Setting Up 3Delight for Maya Color Management in Maya 2015 Extension and Newer

This page explains how to configure 3Delight for Maya Colour Management instead of the Maya Colour Management. The last section explains how to render old scenes in Maya 2015 Extension.

Maya Preferences Settings

• In the Maya Preferences, pick the Color Management section.
• In the Color Management Preferences section, turn on Enable Color Management. 

3Delight Render Settings

• Open the Render Settings window;
• Make sure that Render Using is set to 3Delight;
• In the Common tab, Color Management section, turn on Correct Gamma of Shader Color Attributes.

Colour Chooser Settings

• Bring up the Color Chooser. For instance:
  • Select the default Lambert shader; 
  • In the Attribute Editor, click on the color rectangle of the Color attribute. A double-click will display the full version of the Color Chooser.
• Make sure that Color Management is turned off.
  
  

In this Maya version, the texture color space options are more primitive. You can define a Default Input Color Space  in the preferences. When you create a new texture node, such as the File 2D Texture node, its Color Space attribute will be set to the value defined by the Default Input Color Space preference. You can manually override this setting for each texture node.

The Input Color Space Preferences section in Maya 2015 Extension.

• In the Color Management section of the Maya Preferences, set the Default Input Color Space to the most commonly used one by your project's texture files.

The Color Space setting of a File 2D Texture node in Maya 2015 Extension.

• In a texture node, such as a File 2D Texture node, adjust the Color Space attribute to the correct value for your texture. By default, for newly created nodes, it is set to the Default Input Color Space preference.

Texture File Settings (Maya 2016 and newer)

Setting Up Texture File Rules

The Color Management section of the Maya Preferences window contains a Input Color Space Rules section. You can define here associations between a texture color profile and file name patterns and extensions.

The Input Color Space Rules section, in the Color Management Maya Preferences.

• In the rules list, select the Default entry. Make sure its Input Color Space setting is set to a profile that fits most of your project's textures.

Creating a "hdr" texture rule.

• If you are using HDR images in your project, you can add a rule so that Maya and 3Delight know they have a linear gamma:
  • Click Add and enter a rule name - "hdr" for instance.
  • Set Image Extension to "hdr". Note that the extensions are case-sensitive; if you use both the ".HDR" and ".hdr" extensions, you will need to define two distinct rules, or use an Image Name Pattern.
  • Set Input Color Space to Raw.
• If your scene already contains File 2D Texture nodes, you can click Reapply Rules to Scene. This will change the Color Space attribute of all nodes using texture files.

Texture Nodes Settings

A portion of the File 2D Texture Node attributes.

• Selecting an image in texture file nodes such as the File 2D Texture node or the PSD File node will automatically adjust its Color Space attribute based on the Input Color Space rules defined above.
• Once the image file is selected, you can manually override the Color Space setting made by the rules application. The supported Color Space values are listed above.

Scenes designed with Maya 2015 and older loaded in 2015 Extension and more recent

If a scene's shading was elaborated with Maya 2015 or older, with the Color Management feature enabled, it is possible to preserve its rendered look in Maya 2015 Extension and more recent, with several precautions:

• Complete the steps above to configure 3Delight for Maya colour management;
• Review all Hypershade texture nodes that read a texture file (such as File 2D Texture nodes and PSD File nodes) to ensure that Color Space is set to the proper value. Using the Input Color Space Rules feature of Maya 2016 and its Reapply Rules to Scene button will probably be useful.
• If you have Displacement shaders that are using textures via File 2D Texture nodes, these File nodes will need to have their Color Space setting set to RAW or one of the scene-linear setting;
• Turn on the Correct Gamma of Shader Color Attributes setting in the Render Settings window, Color Management section, when 3Delight is set as the current renderer.