam, dissolved organic crap and got data from different types of water. Pure water, sea water, etc. and work on ACEScg. And it looks right. Just tune simple parameters where the water is.
Water is easy to model because there is so much measured data. So I got the water, sky, sun, many light sources and spectral data from various sources so I can get those very close to correct so when I model something without data, I can check how it look together with measured material or with color checker to get that right.
So yes, Cycles and Eevee can render water easily, while not accurate. Water is those things that benefit spectral rendering, and benefit on ACEScg.
I saw your work and I’m impressed by your dedication to accuracy, but I think you’re missing my point. At the end of the day, in the film/tv industry, people don’t care about physical accuracy. What they really want is a shot that “looks” real – and the two can be quite different.
Looking at the Paul Chadeisson images, to me they “look and feel” real, and I know that no matter how hard I try Cycles will not give me that (at the moment). Having said that, Cycles still makes the most sense for my needs, and I’m willing to take a hit in realism for the other benefits of working with it.
