Arnold Rendering with Sun Positioner is very Blue...where's the blue?

[brianheagney]

Hello all,

I'm new to exterior rendering in 3ds Max using the Arnold renderer. I'm using the Sun Positioner system, and no matter what I do, my massing models have a very very slight (almost unnoticeable) blue tint. I have tried to figure out where the blue is coming from, but I am out of ideas.

1. Massing model material is an Arnold surface material that is has a completely white base color (but even using a completely white standard material gives same issues)

2. I'm looking in the slate material editor for the Physical Sun & Sky Environment and not seeing any colors that look blue to change

3. I even went into the render settings -> Arnold Renderer to change the background settings to just a white color.

My goal is to use the real position of the sun on a grey massing model, but I can never achieve a grey color, only grey with a blue tint. If I change it to slight yellow base color on the material then I get a slightly greenish rendering. I'm just so confused as to where the slight slight blue tint is coming from.

The only lights I'm using is the Sun Positioner.

I've watched about 10 Arnold Renderer + Sun Positioner tutorials but none of them are showing the issue I'm having. I'm attaching an image of my rendering of the massing models in here. Thanks for any tips!

[oliver · Accepted solution]

Well, the SunPositioner emulates sky (blue) and sun (+/- yellow). Anything else (e.g. neutral white) would be wrong in this context. In other words: if you see a blue tint it's working as intended.

If you're looking for a neutral white lighting use a regular light (e.g. an ArnoldLight set to Distant) and match it's position and orientation to the SunPositioner's sun. Or colour-correct the rendering in post.

[brianheagney]

Thanks!

[wernienst · Accepted solution]

Or, in Physical Sun and Sky Map, go down to "Color Tuning", set Saturation to 0.0 and make sure that Tint Color is purely white.

[brianheagney]

 Ah! Yes, that makes sense now. I assumed that I was creating the white tint - so I did have the tint set to white, but amped it up to 1, thinking that would set the color to full white.

For my purposes setting to 0.5 was best.

For those wondering why I'd do this, I'm looking at photographs and creating digital photomontages. Yes there's blue coming from the sky, but the white buildings in the existing photograph are NOT as blue as my buildings were, and I was just trying to lessen the blue.