Blender 4.2! New tone mapping, the Khronos PBR Neutral Tone Mapper.

[@YAMZOOON]

When I heard about this being implemented in Blender 4.2, I was so happy I kept having problems with color consistency with sRGB textures since I do product design and product visualization in Blender Thank goodness for this new view transform

[@RaulRoa41]

As an industrial designer using Blender for product renderings and e-commerce visuals since last year, I found this new tone mapping very useful. Thanks for the detailed comparisons.

[@danieleColomboChnl]

I learn more things from this channel than the official Blender channel! keep up the good work!

[@cyber_robot889]

I'm Soooo happy with Khronos PBR you just cant imagine - it just makes my life so easy!

[@SpencerMagnusson]

Fascinating, this is great news! As you said, this will be great for motion graphics areas where aligning to specific hues and saturations is more important. Lots of good demos to visualize this too.

[@diegopadovani4942]

Thanks Chris for bringing good news! That's exciting!

[@diegopadovani4942]

I just tested here in arch viz stuff, difference is massive. The colours and contrast are very intense, probably will need some tweaks in colour correction to use.

[@kevinmanley5043]

Just coming around to adopting AGX for product renders. I always come to your channel for the pro explanation. Watched your AGX video then bumped into this khronos video. Looks like a giant time saver. Thanks for another great video!

[@EladBarness]

Thanks for a great video! I had a project where I needed to render yellow glass and it took me hours to understand that because of AGX the part that is transmitting the refraction (not reflection) couldn’t handle a tinted refraction, I had to go back to filmic to solve this

[@starwars9191]

Chris Tyler is a blast from the past , I’m sure I’ve read some of your early work on rendering on older 3d software! This is an excellent visual and oral to help understand the new tone mapper .

[@Soandnb]

One of my biggest critiques I had with AgX is that it opted to deal with high saturation, high intensity lights by... decreasing the saturation. It was meant to solve the hueshifting caused by ACES but ended up simply replacing one compromise with another, and in all honesty, I found the hueshifting in ACES to actually look good in certain circumstances over the muddy, flat look of AgX. I'm eager to try out this tonemapper in my 2D artwork and my 3D renders, see how it compares. I still wish Blender would include ACES as another tonemapper option out of the box like it does for Filmic, AgX, and now Khronos.

[@christopher3d475]

Yes, I agree, I think ACES would be a smart thing for them to adopt. Apparently there are some technical hurdles to implement it properly. The various hacks out there to run ACES in Blender are inconsistent and a pain to use. So I hope ACES becomes a proper option too.

[@Soandnb]

​@@christopher3d475 Yeah, I've had issues with running ACES in Blender too. I think it's because some aspects of Blender are still not properly color-managed, such as the color picker and texture painting, and it might be that the profiles they do have in there are specifically built to work around Blender's quirks. I say this because I also use Krita (a 2D painting app, but with scene-referred capabilities and OCIO color management) and Natron (nuke-like open-source compositor), and both of these programs are able to handle ACES just fine, but display strange behavior whenever I try to tonemap any color data that falls outside the sRGB gamut using Blender's selection of OCIO profiles.

[@3dvfxprofessor]

You are such a brilliant explainer!

[@xDaShaanx]

Incredible knowledge as always 👏♥️

[@iainpendery8623]

Thanks Chris, just experimented with this myself and have to say the results have been amazing when compared to the AgX maps.

[@malinegor]

Chris, thank you very much for the comprehensive explanation!

[@MelvilleG]

Thanks a lot for the info. Khronos looks really good and usable out of the box without any additional tweaks.

[@Atimo133]

Thank you for the video Chris!! I am still boggled by the fact we got 2 new Tone Mappers in the past year, and still no ACES in sight- Meanwhile theres 1000 Comment Forum Discussions about "hOw AcEs Is InAcCuRaTe" (Yeah i am talking about you Troy S) when the only thing we want is being able to play within ACES Pipelines

[@Arjjacks]

You do actually have access to ACES in Blender, just not in the colour management section of the render settings. But if you set the view transform in there to Raw, you can then convert your renders to either ACEScg or ACES2065-1 using the Convert Colorspace node in the compositor.

[@Atimo133]

@@Arjjacks hey arjjacks thank you for your answer! Yeah sure, there are workarounds, there is the compositor method But as soon as you need your colorpicker for custom input rgb values- its over aint it?

