Spent 3 hours trying to fix a color banding issue in a sunset render

Turns out my gradient dithering was off in the export settings the whole time. Has anyone else wasted an afternoon on one tiny toggle?

2 comments

2 Comments

thompson.tyler1mo ago

Felt that one deep in my soul. I've done the exact same thing with a starscape render, spent like 2 hours tweaking the noise settings and color mapping before realizing I had 8-bit export on the whole time. It's always the dumbest little switch that gets you. The worst part is you convince yourself it's a complex technical issue so you go down like 7 rabbit holes for nothing. Dithering is one of those settings I never remember to check until something looks wrong.

parkerb751mo ago

Man, isn't that the truth... it's like your brain just locks onto the wrong thing and won't let go. The part that gets me is how you can literally see the banding in the preview but still convince yourself it's a calculation issue instead of just checking the export settings. Dithering's a real sneaky one too, especially when you forget to check if your color space is set right alongside it. Sometimes I swear the software hides that stuff on purpose just to mess with us...