Filmic as default is hurting the experience for people

[troy_s]

@MC-Blender

I know ur point, thats what I always say ‘‘fake contrast’’ about filmics contrast options in other treads

This is actually a really solid point to focus on. Specifically, it is worth thinking about what “contrast” is.

We cannot expect “contrast” to occur anywhere other than in our visual systems. We can follow some general trends, but ultimately we are balancing what “contrast” is, and what is happening in the tristimulus values.

Contrast is the sensation of a steeper “gradient”. But that asks a new question; “A gradient in what domain?”

That is, in terms of perceptual implications, “contrast” can be defined as a difference along three loose axes:

• Perceptual “brightness”.
• Perceptual “chroma”.
• Perceptual “hue”.

Any one of the three will yield a steeper gradient in perceptual terms, and create contrast.

The problem is that there is no such thing as infinite contrast. We are bound to the medium. As we distort the tristimulus ratios, bad things start happening.

Think about the simplest render of an R=G=B sphere rendered under a pure BT.709 blue “light”.

How do we add “contrast” to this formed image?

We can only increase the gaps between the blue tristimulus values so far, and if we do so, we are going to introduce perceived posterization, or Mach Banding etc. There are limits!

But even if we choose to push the image further, we need to consider where we are pushing values beyond the medium’s representation range. Some possible outcomes:

• Values that are pushed beyond move toward an achromatic value.
• Values that are pushed beyond distort to another hue.
• Values that are pushed beyond shift in chroma.

All of these are extremely challenging to negotiate, and no such model for image manipulation exists.

Contrast is an incredibly challenging concept.

The best we can hope for is for authorial tools to be responsive to the authors, such that they are afforded more control to adjust the image, both pre and post image formation, for their work and their voice.

@MC-Blender

I hope AGX advances little more into TCAMV2 quality

TCAM is a architectural spine for a colourist-centric tool. As such, it actually fares extremely poorly without colourist interaction and look development. This is something that many folks pushed back against in the early days of Filmic, and wanted something that “Just Worked”.

The best way to see this is to try it. Filmlight offers a download of their basic, non proprietary look excluded, TCAM configuration. It will become clear that it is an architectural decision, and not an aesthetic baseline.

If someone wishes to try a real, high end system used to grade and shape the imagery of most of the higher end motion pictures out there, Baselight Look is also a free download that integrates TCAMv2.

[MC-Blender]

(I agree, contrast is dependent on scene as u explained, its already a known thing but what is meant by lack of details by that user and me is not about subjectivity of contrast or not about contrast with hue or saturation, only being talked about value contrast. When the filmic high contrast is comapred with srgb , the details seem lost because of how looks of filmic is made or due to lack of LUTs that u can add on top of filmic looks as secondary layer. There is nothing against filmic view transform, the only thing we try to mention is that there should be better ‘‘looks’’ for filmic that are make things pop better similar to how srgb’s )

Now getting to main topic which is a simple thing that is not about any deep technical issue, just an artistic issue because of lack of more ‘‘looks’’ or secondary LUT or things to add on top,

When u use very high contrast in filmic it still doesnt look as pronounced as srgb’s regular look and still not able to get rid of washed out look with lack of details with high contrast because of how highlights look compared to midtones.

So when u add a simple curves to change highlights and or midtones slightly to add kinda more contrast between midtone and highlight, it leasily ooks more pronounced and less washed out while preserving most of the benefits of filmic

There should be more usable ''look options ''out of box with filmic if its possible to accomplish or color management need some LUTS instead of keep using curves everytime or going to compositor, to have more pronounced highlights differnetiation that cause details to pop up more wthiout always needing to always use curvers or color balance for value/contrast, so it will be more easy to have consistency when u make new scene, u can just use the look that give u final result more easier and more satisfying…

In other photo editing software, it always make u feel the need to apply level adjustment for midtones and highlights to makeless washed out or increasing whites at selective color adjustment
.
So i wonder if can we integrate such level/curve adjusment for midtone-highlight as '‘look’'s inside filmic filmic according to curve/level adjustment as below so people will get something good out of box without keep tweaking or compositioning.