[@Arjjacks]

@@Atimo133 I'm . . . . . not entirely following, sorry. If you're talking about while working in the viewport, that's not really an issue either now, with the viewport compositor. You just set up the compositing nodes first, then set the Compositor in the Viewport Shading dropdown to be Always. Now you're working in ACES in the viewport as well.

[@gottagowork]

0:30, for those anisotropic metal rings, are you bumping them or shifting the anisotropic rotation by noise? As for Chronos, keep in mind that it requires better controlled lighting as it's far less forgiving wrt blowing out highlights. Don't forget we do have a post based tone mapper as well. Maybe a tutorial, because I was never able to make good use of it. If not limiting to Blender, what other tone mappers, more local contrast adaption based, would you recommend? I'm usually happy with one click solutions like Filmic and AgX for most of what I do, despite their issues. No complaints so far. Only on a couple of occasions resorting on trying out some of Krita's G'mic local adaption filters to bring back some needed contrast.

[@christopher3d475]

For those metal rings, I'm not using anisotropy. Instead I'm using a mix between two Principled shaders each having a different roughness. The grain is also controlling the degree of roughness.

[@gottagowork]

@@christopher3d475 Ok, thanks.

[@apatsa_basiteni]

Finally! The video I was waiting for.😁

[@mrburakgok]

I was using Filmic for long time until I bumped to Agx. It wasnt default in blender in those times. I always do post processing in photoshop for my render so it is a good way me to use Agx but sometimes I am just happy with the result but want those real tones and not washed out ones. I am so happy that khronos is here!

[@AyushBakshi]

Sometimes people (including me at some point) confuse Tone Mapping with LUTs. Maybe because LUTs are also "mapping" colors but its purpose is mostly to create a mood (except the conversion LUTs). Where's as Tone Mapping, as you mentioned, is strictly about converting out of range colors to fit in a defined space.

[@christopher3d475]

Yeah, tone mapping is a bit more sophisticated than a lut. But they're related in a sense.

[@danielf5651]

What a nice surprise! I just got a new ProductViz case and decided to try it with AGX (I just downloaded 4.2). When I saw the Khronos PBR neutral option in the dropdown menu, I was like, 'What the heck is this?' Then I found your amazing video about it! Thank you! It seems like it will significantly reduce post-production time.

[@sabatheus]

Well, I'm sold! Great job describing this vital feature of Blender 4.2. I can't wait for it to come out of Beta!

[@VeloFX]

Wow, I was already excited when filmic was introduced but this seems like a huge upgrade. It used to be fairly easy to differentiate a Blender rendering from other softwares just by the colors, but this really closes to gap.

[@Bill3D]

Thanks for the tutorial ! It is really helpful

[@Keilnoth]

Awesome, so much to learn!

[@baptm727]

thank you, very instructive and straight to the point

[@rahulujjal8245]

Thanks for bringing the update to limelight, I might have missed this impressive change.

[@emilsvfx]

TNX. like your explanation :)

[@cameronvanhook7388]

Great video; Incredibly useful

[@Prabhakaraan]

Well explained Chris!

[@oozechsoo]

Great knowledge! thank you for sharing

[@dziarskilisek]

Thanks a lot. I seems that I will use mostly Khronos instead of AgX.

[@digital0785]

whelp cant wait till kcycles 4.2 comes out.. between eevee next and this it's going to be really nice for my workflow

[@craigernstzen2372]

Thanks very much, I must try Khronos now

[@francescocalvi7096]

Awesome detailed explanation of the colour spaces!! Thank you so much for making this. Out of curiosity, have you found any negatives to using the Khronos PBR tone mapper?

[@digitalbrasilce]

Seu canal é incrível e nos fornece informações valiosas! Obrigado em nome de todos!

[@LEDs]

You are the best teacher I’ve found when it comes to learning new color spaces and tone mappers. I’ve learned nearly everything I know from your videos about AgX, Filmic, and now Khronos! I just want to ask though, what would you recommend for additional resources for learning more about color spaces, tone mappers, and achieving the best-looking results in various cases?

[@christopher3d475]

If you want to read the document I linked to in the about video text, it'll go over more technical detail as to what's happening. Ultimately it's a matter of just using them and determining which of the tone mappers and 'looks' work best for a given rendering.

[@Mranshumansinghr]

As always. Informative and clearly explained video. Thank you.

[@designfreedom3651]

That’s a big step in the right direction, and it seems to work well on these small product renders with simple light setups. However, when I tried it on an interior scene with sun rays coming through and falling on the white walls, with a lot of reflections and glossy highlights on the furniture and marble floor, I have to say that although Khronos is much better than AgX (not to mention Filmic), it still unfortunately diminishes those highlights and rays... However, it does work very nicely with colors, maintaining the original saturation. Than again, I guess it's called Khronos PBR Neutral for a reason. Hope, one day it all will result in a good universal tone mapper.

