Render output differences between 2.49 and 2.5x

Support Lighting and Rendering
1

Hi,

I’ve been using blender for a while to render images for a tile-based transportation game, and I’ve recently updated from blender 2.49 to 2.5x (I’ve been using 2.56 beta but I just tried 2.57 and the problem below persists). For some reason the models render differently in 2.5x, giving some odd shading. I’m really keen to resolve this I can do more automation of the process in 2.5x saving me a lot of time (and it runs far better on my machine too), but at the minute it looks like I won’t be able to use any of my old models at all :frowning:

I’ve attached screenshots below (2.49 on the left, notice the same colour all along the roof, 2.56 beta on the right, notice the odd shading that’s been introduced from front to back - I want to get rid of this!) to show the differences - but can anyone explain how I can convince 2.5x to render the model the same way as 2.49 for consistency’s sake?



Many thanks in advance!

2

Unfortunately your image is itsy bitsy tiny.

However there are a few possible reasons:

Top Candidate: Color Management. Blender 2.5 has color management, well an approach, you can turn it off in the render settings under shading

Next: Environmental Lighting - Ambient Occlusion in 2.4 has Ambient Occlusion and Environmental Lighting in one setting. 2.5 has them seperate. If you rendered with AO in 2.49, you got to find the aequivalent of settings in 2.5.

“Add” (2.4) should be Environmental Lighting (2.5)
“Sub” (2.4) should be Ambient Occlusion (2.5)
“Both” (2.4) should be EL+AO (2.5)

Additionally AO in 2.5 can be “add” or “multiply”, where “multiply” should be the preferred.

But I guess its simply the color management and you don´t have to go there :smiley:

3

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately neither of your suggestions seem to be right - colour management was off in 2.5x already, and neither image was rendered with AO. Attached are some more detailed renders to show the problem a bit more clearly…



EDIT: The difference seems to be mainly due to “Set smooth”/“Set Flat” on the object properties - it would appear that 256 renders smooth objects very differently - does this help?

4

Don’t worry about it, just proceed. 2.49 is dead, there is no going back.

5

When importing some of my 2.49 projects into 2.5+ I almost always had to re-tweak the lighting set up. Have you tried anything like that?

6

It’s different software. Expect differences. Move to 2.5x at the exclusion of earlier versions, adjust your projects and proceed. (“It is ready now. It is significantly better. It Is Time.”)