[troy_s]

@MC-Blender

When the filmic high contrast is comapred with srgb

Base Contrast was actually designed to be relatively close to sRGB in an average viewing environment. Of course, the two cannot be compared, ultimately.

@MC-Blender

Now getting to main topic which is a simple thing that is not about any deep technical issue, just an artistic issue because of lack of more ‘‘looks’’ or secondary LUT or things to add on top,

Folks are, and always have been, free to do so themselves. It was highly encouraged in the early going, and more than a few threads exist on BA on various approaches to achieve this goal.

@MC-Blender

When u use very high contrast in filmic it still doesnt look as pronounced as srgb’s regular look and still not able to get rid of washed out look with lack of details with high contrast because of how highlights look compared to midtones.

It can never be, in much the same way that sRGB’s inverse EOTF is not a suitable mechanism to form a picture for render data. It just is what it is.

Can there be improvements to the image formation chain? Of course. Will any of them “match” sRGB’s inverse EOTF “look”? Impossible.

It’s mixing apples and oranges. One would do well to explore how pictures are formed, and why it is imperative that the chrominance attenuates to provide information about the intensity of the illumination. Until this is understood well, all discussions are moot.

@MC-Blender

In other photo editing software, it always make u feel the need to apply level adjustment for midtones and highlights to makeless washed out or increasing whites at selective color adjustment

That is for an already formed picture. Render data is not yet a picture.

Curves are hideously broken in Blender anyways. Your adjustment isn’t remotely doing what you think it is.

[MC-Blender]

1. Photo editing software is just an example to make understand the cause of washed out look in curve values, i know render data is lost when u go photo editing software , its just an example to demonstrate an alternative to what contrast people expect and feel washed out after using filmic when there is no LUTS on top. Thats all that is meant,

2. SRGB is just an example to explain the washed out look after filmic, noone said we should fully match srgbs look. I already told that I am not talking about image formation or view transform of filmic

3. Noone need for me to understand all the details as much as you to discuss with you, when there a client goes to a architect, architect listen what users expect or what users feel missing visually, then architects fix the issue without telling technical details to the user he propose a solution instead of trying to show his professional knowledge.

4. Yes in BA there is threads about that but I just wondered if it can be more officially supported or made available for everyone , so I dont understand where ur offensively explanative or defensive behavior come from when I didnt say anything faulty about the view transform of filmic that is created or I never mean to change filmic to srgb etc, , I was just trying to describe things by comparisons with SRGB, its just a ‘’’ matter of lack of LUTS / more look options on top of filmic presented to users with blender’’. So in my opinion there is no need to always defensively feel need to reply everything people talk about ‘‘lack of LUTS or other look options causing people to feel negative about Filmic experience while using blender’’ , if core of the problem doesnt come from filmic or filmics creator.

In summary, I only talked in my comment about Filmic usage without any LUTs or more look options presented by blender is hurting the experience for people , so its also about blender’s lack of lut system as well, not about filmic vs SRGB thing,.

[Eary]

@MC-Blender

offensive behavior

I don’t think he is being offensive here.

@MC-Blender

Noone need to understand all the details as much as you to discuss with you

But it’s important to know relevant stuff to actually have a meaningful conversion. Have you ever feel painful when a client tell you they want the color of the product to be “rainbowly colorful black”? Then when you try to specify what that means, they refuse to go deeper, and insist on “rainbowly colorful black”? I think we should agree that when someone is trying to bring more knowledge to the table, they should be respected.

When you say “fake contrast” a while back, honestly, I was like hearing “rainbowly colorful black” and I was not sure what you mean.

[MC-Blender]

I also remember Back very long ago u asked me to understand what I mean by fake contrast, so I appreciated that to u.

