The most wanted feature?

[agentdark45]

What exactly is meant by "DSLR style tone mapping"?

Tone mapping that works like an actual DSLR camera's response (which can't be faked with LUT's), specifically in terms of dynamic range (no ugly murky greys), pleasant highlights/burnouts, natural colour shift in relation to exposure e.t.c.

At the moment Corona's tone mapping is very much in the realm of "CGI". Compare it to that of Fstorm and the difference becomes immediately noticeable. It's not a case of GI/light algorithms, it's purely how the the final image is tonally mapped using some sort of transform matrix to produce a pleasant and convincing "real" image.

It is the single biggest factor imo to producing a convincing image. You can have 100% spot on materials, lighting and modelling but if the tone mapping puts a 2005 Mental Ray sheen over it, it will never look great.

For some examples of great tone mapping take a look at: https://www.behance.net/Johannes_L You'll notice just how balanced and "real" the images are. No ugly black crush, no washed out grey mids, no overly burnt cellphone style highlights, no neon colours under burnouts.

[Fluss]

What exactly is meant by "DSLR style tone mapping"?

Tone mapping that works like an actual DSLR camera's response (which can't be faked with LUT's), specifically in terms of dynamic range (no ugly murky greys), pleasant highlights/burnouts, natural colour shift in relation to exposure e.t.c.

At the moment Corona's tone mapping is very much in the realm of "CGI". Compare it to that of Fstorm and the difference becomes immediately noticeable. It's not a case of GI/light algorithms, it's purely how the the final image is tonally mapped using some sort of transform matrix to produce a pleasant and convincing "real" image.

It is the single biggest factor imo to producing a convincing image. You can have 100% spot on materials, lighting and modelling but if the tone mapping puts a 2005 Mental Ray sheen over it, it will never look great.

For some examples of great tone mapping take a look at: https://www.behance.net/Johannes_L You'll notice just how balanced and "real" the images are. No ugly black crush, no washed out grey mids, no overly burnt cellphone style highlights, no neon colours under burnouts.

There are multiple things to say here. Fstorm is not the magic secret trick tho. Johannes uses custom LUTs to reach is look. Some of the renders are retouched in post.
That said, Fstorm is using ACES workflow which make a hudge difference in color gradation. That's what I observed from my tests in Vray. It just feels more natural. But it also comes with render penalty. If you want to do it the right way, you'd better render in ACEScg colorspace. So you need to convert your textures in that colorspace. If you do that at rendertime, it will bring some overhead. What's more, you have to implement color management ( maya style is great) to di it properly too.
So that's not an easy topic, devs needs to think hard about this.

[JViz]

What exactly is meant by "DSLR style tone mapping"?

Tone mapping that works like an actual DSLR camera's response (which can't be faked with LUT's), specifically in terms of dynamic range (no ugly murky greys), pleasant highlights/burnouts, natural colour shift in relation to exposure e.t.c.

At the moment Corona's tone mapping is very much in the realm of "CGI". Compare it to that of Fstorm and the difference becomes immediately noticeable. It's not a case of GI/light algorithms, it's purely how the the final image is tonally mapped using some sort of transform matrix to produce a pleasant and convincing "real" image.

It is the single biggest factor imo to producing a convincing image. You can have 100% spot on materials, lighting and modelling but if the tone mapping puts a 2005 Mental Ray sheen over it, it will never look great.

For some examples of great tone mapping take a look at: https://www.behance.net/Johannes_L You'll notice just how balanced and "real" the images are. No ugly black crush, no washed out grey mids, no overly burnt cellphone style highlights, no neon colours under burnouts.

agreed to all of it. still Fstorm does not get you 100% real results unless you do some of your own post like Johannes does. another example is Peter Guthrie's work, and the greatest of all Bertrand Benoit.

the surprising thing is that you couldn't find that info anywhere, how to get the realistic look, every artist out there who got it protects that knowledge dearly. I am able to get that final result with post in corona VFB and photoshop but it came with experience rather than actual knowledge or "theoretical" background. and Fstorm seems to be always one step, as a raw render, ahead of any post I do AND any post of any corona image I've seen with the exception of Bertrand Benoit perhaps.

[Juraj Talcik]

every artist out there who got it protects that knowledge dearly

I don't think majority of people treasure such secret know-how :- ).

For lot of professionals, the look is just amalgamation of all the things they do and learned over the years, almost subconsciously. Most of them wouldn't be able to tell you what is it they are doing that contributes the most.
In fact, I've attended many workshops and presentations of various people and I am still surprised how simple it often is.

it came with experience

And it's like that for Peter, Bertrand, everyone and it's the best way to go about it.

[JViz]

every artist out there who got it protects that knowledge dearly

I don't think majority of people treasure such secret know-how :- ).

