Has anyone ever had to change the color of an object to the exact opposite of the spectrum?
Let’s say for example maybe a dark blue car to a white car. Or maybe even a white phone device to a dark grey one? Trying to think of shiny “things” that the client may now say that they want to change the color completely. Heres the tricky part: You can’t go back to CG. You have to take they plate they gave you (dark) and change THAT to the white/light color. Anyone ever had to do this? What were some steps you took, or more importantly the nodes you used to achieve that look without looking to fake and plastic-y?
Yes many times swinging hue. For this I generally try and keep the luminance the same and reroute the channels in the cc node to get it in the right ball park then grade in another node. Edges are usually the biggest issue but pixel spread helps.
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I’ve done some of this. It’s hard work and my main trick is lots of specific roto and color corrects.
Each color has a different brightness level so making a blue into a yellow involves a lot of brightening and a hue swing and you may still need to roto different areas.
Sometimes you can subtract the luma from the chroma and move them independently with some luck, but I’ve never run into any solid tricks.
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So, it really depends on what you are changing and if its Proper Noun or not. As in, are you changing a 2021 Chevy Malibu with THE Blue Steele Blue Paint to THE Pearlescent White with the added Clearcoat option, or, just changing a car in the background from blue to white so it doesn’t compete with the blue product on the foreground? If its the former, as in, a proper noun, my BS meter would be off the charts. Is it possible? Possibly. Is it dark shiny object that reflects half the world and scatters a million photons in a million different directions gonna look right when you do your thing? Likely not. Also, if its diffuse, you’ve got a chance. The more of a mirror it is and the sharper that effective mirror like quality is less of a chance of ANYONE pulling that off. I’ve done small things…like, cellphones, but, that was a mission. Color swings are easier. Luminance changes are much, much harder. Compositing using Surface type Photoshop Color is your best friend for that kinda stuff. But, turning something black or dark to white? Worst possible scenario. And if its reflective? Yikes. I’d be careful.
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Right on, Randy and Andy. Well summarized (and detailed) imho.
What Quinn said too about playing with passes if they are available.
Hopefully adding 2 cents … IF you do have all the ‘classic’ passes (including world position? uvs? …) you might be able to modify/recreate/fake some of them (not just albedo) like reflections, specs …
Also MV/UV extraction/tracking might come handy in some situations? (and most likely if you do not have the necessary/useful passes to rebuild your own ‘beauty pass’)
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Black/white I’d try negative node with color corrects and roto shapes ftw! I have no idea if that will work…
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