But now when I talked about it after someone else pointed out the same issue of lack of details and washed out look that cause the same thing I meant long ago as fake contrast, I get other technical details that try to bombard me with technical details or trying to lecture me to point out impossibilities by diverting from the main point is kind of ‘‘offensively explanative’’ when I never blamed anything about filmic core creation, because I was just talking with the other person who had the same idea I didnt blame core viewtransform of filmic or how filmic is created, I just said something missing and its fixed by curves or compositioning. So its still kinda ‘‘offensively explanative’’ to defend something by giving to much information about other things when noone blamed anything about it or when other two people were talking about something else.
.
When I say fake contrast, if architect ask me what do u mean by fake contrast to understand what I mean instead of telling me other things like ''impossible, no way, it cant be ‘’, then I am okay with it when both side compromise , so we can discuss what is missing and what can we do to fix it even though client may not know the technical words or may use differnet ways to explain the issue, but my main point about missing thing is not well understood but other things are mentioned regardless of topic, then it cannot be meaningful conversation because I got more other answers that are less related to what I was wondering or trying to accomplish…

In your example, If I was an architect, when someone asked me ‘’ I need rainbowy coorful black’’ , I would say ‘‘can u more detaily explain what u mean by rainbowy colorful black’’ then after understanding the point without diverting topic I would say ‘‘I am sorry, unfortunately its not yet possible to have that color Rainbowy colorful black due to technical limitations, but maybe we can achieve same effect by doing this or something similar by this, then explaining very detailly about it , rather than putting time to explain more about impossibilities or diverting topic by putting emphasis on other things that are faulty or wrong or impossible’’

Anyway, no need to prolong this, I dont plan to reply again about Filmic Its loss of time when main points are lost in conversations.

[Eary]

@MC-Blender

I get other technical details

Can you give me an example of technical detail? I believe all of my and Troy’s explainations are artistic enough, things like how the “washed out problem” is an illustion, the truth is that the more “popping” feeling one is actually the one loosing details:

Does this already count as technical details for you?

But again, it’s important to know relevant stuff to actually have a meaningful conversation. When some folks said Filmic is loosing details, ok are you talking about the issue like on the left side of my above image? Or are you calling the right side “losing detail”?

@MC-Blender

so its also about blender’s lack of lut system as well, not about filmic vs SRGB thing

Again, vanila Filmic was a Log, the current Filmic in Blender = original Filmic Log + Base Contrast. So the contrast looks are part of Filmic, it’s weird to say that we are criticizing the looks without Filmic. It’s especially the case since we are talking about “washed out” and things, original Filmic was a Log, so what are we talking about?

[MC-Blender]

No its not technical detail, Color sweeps are important to be aware about and they are good way to explain things if someone is not colorist.

I know AGX and TCAMv2 (probably the right sweep in the image u showed is AGX ) gives more depth and variation that make u think there are more details because of turning colors into better desaturated tones smoothly as lightness increase and make objects look more distincitve and better foreground-background relationships. as I saw in many comparisons So it look more similar to Tcamv2
So its a good improvement after filmic and I like it and I agree with it. But I wasnt talking about hue or color shifts in viewtransform part.

But what I just meant in general was just the looks that come alongside filmic with blender,
Original filmic is log so its normal to be washed out, I am not saying anything about that, I just said I wish there are more looks that users can use to have final image without compositioning everytime or without changing curves all the time, thats all, so I just said that lack of enough look that are added on top of filmic log (filmic log+ base contrast = filmic ) make people think filmic hurt user experience if user just wanna have good results on viewport by choosing filmic and a look without learning the way to edit config file and adding new looks to filmic because blender doesnt have option to add secondary cube LUTs on top of filmics looks on color management.

So my whole point was that in general , and more specifically my point was more about WHITES and differentiation between WHITE ,highlights and midtone that make details feel less washed out)

Thats why I showed 2 images one filmic high contrast and another with filmic high contrast + curves that make details feel like pop up more due to WHITES as expected on reflections on car or shadows that create contrast because whites are enhanced and it remove washed out lack of detail feeling from white , so I just said if such looks can also be added to looks of filmic for everyone so there are more opitons to get final result out of box in blender without compositioning, if its done, there wont be treads that keep saying filmic as default is bad because they cant see things that are supposed to be white grey and feel washed out , they just need more look option that make whites look more like white for NPR or other things so they wont keep using srgb just because of WHITES (as mentioned in this tread).

