ACES breaks when footage arrives to Davinci

Discussions - Using ACES
1

Hi!

I’m having trouble keeping consistency in my footage through my pipline. Here’s an illustrated breakup of my problem: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eriskcmtod8z020/ACES%20-%20from%20vRay%20to%20Davinci.jpg?dl=0

I’d love to hear your thoughts, I’m desperate at this point. Anything I’m doing wrong?

Thanks!

2

Have you definitely followed the steps for setting up for OCIO in After Effects? You need to make sure you are completely bypassing AE’s colour management, and doing it all with OCIO. Your comment that you have “ACEScg as a working space” makes me think perhaps not. And you need to make sure “Preserve RGB” is selected in the Color Management tab of Interpret Footage for the source. The fact that you have to select .45 gamma suggests that you are inverting the 2.2 gamma that AE applies to linear data unless you tell it to “Preserve RGB”.

Edit: In fact in your screen grab I can see your Working Space setting. This should normally be set to “None” when using OCIO.

3

Hmm, even though it worked in AE, I just realized that when bypassing all colormanagement in AE - there’s no way to export the frames with any colorprofiles embedded that Davinci can use for ACES grading. But if colormanagement is on in AE (And I have to use the ,45 gamma on top) I’m able to export with embedded colorprofiles such as ACES or ACEScg

4

Thanks! It helped to bypass all colormanagement in AE. Do I not gain any benefits by doing the composition in ACEScg?

5

I figured it out!

Something went wrong when exporting from AE… I’ve tried to recreate the error but can’t figure out what went wrong. Anyway, now my workflow is consistent all the way from vRay framebuffer to grading - and keeps the linear dynamic range which is great. =)

6

Depends what you are doing in comp. If it all CGI, there is nothing in your comp outside the sRGB gamut (in your current pipeline) so it’s unlikely you gain much by converting to/from ACEScg. But if you want to comp CGI onto a plate from a camera which is wider gamut, then converting everything to a wide gamut compositing space is beneficial.

But if you want to convert to ACEScg, do it with OCIO, not AE colour management.

7

Ok, thanks for your input! Appreciate that. I guess I’m not able to produce any colors outside the sRGB gamut - because my color pickers and textures are within the sRGB gamut? Am I understanding that right?

8

Hi!

Check out this interesting discussion on the subject, kind of…

K