Physical Camera Exposure vs Arnold Imagers - better workflow

[@saulescalona7155]

After a long time and messages I finally understand the reason for the problem, thank you.

[@ryancounts8131]

Ciro, another great tut. I tried using Imager maps before and no one mentioned disabling the physical camera. I'm getting much better results. I'm hating Arnold much less because of your lessons. Keep up the great work. Good tutelage is hard to find.

[@cirocardoso3v]

Thank you. I am currently recovering from long covid, so as soon I feel slightly better, I will record a couple of more tutorials.

[@OjiHamidin]

Found this out while playing with Arnold but your video EXPLAINED it in a better information. Thank you for a good video!

[@cirocardoso3v]

You are welcome. Glad it helped.

[@F10F11hm]

Could you please delve in complex Skin shaders for Arnold in 3ds Max? And SSS? Your Arnold lessons are amazing.

[@cirocardoso3v]

I can try do something with Arnold. I move to Houdini, so 3ds Max is mostly now for modelling.

[@electroluxia]

Wonderful information and tutorial. Thank you.

[@ReneAlex]

I'm a mental ray orphan, and after a bunch of bumps and bruises I now love Arnold, but it's frustrating to have these blind spots in the workflow, just left there by the devs and not addressed in the help file in an explicit and comprehensive way, the multitude of considerations that comes with Arnold workflow in contrast with mental, were quite a slow-down for me at the beginning. Thanks for this explanation and hope to see more in the future.

[@cirocardoso3v]

Thank you Rene. I think Arnold has a difficult job in 3ds Max, as you need to support some of these "legacy" workflows. I think we need a warning message or like you said some documentation telling what is happening. Isn't the first time I create a sun and forget about the Physical Camera Exposure. For me, the good thing is that the team behind Arnold is willing and quick to improve this plugin for 3ds Max. The difference of one single year is abysmal. Any other topics you would like me to cover, let me know.

[@abbenbow]

Hello Ciro, I was wondering how you knew what number(s) to use in the Exposure Control ( 3.05 ) and in Tone Map Values Reinhard ( Highlight 0.25 / Shadows 0.20 ) and Filmic - Thank you for this video!

[@cirocardoso3v]

Hi Ashley, I had to manually adjust the values until they matched. Glad you liked.

[@abbenbow]

Thank you Ciro!@@cirocardoso3v

[@jixal]

Whaaaaaat that is totally nuts. Surely this is a bug. Controlling the exposure via the camera is a legit way to render as rendering is essentailly 3D photography. Thanks for the solution though. I would never have guessed this is the cause.

[@cirocardoso3v]

You can still use the Camera Exposure with imagers. The conversion is done in the background. I also like to control the exposure with the camera, but I don't like that I can't turn off the tonemapping using the exposure control in 3ds Max. So mixed feelings on this.

[@jixal]

So strange only the preview is affected! I was using it balance the lighting in a scene and wondering what was going on rofl. Active shade works properly still.... but it is nowhere near as nice. Hopefully this will be fixed soon :).

[@saulescalona7155]

Ciro, helo. Its me again. The image exposure is applies to all camaras in the scene. If i work whit two or more camaras how can i adjust the image exposute by each one?

[@janjanas6644]

Kinda bummer that there is no way to use ACEScg with MaxToA

[@derrickteo2128]

Hi, I really enjoy and learned a lot from your past videos. May I ask, in order to use the imagers, do I need to add AOVs before the render? What happened is I don't see any changes after I applied the imagers. Also, do I use the imager before or after my render completed? Thanks and hope to see more videos coming from you!

[@cirocardoso3v]

Thanks Derrick. You don't need AOVs to use imagers and you can add imagers and then add AOVs later. What kind of updates aren't you seeing? Yes, it is better if you add the imagers before you render, because some, like the Noice and LightMixer need some information that you have to render. If you want, got to Arnold Answers, ping me there and I can provide better help. Thank you for your kind words.

[@derrickteo2128]

@@cirocardoso3v Thanks for your quick reply. I am still trying to work around Arnold renderer. Self learned Arnold from KZbin, and there is still a lot to learn from here. That is why is great to learn from a guru like you!!!

[@MaheshKumar-rs1yd]

Make a video on bitmap vs Arnold image map. It will be helpful for bump and other maps which will increase render time

[@visions7485]

Which one does reduce render time?

[@cirocardoso3v]

Hi Mahesh, I didn't notice big difference between the two. The only difference is that with the Arnold Image map, you don't see the image in the viewport, making loading scenes much faster. Adding a bump or a normal map, will always slightly increase the render time.

[@cirocardoso3v]

To reduce time, you can check my video about TX textures.

[@urielprado5810]

Thank you, it's a bit ridiculous to think that Arnold Render works in that way, but software is what it is.

[@cirocardoso3v]

Well, because Arnold is now the default render it has to support all of these legacy workflows. There are people that still use these tone mapping options for their renders.