Datasheet

26
c h a p t e r 1: UNDERSTANDING LIGHTING, COLOR, AND COMPOSITION ■
Checking Color Calibration
Maya operates in RGB color space. Color space represents all the colors that a device
can produce. The color space available to various output devices varies greatly. For
example, the color space that a television can display is significantly different from the
color space available to a computer monitor or a printer.
Never assume that a computer monitor is displaying your renders correctly. If
you are creating an animation for video, it’s best to check the resulting edit on a pro-
fessional broadcast monitor. If you are creating a render for print, bring the render
into Photoshop or a similar program, convert the RGB color space to CMYK color
space, and choose the correct color profile (see the next paragraph). If you are creating
the animation for motion picture film, calibrate your monitor based on the sugges-
tions of the service transferring the frames. Larger animation houses often maintain
their own transfer equipment. In many cases, a lookup table (LUT) is developed to
properly map the gamma of the computer monitors used by animators. Portable cali-
bration hardware is also used to check the calibration result. (The color displayed by
a monitor “drifts” over time.) Although this process may be too costly for an indepen-
dent animator, calibration shortcuts can be taken.
Many digital-imaging programs are bundled with calibration software. Adobe
Gamma is perhaps the most common. Launching the program will step you through
an interactive calibration process. Although useful, Adobe Gamma is designed for
print projects, so it might not provide accurate settings for some animation. In addi-
tion, Photoshop, along with other digital-imaging programs, offers multiple color pro-
files based on the color standards of the International Color Consortium (ICC). Color
profiles represent the color reproduction capabilities of a device. Hence, you can work
within the color limitations of a specific printer while in Photoshop. Unfortunately,
the standard profiles are not designed for film or video.
A quick-and-dirty method of checking the color calibration of a monitor involves
the use of a chip chart. For example, in Figure 1.32 a chart runs from black to white
in 11 distinct steps and in a continuous gradient. When displayed on a monitor, a
portion of the chart may appear “crushed.” (Certain steps may no longer be visible,
and the gradient may no longer be smooth.) If this is the case with your monitor, you
might unintentionally base a scene’s lighting on an inaccurate view of the scene’s
actual color space. The end result might be an animation that appears too dark and
muddy on video or too bright and washed out on film. Adjusting the brightness,
contrast, gamma, and color temperature of the monitor can alleviate this problem.
Although you can usually adjust the brightness and contrast through a monitor’s
external control panel, the gamma and color temperature are usually controlled
through a piece of calibration software (for example, Adobe Gamma). (For more
information on gamma, see Chapter 6.)
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