Tone Mapping with the Indigo renderer

[AlphaChannel]

Hi,

I am totaly new to the Indigo Renderer.

I would much appreciate if someone could show me a way to somehow import a HDR rendered image into the Indigo Renderer and use its tone mapping capabilities,which look very promising.

I have tried to use: Qtpfsgui, Picturenaut, and Blender's Photoreceptor tone mapper. They all give good results but lack the capacity of achieving a well lit image. That is, working with the tonemapper's parameters (exposure, gamma, etc.) the details in the dark areas of the image are either too dark, or if more 'light exposure' is added to the image it is done at the expense of the bright areas of the image that become burnt.

Thank you in advance,

Avi.

[CTZn]

Welcome AlphaChannel. You must rename to RGB or Indigo won't render (only 8 and 24 bits/px images supporteded). Kidding

Actually it would be nice if Indigo could load igi's without resuming from an existing scene file, hdr's in general are another story I guess. This sounds kind of a request though (igi tonemapping)

Just yesterday I jettisoned a bunch of igi files only because I couldn't easily check their content

[AlphaChannel]

Hi CTZn

Thank you for the reply.

Would it be possible to load an *.igs file containing an HDR image and render it?
The scene will contain no lights, nor will any indirect lighting be computed. The HDRI could be either in the form of a background image, or in the form of a plane with a material that emits only a diffuse color to which an HDR image is connected as a texture file.

Currently my purpose is to gain a good tone mapping solution for my rendered output HDR images. Is the above procedure practical?

Thanks in advance,
Avi.

[CTZn]

This would be the purpose of an external tool, Indigo tonemaps output for its own renders. There was a separate tonemapping utility called Violet, coded by users, but sadly it is not compatible anymore with igi format. Neither can it load hdr or exr.

If you meant using Indigo as a replacement for hdrshop or something you went the wrong route I fear, though igi renders can be resumed for a sec while you tonemap and save them back. Igi only, or render the scene with Indigo.

[pixie]

If memory serve me right I remember that the java version could handle hdr, can be wrong though

[AlphaChannel]

Hi CTZn,

Seeing images rendered by Indigo I tend to attribute their superb photo-real quality to three things:
- The physically based unbiased render engine.
- A well balanced tone mapping algorithm.
- The user.

From my experience finding a well balanced tone mapping solution in freeware is currently problematic.
I am trying to utilize Indigo for this purpose. If I understand your reply correctly then it is futile to export from another application a *.IGS scene containing only a HDR image and then render it in Indigo disabling all parameters except the tone mapping algorithm.
Thanks,
Avi.


Hi Pixie,

Thank you for the reply, unfortunately Java is beyond me.