If its devtalk, then adding more options for every user with different need or expectation is good way, so I just pointed out solutions that will end the fights or put and end to people who keep making new tread to tell unsatisfactions about filmic

[In that purpose, simply I asked to know how to achieve that curves adjustment of blender (even if its broken and i m aware its not doing what curves in other software does maybe, , its not important for me, I just wanted to know how that result is accomplished , for me result was important, not the technicality of broken things because sometimes broken things give u the result u want , (Even thought it wasnt doing what curves should do , I knew what I were doing and which effect I wanted to reach, because I also accomplish same output in other video/photo editing softwares without curves but by playing with ‘‘WHITES’’ in LUMTERI’s basic corrections for example.)]
Here is filmic high contrast without any additional thing

Here is filmic high contrast where WHITES are enhanced (shadow of car is more sharp and less washed out )

Here is standard none that looks similar to filmic with whites enhanced (to compare with enhanced whites in filmic high contrast)

In summary, its about lack of LOOKS that use WHITES in a more prominent way while having the advantages of filmic log view transform in filmic color sweep as a base. So thats what we are talking about, as u mentioned by urself that filmic log + base contrast = output that we get by using filmic So its not about filmic view transform versus SRGB view transform base, troy already said he used similar contrast looks with srgb and filmic, but what I mean is filmic need different looks to make it more usable due to WHITES. So people here who keep needing whites for cartoon or NPR or even someone who dont wanna do secondary color grading on compositor or somewhereelse can just choose that look and stop being against filmic due to lack of LUTS that enhance WHITES.

But i think its hard to explain so, I guess I ll just give up about this.

[3di]

Yep, filmic should be off by default as it also can massively increase render times by hiding the fact there’s over bright lighting. Also prevents proper composition workflow…and looks crap

[OcularEvolution]

@3di

filmic should be off by default as it also can massively increase render times by hiding the fact there’s over bright lighting

Can you provide evidence for this? “massively” is a big claim.

[Illasera]

@Eary , I wasn’t trying to reply to you in this very post you are reading, but to @MC-Blender, i just picked his quote from your post, I apologize.

@MC-Blender

Noone need to understand all the details as much as you to discuss with you

@MC-Blender, Yes sir, You need to do that, Trust me, I understand how you feel, I don’t want to go through chris brejon long articles and troy’s stackoverflow pages that you can’t tell where they end.

Let alone sit through endless lectures by technicolor and filmlight on youtube on how to control your colors , nor dive into photography and composition that comes with the territory, at some point, you will be using the camera that blender provides or use references (Therefor, composition and photography), And learning all that , just to make bloody sofas (And the waifus that sits on it, *Had to insert some cheap humor).

But, it comes with the job (Thankfully not my job).

If you are a hobbyist / amateur, you don’t care much about the details, the medium / software rules you over
If you are a professional, You rule the medium / software over.

*Nobody likes the learning stage, Including the people who tell you that they do; but learning is the price of admission

@3di

Yep, filmic should be off by default as it also can massively increase render times by hiding the fact there’s over bright lighting. Also prevents proper composition workflow…and looks crap

Translation : “X should be off because i feel like it, Care about my feelings please!”

Some argument there, mate, Very technical , Precise and empirical, Careful when you use the word “Crap”, It may rebound when you use such ingenious arguments.

[MC-Blender]

I dont think so, my point is just about ‘‘LOOKS’’ and ‘‘WHITES’’ side of filmic bundle, so I dont need to understand technical details of Filmic view transform, When someone ask you how to make a salad from vegetables, u never explain them how plants make vegetables in cellular activity without making connection to main question.

Thus, its not about being against learning or something, I love learning stage more than many people (its hard for u to know me just by a reply in a website) and learning comes from within, not by advises to learn from others for me, and also learning is proportional with the purpose u have, so if someone talks about another aspect while I am focusing on other aspect which is my purpose, then I dont have to learn everything, learning is a practical process, if something is practical for ur purpose or target, u will easily learn.

