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Hi all,

I cant achieve nice contrast in my images at 2.2 gamma and .08 burn.
All seems a little washed out and the blacks are almost non existant.
It seems to be an unwritten rule to avoid altering the gamma and burn values..

I've been reeding through many of the topics here but still can't get
a nice contrast.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks in advance...

Forget about unwritten rules. Maxwell is *your* tool and you got do whatever you feel is necessary to make the images look good to your eyes.

Lower the gama to 1.8 and be happy if that's what it takes.

I think most people do postwork. 2.2 & 0.8 is usually very realistic, but reality is often very ugly. Consider that truth!

Yeah, I know this is an artistic tool so no rules apply
but the physically correct aspect is intriguing and challenging.

Any tips on white balance and exposure methods?

-Adrian wrote:I think most people do postwork. 2.2 & 0.8 is usually very realistic, but reality is often very ugly. Consider that truth!

words of wisdom

Talking of white balance, just keep in mind that the engine i believ is set on a temperature of 6500 °K...while for the exposure you could find comfortable to use multilight and either save an HDR image, or "tonemap" your output squeezing the gamma and lowering highlights so that you don't have burnt areas, and then increase contrast in postproducttion... but it highly depends from your setup...
...there will always remain something that is no technique, neither tricks but just taste and experience, so that from a certain point onward, you can only rely on yourself!

I think that proper lighting is the key to this.
Try using smaller Emitters. Big ones tend to wash images out.

It is very important how Your materials are made. Maybe they just reflect too much light? and lights don,t decay to let almost black shadows to appear. Materials with additive mode do this too. there is too much light in your scene that is all . Any tricks with gamma and burn are cheap shot and biased tricks shame on You !

edit: look at lambert material how it reflect light ! This s...t bounce light everywhere It isn't happened in real life.
materials materials materials - if they are correct Your scene will look correct in every lighting You need.

Take care with your screen calibration too, and post process always helps of course
As others said, every step in the scene process plays for the final result, as lights powers, materials RGB values (DON'T use 255 white for ex)