nXtRender Tone Mapping
Tone mapping is the process of converting the luminance data used by nXtRender into displayable or printable RGB pixels.
As you move your cursor over the nXtRender Rendering screen, notice the numbers on the status bar. The Value fields show the actual data in the nXtRender image for the Red, Green, and Blue sub-channels. The data is luminance, in units of candelas per meter squared (cd/m^2). The first three Color fields show the resulting RGB colors produced after tone-mapping, and displayed in the image. (The fourth Color field shows the Alpha, or transparency channel, which is used for composting.)
The tone-mapping controls are located in the upper right corner of the render screen.
- Brightness - The Brightness control is the most important.
- Adjusts the overall brightness. For example, if a white surface in your model is rendering gray, you can increase the brightness until the surface appears white. Or, if your exterior scene seems overexposed, you can decrease the brightness until the scene appears more correct.
- The default setting is 100 — smaller numbers produce darker images. For most renderings, small changes produce noticeable effects.
- Burn - Burn changes the white point of the image so that less than max brightness objects will map to white.
- See: Using Burn
- Saturation - Controls the amount of color included in the rendering.
- Slide it to the left to create a gray image.
