03-15-2015, 05:48 AM
Patrick Thanks again for breaking this stuff down in such detail! I get what you meant about it being perceptual now - it's not 'black' or 'white' but we perceive it as black or white based on being able to see light and shadow areas - I guess this extends to different colours too although less easy to perceive (like blue probably has a different value 'range' and typical behaviour than yellow - so much cool stuff waiting to be learned xD).
It was just confusing in my black and white blocky renders above that I had the last few with clear black and white sections, that looked to me as black and white (because I can see the light / mid and shadow sides) yet they didn't fit Gurney's example (were not even close). Your explanation has cleared that up (although opened a whole set of other questions and uncertainties! but I can discover the answers as I go).
I've been trying to observe this stuff in real life. I was at a meeting today that had black frame chairs, the wall was painted white and there were skylights casting nice shadows of objects on the walls and funneling light to give the chairs a really clear 1 - 2 - 3 contrast. Sun was going in and out so I saw in sunny and overcast conditions. The chair frames were somewhat matte, although they did have some dull reflections. Anyway I could squint and move my head so the light part of the black frame was right next to the shadow on the white wall and the white shadow part was indeed a bit darker. Same in sunlight and cloud. I also tested at home facing a book towards me away from the light and holding up some black objects towards the light and the same was true - so at least that's a certainty in my mind. I tried looking at photo's of black cotton T-shirts and white things but the values were totally not what I expected probably because of image processing or the limited nature of cameras to pick up a full value range. Even still, I'm going to take some photo's of my own with various black and white objects in various lights and see what I discover.
In the meantime, I'm just doing some studies of black clothes with the aim of getting the values such that it 'looks' black, with the light and dark areas. Didn't really pull it off on this one, it's a hard exercise! so probably means it's going to be worthwhile when I nail it.
![[Image: 4teWRG5.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/4teWRG5.jpg)
It was just confusing in my black and white blocky renders above that I had the last few with clear black and white sections, that looked to me as black and white (because I can see the light / mid and shadow sides) yet they didn't fit Gurney's example (were not even close). Your explanation has cleared that up (although opened a whole set of other questions and uncertainties! but I can discover the answers as I go).
I've been trying to observe this stuff in real life. I was at a meeting today that had black frame chairs, the wall was painted white and there were skylights casting nice shadows of objects on the walls and funneling light to give the chairs a really clear 1 - 2 - 3 contrast. Sun was going in and out so I saw in sunny and overcast conditions. The chair frames were somewhat matte, although they did have some dull reflections. Anyway I could squint and move my head so the light part of the black frame was right next to the shadow on the white wall and the white shadow part was indeed a bit darker. Same in sunlight and cloud. I also tested at home facing a book towards me away from the light and holding up some black objects towards the light and the same was true - so at least that's a certainty in my mind. I tried looking at photo's of black cotton T-shirts and white things but the values were totally not what I expected probably because of image processing or the limited nature of cameras to pick up a full value range. Even still, I'm going to take some photo's of my own with various black and white objects in various lights and see what I discover.
In the meantime, I'm just doing some studies of black clothes with the aim of getting the values such that it 'looks' black, with the light and dark areas. Didn't really pull it off on this one, it's a hard exercise! so probably means it's going to be worthwhile when I nail it.