This is really an interesting topic.

Will there be some kind of locally based algorithm (different exposure/tone mapping on different parts of the screen)?

Or will it be a just one smart tone mapping for the whole image, that tries to maintain enough contrast in the important areas (instruments etc.) and adopts over time to the current light levels?

Anyway, if the result looks as great as the Cessna raindrops screenshot above, it will be just amazing. Thanks for the insights and the beautiful moments we will have flying into a sunset with XP12!

VR doesn’t help – you’d need eye tracking. In real life your eyes only expose for one thing – but that thing can change based on exactly what you are looking at.

A friend of mine who majored in CS at McGil said they had an eye tracker (insane to have since this was twenty+ years ago) and someone wrote a program to change text in real time except in the center of gaze. The result was apparently quite maddening. the text was clearly changing _and you could never see it happen_.

Right – we model camera exposure to simulate “adapting” – but to get REAL adapting to work, if you want to fly x-plane at night, you really need to be full screen in a dark room.

This has bothered me over the weekend – how on earth do you expose for two things on one screen?

I’m guessing thats the problem – the same as taking a photo of a person in a room in front of a window. Do you expose for the dark person or the bright window.

Idea: Mandate VR from now on. Solved.

Well, actually I have a sunset shot where the orange tones easily exceed the huge BT2020 color space. I’d like to share, but download links are not wanted here.

I am really looking forward to the immersion these atmospherics provide. V 10/11 helped with sense of scale and motion. 12 looks like it will trick the brain into a sense of “there”

As interesting as the approach to attribute lighting effects to the underlying physics is, it should not be forgotten that our visual perception is an interplay of light and the adaptation of our visual apparatus and interpretation of what we see by our brain.

If we walk out of bright sunlight into a room illuminated by a candle, we will most likely not be able to see anything at first, after some time we will be able to see something and after enough time we will be able to read the text without any problems.
Likewise, after some time, the paper illuminated by the candle will no longer be perceived as yellow but as white.

Our eye easily masters the adaptation to different brightnesses in reality.

Is there not to fear that physically exact illumination will be evaluated differently, i.e. wrongly, by the viewer of the screen?

In any case, I find the new approach promising and am already very curious how the new version will look like.

this is the kind of question/answer i was waiting for years and years.
Great Article, and a an unforgettable milestone, we hope HDR monitor support for 10-bit HDR around early days once xp12 is released.

few notes:

Few words of caution:

Better-performing HDR Monitors typically generate at least 600 nits of peak brightness, with top performers hitting 1,000 nits or more (1600 nits such as apple pro display xdr – The first 32-inch Retina 6K display ever. Up to 1600 nits of brightness – a sustained brightness of 1,000 nits. If that’s not bright enough, it peaks at a crazy 1,600 nits, making it the brightest desktop monitor we’ve seen to date and also having an astonishing 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and super wide viewing angle. Over a billion colors presented with exceptional accuracy. no doubt it is the king of monitors in that area, the world’s best pro display – but is having refresh 60 hz.

But the mainstream HDR monitors offer up to 100 to 300 or 400 nits, which is really not enough to deliver an HDR experience ( at least better than nothing). so better keep an eye watch over the competition in that segment.

i struggle in my projects to doing rendering in 3dsmax – in scenes whereby their is dim lighting – like candles in a cottage, here is a little excercise:
1) create a room, say 4meters by 4meters.
2) create a candle object and assign a light source that is having intensity of two candelas,
3) and create an book-object with a readable text texture on it, like a typical book page, and place the book next to the candle.
start the the rendering with your favorite renderer (arnold/vray/corona render..etc)
notice how poor the rendition and how dark it is.
despite in real-world, one candle appears to create enough light to read the text – but on screen – it seems a much darker environment.

there are many explanations to that, one of them of the color-profile of your monitor that comes as an improper configuration, and also brightness of screen …. do not waste time to increase gamma – as you only would washout the whole scene ….

bottom line — take the decision about the suitable monitor seriously, as the hardware for HDR can make a big difference if coupled with HDR enabled photometric renderer to get the best of results.