For lot of professionals, the look is just amalgamation of all the things they do and learned over the years, almost subconsciously. Most of them wouldn't be able to tell you what is it they are doing that contributes the most.
In fact, I've attended many workshops and presentations of various people and I am still surprised how simple it often is.

it came with experience

And it's like that for Peter, Bertrand, everyone and it's the best way to go about it.

point taken and I do agree. however, when I first started many years ago, no tutorial out there would mention tone mapping. they all, or at least the ones I took a look at, skipped it. it's not only about the tone mapping, when I watch a tutorial I could see skipping here and there, and it's about many other things, and I do know they skip stuff because I know that stuff.

but yes it's about experience and you could notice that if you tell somebody all you know about CGI when they apply it it doesn't look right, because experience ties all the knowledge together.

all that said, tone mapping and how linear data is transformed into visual data that looks good to the human eye is knowledge you have to be taught or learn bits and pieces with experience.

[Juraj Talcik]

"Tonemapping" has also become almost a buzzword for many processes that should more correctly just fall under "post-production".
There are even people who have their own magic tonemapping. This is total nonsense, don't fall for it.

Back in day no one talked about it because everyone used Reinhard in Vray which is the same btw as right now in Corona, or linear and recreated similar curve in 32bit editor (I personally loved doing this in MagicBullet when it was still available as PS plugin).

Artists aren't really hiding any of this knowledge, most people aren't even aware of it being a thing. Actual issue is that tonemapping just isn't popular concept for CGI developers for some reason, it was topic almost single-handedly popularized by one guy, John Habble, the guy behind filmic mapping. But since he's now with Ubisoft I think (or EA?), he doesn't really publish more stuff or research on this further.

I suspect the reason could be that it's based purely on aesthetics, it's not much of science thing unless you consider the sole original purpose of showing widest dynamic range at same time (remember that horrible photography era 2000-2005?).
What FStorm does is literally just better tweaked single-curve, the color transforms are almost secondary to it.

What we can do, is just constantly vote for it, and bring it up in forum, over and over :- ). Like PBR! Hell yeah, let's get voting!

[rozpustelnik]

Corona Team - please!  Make a cheap aerial perspective. Volume material - as it is now - cannot be used in large scenes. I don't care about the godrays and proper light simulations. Color and contrast change based on distance will do. And small checkbox: don't affect the background, as hdri's have their own, embedded aerial perspective.

[JViz]

"Tonemapping" has also become almost a buzzword for many processes that should more correctly just fall under "post-production".
There are even people who have their own magic tonemapping. This is total nonsense, don't fall for it.

Back in day no one talked about it because everyone used Reinhard in Vray which is the same btw as right now in Corona, or linear and recreated similar curve in 32bit editor (I personally loved doing this in MagicBullet when it was still available as PS plugin).

Artists aren't really hiding any of this knowledge, most people aren't even aware of it being a thing. Actual issue is that tonemapping just isn't popular concept for CGI developers for some reason, it was topic almost single-handedly popularized by one guy, John Habble, the guy behind filmic mapping. But since he's now with Ubisoft I think (or EA?), he doesn't really publish more stuff or research on this further.

I suspect the reason could be that it's based purely on aesthetics, it's not much of science thing unless you consider the sole original purpose of showing widest dynamic range at same time (remember that horrible photography era 2000-2005?).
What FStorm does is literally just better tweaked single-curve, the color transforms are almost secondary to it.

What we can do, is just constantly vote for it, and bring it up in forum, over and over :- ). Like PBR! Hell yeah, let's get voting!

tone mapping and post production became synonyms out of ignorance that's all. post production is taste, everyone does it different, more or less contrast, green all over like the matrix or some kind of nonsense. except for contrast that is considered post production for some reason, lifting the shadow too. that is the popular understanding of the terms but it is not accurate at all. we need a new term I swear! but tone-mapping is theory and application and an attempt to simulate the first few steps the brain does to light linear data. the fact that CGI developers are oblivious to tone-mapping is a huge oversight. Camera developers/manufacturers have been perfecting their methods for decades hampered only by the lack of development of sensors capable of taking in the full dynamic range close enough to the capability of the human eye, and a Reinhard tone-mapping method that is close to the brain's ability as is a bicycle to a space shuttle.

I know it's called photorealism, I wonder why the community glues itself to that term when we got a far superior flexibility in a simulated world where we can leave photography in the dust and actually work on how the brain analyses visual data.

artists do have their secrets of the craft. every craft on earth has that. it's like this. if I were to ask you to send the full folder of a project you've done. what would you delete? what would you hide? those are your secrets of your crafts. artists are no angels don't fall for it.