CC CGI / Shot to Shot Consitancy-Question

[macool]

I have been working with ALL CGI shot comps (no video) and seem to be getting alot of various lighting inconsistancies from Shot-to-Shot from each CG artist. I had one main CC to correct the overall look and BC/CC for individual layers but with all the various CG layers its been getting rather messy.

Can anyone pass on some wisdom as to a general CC comp method(s) to match and correct CGI to keep a ‘Shot-to-Shot’ consistancy?

Thank you!

[Saran Sirikasamsap]

are yr 3d blokes giving u a full comp or multiple lighting passes with mattes?

[pixelmonk]

Definitely not your problem, they should be working as a team and as such theses issues should not arise. Personally, I would bounce them back to 3D.

Paul

[Michael]

The 3D crew is probably working on uncalibrated monitors, or worse, monitors they have individually “calibrated”.

Invest in a color-management and calibration tool, forbid animators from changing monitor settings, and also make the 3D department review their work on a true broadcast monitor working in the colorspace that the final deliverable is in (NTSC, PAL, etc.).

To really do things right, your facility will need to institute rigorous end-to-end color-management and grading tools and procedures. Unless you’re very big, very rich, or working in long-form and can justify the money for pipeline engineering, you’ll probably have to settle for some variation, but more on the scale you’d expect from one shot to another in a long live-action shoot.

[Zac]

This kind of situstion almost happen all the time here in this city now I’m working at. Normally if I really keep the color in consist percisely, I will add a difference node in batch and setup a context view so I can make sure the color I’m adjusting is close to 100% match to the “hero” correct color shot. Kinda time consuming but in here every 3D guys take it as nature so I can merely say nothing…..One other thing, In this situation, I will sort those 3D elements into shot basis or color basis then do the CC and comp. This way can help me from over/under color correction. What I mentioned are not very neat tip & trick but since I get that kind of material and has no chance to turn it back, there has merely way I can deal with….only with my own 24 hours….

Hopefully there has other better suggestion….

Jeff

[Rafael Robayo]

Really, paul_round and etmthree are right on. For time/resource constraints you may not be able to kick it back to 3d to get it done right, but in that case it’s even more important that you are able to rely on getting something reasonably conisistent. If you’re not in a position to require it yourself, you might try getting someone higher up interested in the idea of having everybody’s monitors calibrated properly. The time it takes you to correct all this stuff is costing them $$$ in time that you could be using to get shots done. Calibrated monitors will help to get more consistent results coming back so you don’t waste as much time on this.

Now, that won’t resolve other variations due to individual “artistic expression”, so another thing you could do is provide them with some reference to match to as early on as possible. Even if their monitors vary, as long as they’re comparing their renders to the reference on the same monitor they have something to aim for and you may get less variation in the elements they produce.

Good luck!

chinbird wrote:

This kind of situstion almost happen all the time here in this city now I’m working at. Normally if I really keep the color in consist percisely, I will add a difference node in batch and setup a context view so I can make sure the color I’m adjusting is close to 100% match to the “hero” correct color shot. Kinda time consuming but in here every 3D guys take it as nature so I can merely say nothing…..One other thing, In this situation, I will sort those 3D elements into shot basis or color basis then do the CC and comp. This way can help me from over/under color correction. What I mentioned are not very neat tip & trick but since I get that kind of material and has no chance to turn it back, there has merely way I can deal with….only with my own 24 hours….

Hopefully there has other better suggestion….

Jeff

[Author]

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