washed out lighting in mental ray

badjackrabbit

Ok, so im trying to set up a realistic skin shader in maya 2017, using subsurface scattering. this is my shader so far:

when i render in mental ray, the render looks very bright and washed out:

I would like to know how to fix this. thank you

oglu

looks like the light is to bright....

.Wiki

Honestly, skip mentalray and use the integrated arnold renderer. The renderer is much easier to setup and more artist-friendly.

badjackrabbit

ill give arnold a shot. it's weird because this is something with how the material is set up, because without the material the lighting looks normal

kodde

Are your textures converted to linear space after being loaded?

I'm guessing if you don't convert from sRGB -> Linear when textures are loaded, then it gets converted back from linear -> sRGB before being displayed on your screen it would come off as "too" bright.

I'm guessing by default you shouldn't have to worry about this. It should "just work".

badjackrabbit

kodde, can you explain how I would check that/ change it? Im really new at messing with materials and render settings. thanks

TTools

@badjackrabbit
If you're bound and determined to use Mental Ray, one of the best resources available regarding general rendering principles, linear workflow, mental ray materials, and Mental Ray itself can be found here:

http://docs.autodesk.com/MENTALRAY/2015/CHS/mental-ray-help/files/tutorials/architectural-library.pdf

This was my bible for years when Mental Ray was the spiciest renderlord.

I know this isn't the specific answer to the question you asked, but the education you can gain from this document will serve you well in for years to come.
If you are new to subsurface shaders and rendering, you might also try starting with the misss_fast_skin_maya material, as it will take a lot of the guesswork out.  Best of luck!