[@christopher3d475]

It's just an option to test and use on a case-by-case basis, it's not replacing AgX. I agree that for some things AgX is likely to be superior still.

[@Albinus321]

Another excellent video.

[@cocboss3329]

Wonderful Sir

[@Aslan117]

This is life changing

[@nekriomycin90000]

at 6:48 the Khronos color management doesn't seem to solve the issue of smooth transition from one color to another. Maybe my eye is failing to see the improvements somehow. Because I am seeing banding still persisting. But you explained it nicely otherwise.

[@Alex-wg1mb]

Probably youtube compression. You can go so far without banking on web

[@Olstman]

Thank you!! Very interesting and very important information!

[@PrashanSubasinghe]

The Klingons have done it again. (had to through in the star trek reference :). Great video explaining color management!!

[@cekuhnen]

Tank you for the video !!! I fully missed this news.

[@ramyissa20]

Always interesting videos

[@BenleGentil]

Interesting! Maybe there's a worflow to be made where you use the Khronos render to drive the HUE of the AGX render in Photoshop - that way you get best of both world ...

[@Apicedda]

you can always set the view transform to Raw and do the tonemapping in the compositor, there you can mix different tonemapped outputs together as you please

[@christopher3d475]

Yes, you can also bring in camera raw photos (provided you save them as EXR files) and do tone mapping work on them in the compositor, using AgX or Khronos.

[@craigwall6071]

Hue is much more inter-related to saturation and value than people think. I don't think it will be advisable to try to create a hybrid.

[@asribaharudin6801]

This is such a great educational video

[@Renzsu]

Thanks Chris, that does indeed look promising. I would love to see some examples of outdoor daylight scenes (cars/architecture), and how Khronos compares to say, a processed AgX render.

[@buttersmooth4532]

This is the one I was looking for

[@TheTchaume]

Hello Christopher. Thanks for your video. After 5 months did you still use Khronos or did you get back to AGX ?

[@christopher3d475]

It depends on the scenario whether AgX or Khronos is most useful.

[@izzieb]

Probably a stupid question, but are there any disadvantages to this new tonemapper vs Agx? Are there any scenarios where this couldn't be the default?

[@nanabeniako]

It doesn't work well in archviz

[@FrozenDozer]

Iirc losing saturation in bright areas is exactly how it works in real life. So You're probably getting "wrong" results with Khronos. Sometimes that doesn't matter though, especially when clients want their CI / CD colors.

[@Wrobot]

There are a few downsides. 1. Khronos does only work with sRGB output in blender. 2. Khronos darkens some of the shadow areas, giving it more contrast, but it is less accurate. 3. Khronos doesn't work well with big high exposure areas, like a sunset hdri. (Try the built in venice sunset hdri and you can see it looks completely wrong.) Khronos is really designed for virtual product photography, and that is where it excels at.

[@christopher3d475]

Yes, that's why it's good to have Filmic, AgX and Khronos as options, in addition to the looks. I found that Khronos can be a bit too contrasty at times, and the less contrast looks can help with that. And I do think that AgX is probably better for architecture.

[@Bill3D]

In product visualization, clients often request that colors in 3D models match those in the 2D design files. I believe Khronos would be the best choice for achieving this.

[@superkaboose1066]

Well described, will come in handy every now and then, but I've been loving AGX, I'm more cinematic based though, good to have options though for sure.

[@christopher3d475]

Yeah, AgX still has a place. The Blender folks are just giving us an option that may be better under some circumstances.

[@QaisarYegimbayev]

Am i wrong for thinking that this looks "too good"? The slightly washed out bright colors of AGX look a bit more realistic and pleasing to the eye in my opinion. Perhaps this isn't about realism, and in these cases color preservation is more valuable.

[@christopher3d475]

It's up to your artistic discretion to use Khronos, it's another option to test. I agree that I think for some things AgX is better. It's case by case thing I think.

[@simoko7076]

AgX will give a result that's closest to a real camera but needs more post work.

[@sebbosebbo9794]

like always.... damed.....nailed ....again. 💪💥🗯🔥💭❤💨🕊

[@BeheadedKamikaze]

So, should everyone use Khronos for everything? What are its weaknesses, or where would you still see a use for something like AgX, rather than Khronos?

