The Secret Ingredient to Photorealism

[Minos]

Really cool in depth video about how exposure and filmic color grading work in 3d graphics. I was very ignorant of this before and committed some big mistakes in past projects. On Sampa for example the exposure was so badly set up that emissive intensities of 0.1 or so were already overblooming, I just went with whatever looked "right" 

Even though this is using Blender as an example it applies to pretty much any modern engine or rendering software.

[blackdog]

Thanks for the find, I remember I saw something else on the topic recently, wonder if I can find in my YT or whatever history.

Shouldn't this be in 3D forum? 

[FMPONE]

8 hours ago, blackdog said:

Thanks for the find, I remember I saw something else on the topic recently, wonder if I can find in my YT or whatever history.

Shouldn't this be in 3D forum? 

I moved it, this indeed is a great vid! It helped me think about my brightness values for sure.

[Klems]

Super cool video. I think CS:GO does something similar, compared to EP2/Lost Coast. That would explain why there is no auto-exposition.

https://knarkowicz.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/hdr-display-first-steps/

Good link, has more links in the bottom.

[Yanzl]

CS:GO still uses linear tonemapping, same as in Lost Coast or all of Source, though the big difference is CS:GO maps are lit more evenly, with indoor areas being almost as bright as the outdoor areas, while Lost Coast tried to have realistic brightness levels. 

Sadly to get the same results as you see in the video in Source you'd have to rewrite the tonemapper. I believe other big engines already have it built in and it's commonly called filmic tonemapping. You can see the difference here: http://filmicworlds.com/blog/filmic-tonemapping-operators/