A few people who have purchased my Spring scene reported that the renders looked paler and less contrasted than the previews I’ve posted here and on Turbosquid. After doing some research, it seems that the custom V-Ray frame-buffer adjustments that are embedded in the scene file (exposure, white balance and curve) and are supposed to give the render a more photographic look get reset to default when the scene is opened in older versions of V-Ray or Max (the scene was done in Max 2019 and the latest version of V-Ray Next GPU). Hence the renders will appear in linear space, with its typical washed-out look.

Now, it’s not a bad idea to save renders in linear space at 16- or 32-bit and do your post work outside of Max. That’s what I do most of the time. But with V-Ray now offering so many tonemapping features right in the VFB, it can be faster and more efficient to do at least some of the work there. The preview images attached to the Spring scene were tonemapped entirely in that way.

So in case you bought the scene but the custom tonemapping adjustments do not show when you open the VFB, I have now uploaded a custom adjustment file (TheSpring.vccglb) that you can load by pressing on the “globals” button above the VFB’s tonemapping controls. There is also the equivalent LUT (TheSpring.cube) if you prefer to do this outside V-Ray and Max. Note that the LUT file hasn’t been tested in a 2D or compositing app but. It should work with a 16-bit image though maybe not with a 32-bit image. You can also load the LUT file in the VFB if you don’t intend to play with the tonemapping controls.

The files are available as a separate download packaged with the Turbosquid scene and can be found in the “preview” section (I believe they can be downloaded even if you haven’t bought the scene).

The archive also includes “Karin” as both a .cube and a .vcccglb file. This is a different look that I used in the image below. The first render is a linear one (saved as an 8-bit .jpg) and the second one is the same render with Karin.cube loaded as a LUT in the VFB.

Have fun with these and let me know what you think.

Linear, no tonemapping
tonemapped using Karin.cube as LUT