[@christopher3d475]

It's tuned for the things I mention, product types of renderings. Whether it works for you under other circumstances is something you can determine when you use it. It's just another option you can try now.

[@craigwall6071]

Khronos will be better for some types of scenes, but AgX better for others. It will be nice to have both.

[@christopher3d475]

Yes I agree. It's just a new option to test, it doesn't replace AgX.

[@ChristophWerner]

Great video again Chris. I think Kronos is the future and will replace all alternative Color Spaces in Blender in the dailie work. I don't think someone will ever use the others again. Of course it's always better to render in raw format and make the postproduction later. But I think Kronos makes a lot of things easier and other modes obsolete.

[@christopher3d475]

I think there's a place for the other ones and perhaps others in the future. Color is perceptual and not every scene may look great in Khronos, but it's important that we have this option for the scenes that will benefit from it.

[@ChristophWerner]

@@christopher3d475 Completely agree.

[@yonlaycabrera4431]

Thanks for another very interesting and informative video. I have a question, is there any logical reason why the dev are just avoiding adding ACES?

[@christopher3d475]

From everything I've gathered by following various color management discussions, it's not a straight forward thing to just drop it into Blender, at least in a way that implements it in a very proper and robust way. That's the gist of it. There has been a degree of resistance from some quarters for reasons I don't fully understand, but the immediate reason is it encompasses some technical challenges whose technicalities I don't quite understand. BUT, I do think it would be wise for them to do it at some point.

[@Nacreous01]

Would be very interested to see a video on the new Thin film feature for the principled V2

[@christopher3d475]

Yes, I'm planning on doing one on that.

[@Nacreous01]

@@christopher3d475 sounds great, really appreciate your videos

[@DEM3RZ]

Really enticing for Product Viz, wondering if there's a way to get this to work in Octane Blender for testing.

[@christopher3d475]

It's a good question, Im not sure how the Octane plugin handles color management. It may bypass Blender's native and use its own. Not sure.

[@doldrmaster]

I think AGX is superior for more realistic scenes, the new khronos one has a more disney pixar feel to it, perfect colors in a vacuum where the colors don’t experience any shift. Perfrct for products and animation but maybe not if you are trying to create a cohesive room or environment where agx might help blend things better and then you just apply a hue of color on top of the image.

[@christopher3d475]

Yes I agree. I think it's a good option to have alongside AgX.

[@jorgebernier5d]

I need this in my life life... right now! :O so, when is Blender 4.2 coming out?

[@VoxelMusic]

The improvement between Khronos and Agx is bigger than the improvement between Agx and Filmic.

[@christopher3d475]

It is fairly substantial.

[@graphikeye]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but for those of us that work in EXR none of this matters since we're in a linear color space, right? Are you implementing any of these color space transforms in your pipeline?

[@christopher3d475]

That's correct, EXR files are saved with the linear color data.

[@yt_bharat]

Sorry, i am a beginner, cannot understand these concepts. Could u please make a video on this color topic please?

[@johannleo1282]

Thank you for a great video, just saw you have a typo in the title for "Neutral"

[@christopher3d475]

Thanks for the catch, I've fixed that.

[@valentink487]

I always thought Agx is wrong, those massive saturation loss is way too much, I couldn't understand why many thought this is ok. ACES desaturation is way less and much more realistic. With Kronos we now have the opposite, no saturation decreasing at all. More usable in everyday work but it may be too saturated at the very edge.

[@xavierthomas1980]

I think so too. The more a color is bright, the more it should loose saturation. Films, video sensors and human eyes work like that. With Agx it was too much, with Khronos it is too little. I suppose the best way would be to have a parameter to personalize that. But maybe it has, I do not know.

[@RazsterTW]

Downloaded 4.2 and I cannot get Color Management to show the differences from AGX, FIlmic, or Khronos, seems to be broken.

[@christopher3d475]

Make sure the color space is set to sRGB.

[@RazsterTW]

@@christopher3d475 So the version I had did have a bug, once I updated to the 06/17 release it worked, thanks!

[@christopher3d475]

@@RazsterTW Ah ok, the challenges of beta software. Glad it's working now.

[@iceseic]

So is khronos an upgrade like filmic to agx, or it meant to be use for some cases?

[@iceseic]

Because I was thinking agx desaturated looks mean it retains more data or less data is lost, just like log film that is meant to be edited in post.

[@phalhappy8612]

What color space is Blender used for scene deferred rendering? Is it ACEScg or the biggest brother ACES AP0?

[@christopher3d475]

It uses a linear Rec709 space I believe.