Still, I dont want to discuss about learning topic because devtalk is not a platform to advice learning or discriminating people as beginner or pro.
Plus, u quoted only little part of my sentence , so you need to consider all the reply to understand oveall point, if people keep quoting only one sentence, then its like how reporters do in newspapers by taking one sentence to make a news without considering other things someone say.
Lastly, No need to prolong this, topic is too much diverted from filmic to advice on learning things. Then devs should reply people who want new feature ‘‘you need to watch tutorials on video websites to learn coding and CC pyton and become a developer to add this feature or they would throw u technical details about cycles architecture when u talk about adding a checkbox to cycles with simple feature’’

[3di]

Hello OcularEvolution. Sure thing try this blend file (instructions included):

filmic problem.blend

Here are the render results from the above file.

Both set to 0.1 noise threshold and open image denoiser enabled. Identical render settings and materials.

Filmic render time 00:56:96. It looked fine in the viewport, but this was hiding the fact that the lighting was too bright leading to double the render time. Note also the additional denoising artefacts.

Standard enabled 00:27:46 faster because I was able to see the lighting issues, leading to me reducing the sun brightness and then brightening up in the compositor instead. @Illasera (although you talk to people like a spoiled brat) Note how I was also able to avoid it looking crap by getting much stronger whites (optional) when compositing myself because the filmic algorithm is no longer limiting the whites to an off gray which can result in a washed out, drab and soft image. It’s not a great idea to try and composite with filimic enabled of course, otherwise you’re constantly having your intentional grading altered by the filimic algorithm. I could of course easily replice the filmic result pretty much exactly using the scopes if I’d wished to.

Basically the standard method helps to avoid problems that could lead to longer rendering times, and allows you to achieve any look you want with some colour grading in the compositor.

@Illasera

Translation : “X should be off because i feel like it, Care about my feelings please!”

@Illasera I don’t really care if it changes, I already know what I’m doing. I was trying to be helpful to new users as I was in agreement with the original poster, that this leads to poor renders and long render times for new users.

[Eary]

@3di

I was able to see the lighting issues

That’s backwards. You see the “issue” and that issue was created by the “Standard” view transform, not the 3D rendering. Filmic improves the situation and does not produce the same issue, not “hiding lighting issue”, note you can use Filmic, AgX etc. with real-world camera footage, and you would need to have a very dim and controlled lighting to acheive what you are talking about here. The reducing render time thing is a hack, and lowering the light to avoid crappy view transform having issue is just what people have been forced to do before Filmic came out. Filmic should have unlocked your use of brighter lighting (what I meant when I said “unlock your creative freedom”), not “hiding the light being too strong”.

An example with real word footage:
“Standard”:

Filmic:

And here is our state-of-the-art cinematic camera ARRI Alexa 35

I think we can agree that Filmic is the one looking closer to the state-of-the-art ARRI Alexa 35.

[3di]

No the issue of me not seeing the overbrights was caused by filimic being enabled. Enabling standard allowed me to reduce lighting to a more render speed friendly level (because I could see the clipping), and still achived the same/better result in the compositor.

[Eary]

@3di

allowed me to reduce lighting to a more render speed friendly level

Again that’s a hack and it limits your creative freedom to use brighter and more contrasty lighting. Look at the images I posted. See what the latest state-of-the-art camera is doing.

[3di]

@Eary

I think we can agree that Filmic is the one looking closer to the state-of-the-art ARRI Alexa 35.

You don’t need filmic enabled to achieve that is my point. You can have the image look however you please with some quick compositing. With the added benefit of faster rendering times.

[Eary]

Look at the “standard” result’s skin tone, you can’t fix that in post. It’s the lost of data:

[3di]

You don’t lose data with 32 bit.

[Eary]

@3di

with 32 bit

Are we talking about formed image or the open domain tristimulus? We are comparing oranges with apples.