[@phalhappy8612]

@@christopher3d475 but how does it have ACEScg in EXR export option. that is so confusing

[@genesis2303]

Thats nice, but usually color soutions are rather like too short quilt, and if you cover your head you have cold feet, so what are the downsides of this transformer, where are the weakest points?

[@estefez]

I'm sorry but i think filmic still looks best in all the examples. Khronos seems to just blend the worst elements of AGX and Standard: As colors get brighter they become oversaturated and then become undersaturated, with very obvious delineations, while filmic is the only one that keeps the saturation consistent throughout the gradient, at least in appearance. Does it look faded? Sure but it'll be alot easier to add a simple curves on top of that than trying to resaturate only the highlights in AGX and Khronos.

[@christopher3d475]

The great thing is, you get to keep using Filmic if it's what you like.

[@lee2key]

Why AgX still by default in Blender 4.2?

[@Misaqcieli]

Standart + Filmic + Agx = Khronos )

[@christopher3d475]

Kind of, yes.

[@RustyNova]

Oh no. Here comes yet again new update videos that makes me want to switch to beta...

[@almac8840]

Not sure but seems everything I render in 4.2 is worse quality than in 4.1. EVEE now blows out the contrast more and Cycles looks muted and im using imported settings from 4.1

[@christopher3d475]

Hmm. Have you done any head to head comparisons with a render in 4.1/4.2 to see for sure?

[@almac8840]

@@christopher3d475 Yes I rendered same image side by side. I notice the biggest difference in EVEE with HDRI lighting and reflective surfaces using both same settings

[@christopher3d475]

@@almac8840 Well, EEVEE is going through some big development so I would imagine there are going to be some differences. But you can always submit images to the bug system if you feel something is really not right. I've done things like that before and have gotten issues fixed.

[@BoyceBailey]

PHD level teaching

[@hasanhuseyindincer5334]

👌👌👍👍

[@jkartz92]

another OCIO?

[@christopher3d475]

Yes, I believe it uses the OpenColor IO system.

[@josiahgil]

would rec2020 make khronos look worse than with srgb? logically i don't think so, but i need certainty haha.

[@christopher3d475]

It only works with sRGB. If you select rec2020, it's not available as an option, only AgX is.

[@josiahgil]

@@christopher3d475 okay thanks, I hope they make khronos compatible with rec2020.

[@Zhaoyang_Gao]

bro ur voice kinda sound like Saul Goodman

[@ruthlesscutthroat4030]

when will blender cloth work like a normal turk?

[@patnor7354]

interesting

[@mytube001]

This looks great! AgX invariably produces terrible colors in every project I've tried to use it in.

[@craigwall6071]

That's not at all my experience. I have come to really admire what AgX delivers. It's just not ideal for all types of scenes.

[@thenodecamp]

That's great news! I always had a color problem, be it with my monitor, or filmic / agx. I understand that colors aren't supposed to be saturated much, but when I ask for 255 maximum RED color, and I get a desaturated one, it gets very annoying. Now I can actually make my diffuse map a full 255 RED, and do zero corrections on the lighting and composition!

[@christopher3d475]

Well, this is related the close color domain issue. Khronos does a better job at retaining saturation for very bright colors.

[@DonnaWhite-z8d]

Jones Jennifer Thomas Robert Jones Edward

[@garymankey6186]

Blender is uncreative.

[@GencoUney]

You define the restrictions and downfall of Khronos "PBR" Neutral in your first few sentences. "...designed to do this in neutral lighting conditions...". What is neutral? Surrounding and context matters immensely when READING an image. If you have a "warm" surround, what's R=G=B will read blueish, and if you have a "cool" surround, it will read yellowish. So once the product render is put in an environment and lit by it equation of Neutral will immediately breakdown and product colors will read wrong. Because we read images, not color-pick them. Think about the blue-yellow dress debacle. I'd provide examples to this but can't attach images here ofc. Khronos Neutral makes your images look like renders in short. In my experience client isn't always happy with that, most don't color-pick their IP Hex values. If you load up an "hdri" with clouds and the sun and view it through Khronos Neutral you will immediately see what reads wrong, polarity flips and decrements galore. I think it takes the artist a couple steps away from the right track.

[@christopher3d475]

If you don't like Khronos, don't use it. It's that simple. It's just an option.

[@GencoUney]

I'm not arguing that it shouldn't exist, I'm trying to raise awareness to prevent people from banging their heads on walls trying to fix something that creates the issue in the first place. Your response here is basically saying, "if you don't like spiked drinks, don't order drinks"